Optimizing for Bing - the new challenge - 5 surefire strategies

The SEO scene reminds me of how people hate their stomachs and just can't accept them for being how they are, even if they are absolutely flat. They would just like them to be flatter, slimmer, whatever. Similarly, webmasters can get so obsessed with SEO (check out the comments and browse through these excellent blogs to see how much similar information there is that's all highly followed), that they are always on the hunt for that elusive tip that will skyrocket their traffic, double their page rank, or something. No matter how nice their site is, it is not good enough.

Such insecurity. I have a business, I talk with clients everyday, I am familiar with how they describe what they want, and its simple to write my site in a way that makes sense to them. This will translate into correct keywords, automatically, or I could look around and get to that same list after months of research. Even long tailed keywords just happen, when you write in a way that shows your familarity with your market.

I don't need a keyword research tool to tell me that more people are familiar with (and thus search for) the term "team building", while fewer will look for Organization Development. I know that from my conversations with clients. But its not as fascinating as using some gadget/software to validate what I know and waste time. Is it any surprise that there are more male voices on this front? (I have an association with men and a fascination for gadgets/software and such-like)

The behavioural scientist in me worries about this kind of 'disowning' of a part of the whole. Its as though everything negative gets projected to one aspect and disowning that aspect till fixed is somehow miraculously supposed to cure all ills. All my discontent about not being a millionaire is because the site isn't adequately SEOd, or I'd be more look better in that dress if it weren't for this paunch.

Now that MSN and Yahoo are married, there is going to be a new SEO scramble. Did a search on what the scene is like currently, and Many posts from 2004 and 2005 are being unearthed and landing up on the first page of search results. Incredible how long people haven't really looked at Search engines other than the big G for so long.

The prediction is that the next couple of weeks are going to see a new rash of SEO tips and Tricks for Bing. I am no expert, but here are definite tips I can predict, which will end up coming as new and old mixes:

1. Content is King: Bing likes fresh content (as though Google and Yahoo didn't, but it will be presented as an insight)
2. Good design and clear site architecture (in all its forms). Some will call it optimizing certain pages for certain keywords, structuring categories on blogs, directories on sites, optimally named files and permalinks.....
3. No duplicate content: Cannonical urls
4. Build links. Be generous in linking out (hopefully to the guru that gave you this advice)
5. Encourage return visitors through encouraging comments, sign ups for newsletters, subscriptions to RSS feeds, etc. Create community, conversation, etc
   

and so on.

The truth of the matter is, no matter what search engine you optimize for, you are going to end up focusing on the same things. You will have an epidemic of self-proclaimed SEO experts writing posts which sound so similar to others, that its tough to keep track of who said what.

Wouldn't be surprised to see a few links to advice from Matt Cutts (never mind that he's with Google), since the rising star of Bing is yet to step into the spotlight. I don't ahve anything against Matt Cutts, and his advice is always sound, but it gets irritating to have echoes of the same few people (echoing each other) and their often similar sounding advice coming up as fresh content all the time.

In fact, Matt Cutts on content and spam, SEOBlackhat and Avinash Kaushik on Analytics are probably the few who come up with surprises.

On my part, I am not doing anything much at the moment to optimize for Bing. Let me see if there is something outstandingly different that I have to do that will kill my traffic if I don't other than submitting my site there. The way I see it, its the job of a competent search engine to keep track of content, and its our job to manage our sites as we see fit. Chasing search engines is only going to lead to obsession.

Nowhere on the Bing site are any instructions that their spiders are incapable of handling regular sites. In fact, I added my site to the Webmaster Tools they have, and it was happily indexed and providing data on my links already. Not as fancy as Google, but definitely faster, and seemed far more accurate. Why do I need to fix, tweak and optimize something that seems to be fine?

Okay, I don't make huge amounts of money online, but hey, my traffic pays for my site and brings me enough clients in the real world to not worry about ads paying for my coffee. That's impressive considering that I never go hunting for clients in the real world, and simply deal with the ones I get approaching me on their own.

If you are getting seduced by all the posts coming up on SEOing your site to bits, do keep a sense of perspective, and remember that all those tips are unlikely to speak of a single thing you haven't read before, unless its an individual's name, or promoting some product or service or book. Chill out, and let the bloggers do their thing and get traffic for their site. Do what you can, and enjoy yourself all through. You loving your blog will go a far way to getting traffic than you constantly trying to 'fix' it.

Afterall, if you can't love your space for what it is, warts and all, who will?

Google Gods bring no rain

I wonder what is happening with my websites. All of a sudden, the traffic has gone down like....

Visitors are like....

 

I wonder what in the world is happening. Its happening on my other sites as well, but okay, I'd been fiddling with the design there. This one, I've done nothing but post.

On the other hand, this blog is largely neglected, and I've made changes here too. But its going up. Searches I've done before show me sites I've never seen before. Page ranks for many sites that were healthy earlier, including mine are 0.

What in the world is Goodle up to?

Some say its a new update. I say its not working. Not for my site well being, or my searches finding me what I want.

Anyone else going through the same? Anyone have a clue?

Web Analytics Demystified

Just wanted to share an awesome post by Avinash Kaushik on his blog. Well, the post was long ago, and I found it long ago, but I found it again in my bookmarks today, and boy, was I glad.

What I really enjoy is the simplicity of this post.

Avinash speaks about using Analytics to improve the performance of your blog in terms simply enough for a child to understand. It literally boils down to what you want to do, and how you go about finding where to begin.

If you are a webmaster or blogger, this one is definitely not to be missed.

Another writer I enjoy reading is Arun Basil Lal of Million Clues. his posts are often packed with good information that is immediately applicable to see results.

The Blog Development Challenge - Blog Growth - 2

This is part 2 of the blog growth challenge, where I began last month with this blog being brand new. This is the first post:

The Blog Development Challenge - Blog Growth - 1

I've been getting some traffic from stumbleupon and digg and very minute amounts from search engines. Posts are getting commented. One of the posts has 25 diggs!!! which is quite good by Digg standards though nothing like the avalanche that people talk about. This growth has happened in less than a month.

Still very few subscribers (like 5 or so)

As of now, the blog has:

• 5 subscribers (average per day)
  
• 31 posts and about 5 or so posts have comments.
  
• 5 or so hits as search traffic
• 0 direct traffic
• Referrals:

Thank you all, my readers for supporting this new blog, and I invite your comments to make it even better.

5-5-5-4-5 Traffic Tips

Here's a collection of the traffic and promotion tips that I use often and that work well for me. This first list is about posting in a way that promotes your blog:

1. Write good content. This one is not as simple as it seems. Take some time to think about what you want to write, and what arre the things you could do to add value to it. You want to give your readers something they don't know. This is not about writing random posts about every trip you take, unless you can also share how they can have some of those experiences, what is different about this trip, information about the place and its quirks that most people don't know, etc.
2. Write interesting titles - think of them as visiting cards for your blog. They appear in search engines, bookmarks and even in sidebar links of your own blog. If you read the titles you write, do you want to click through to find out what content they lead? Darren Rose (as always) has written an awesome post on how to choose a topic for your next post.
3. Add tags to your post. Tags are all important. They tell technorati, readers, search engines, etc what your post is about. If you use wordpress, tag lists and clouds can work as an interesting way of navigating your blog. Recommended Tags is a plugin for wordpress that shows all your tags and click to add them to a post quickly. Blogger and other platforms show clickable lists. Be sure to use them.
4. Take a minute to finish your post. Read it through, fix errors, take a break, take another fresh look. Do you enjoy reading? Change what you don't already.
   
5. Link to good resources. Link to other bloggers. Outgoing links are not half as bad as they seem. If you are worried about pagerank, think of the traffic they bring. If you link well and reference people, they are curious about you and what you are (and what you see in them). Think of it as meeting new people and introducing them to those you know. You may know someone briefly, but when you introduce them to more people who like them, it is a step closer in your relationship too. They are just as likely to write about you.

The design of your blog:

1. Keep it clean and uncluttered. Do you need everything there on your site? Do you need to have buttons to every social bookmarking site on the planet? Do you need to show that your blog has 20 readers? Get rid of it. Remove all distractions from your content (and your ads). Of course, some buttons to populat bookmarking sites are a great idea, but I find that it works better when they are in individual posts (and submit those urls).
   
2. Keep your RSS subscription button clearly visible and encourage readers to subscribe. While you are at it, subscribe to my feed as well. Some people choose to have different small icons for different readers. I prefer to have one nice, orange, large one that clearly screams "RSS Feed". I don't really care whether people subscribe in Bloglines or Google Reader, so why should I devote real estate to that? What helps is a link to a post near it that explains why RSS feeds are a good thing, for those who don't know.
   
3. Check your theme. Particularly check the styles you use. Ideally, your post should have one main headline, etc. See if the peripherals (sidebar, footer, etc) are using any tags you are using to emphasize stuff in your posts - they will dilute the impact of your titles and important content, and seem like duplicate content.
4. Use images in your post. They catch the eye, and attract immediate attention to what you have written.
   
5. Invite readers to comment on and share your posts if they like them.
   

These resources now have to do with getting your content out to people who want to read in the online world. Everyday stuff:

1. Publish RSS feed and submit blot and feed to search engines and directories. This will take time, and sometimes you come across new places that don't have you, so keep an eye out, and submit where they don't have you whenever you find it.
2. Create online social bookmarking accounts like Del.icio.us, Reddit, etc. SumbleUpon is another great resource for promoting, as well as having fun. Get your account in Digg and Technorati. Submit your site once in a while, along with others. Use categories and tags carefully. Ask your friends (and family, neighbours, students, colleagues....) to submit/vote for your posts too.
3. Get a Twitter account and post regularly. Get followers. Share your latest posts on your Twitter.
   
4. Give away something for free that will carry your blog link along. (This is an oldie, but it works). On one of my sites, I share some simple instruction sheets for participants for white water rafting, and I don't know how many people have contacted me because of them. On a more effective scale, creating and distributing themes, plugins, and other stuff that people will find useful are good. Themes give you a link from every page, but I don't know how useful it is for either traffic or as a link. What we are looking for is people liking your content and actively posting about it, sharing it with others, talking about it....
5. Write one "super-post" at intervals, and submit it absolutely everywhere - including news sites, if it suits. It helps if these posts (at least) have a catchy image to catch the eye of readers as soon as they land up.
   

Exotic stuff (need to spend money):

1. Hold contests and giveaways for writing about your blog.
2. Pay for links/posts, etc. Unattractive, but hey, why not?
   
3. Pay someone to promote your content. College kids should be good at this. Many of my students seem to live online.
   
4. Pay someone to write articles (expensive, and rarely satisfies me)
   

Posting and interaction:

1. Comment on blogs. The more you get out and read what others are writing and share it, the more you will meet new people. All bloggers want to know what the readers think. If you can write a comment that conveys that, it is very likely that people will follow through to your blog (don't forget to put in your url) to find out more about you.
2. Link to posts you find interesting. This sounds similar, to the earlier point, but this is about you finding something interesting and talking about it on your blog (as different from referencing a resource). Find an initiative to applaud, something to criticize, contribute to, have a different take on, and link to the original post. Do trackbacks where you can.
3. Submit posts to blog carnivals. This is one way of getting your good content acknowledged as well as a link. Host blog carnivals too. Increase interaction.
4. Write articles and submit to directories.
5. Write reviews and testimonials. If you have done a good job, the subject of your attention should be happy to showcase your writing on their site.

In the real world. Make your logo your style statement. T-shirts, caps, luggage(?), Why promote NIKE when you can do it for yourself? I know a friend who has his url engraved on his door. That's one url I will never forget.

So what are ideas that work for you?

The Blog Development Challenge - Blog Growth - 1

As you can see, this is a new blog. It began with 4 Tips for Getting faster on a computer five days ago.

It deals with good blogging and growing in online skills, and I am going to use this blog itself to show the effectiveness of what works. Periodically, I will be updating changes in statistics and charting changes in them.

As of now, the blog has:

• 0 subscribers
• 5 posts
• 0 search traffic
• 0 direct traffic
• 0 referrals

..... pretty much everything is fresh - clean slate. Let's see how this situation evolves.