Quick SEO Tip

You hear about things like long tail keywords, Wordtracker, Hittail... and you begin research on how to get those three and four word phrases into your content so that you may benefit from the highly targetted traffic they could bring you. Loads of effort, all to the good.

There is one quick and easy way to also look at your site content to find tweaks that help.

Login to Webmaster Tools and look at your search queries page. Here, you find data about the searches your links showed up for, and the searches they got clicked on for.

If you see, you show up for far more searches than those that convert (get clicked). So what is happening between that particular cup and lip?

What is happening is that you are appearing on the results page, and the results around you are getting clicked, and you are not. What it basically means that your title and description showing in the search results is not working to get attention.

Quick fix:

• Search for those terms you appear in the top ten, but don't get clicked for.
• Replicate the search.
• Which is that page of yours that's showing up?
  
• Look at your neighbours. What do their links read, what does their description read? What does yours say?
• How can you change your page title to make it more interesting in that page when it appears there?

Edit. Done.

You don't have much control over the descriptions in Google, as they often are excerpted from the content relevant to the search (which actually works just fine for our objectives). However, changing the title will help you seem more capable of answering whatever it is the search is inquiring about.

Quick tip to increase AdSense income

Long time no write.

Just thought to dash off this note, if you aren't still doing it.

Link your AdSense and Google Analytics accounts with each other, to find out which content is earning money for you. Then, it gives you an idea of what works and what doesn't, and you can do more of what works, rather than waste time on what doesn't.

How much better can an SEO tip get?

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?

Digg, Reddit and Del.icio.us in blogger posts

Adding Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us and whichever social bookmarking button you like to blogger posts seems to be difficult for many people. As you can see, I have today added these buttons.

For Digg, I used a piece of code floating around for a long time. It seems to be there on quite a few sites, so I don't really know whom to credit for it. Regardless, this is the code:

I replaced <p><data:post.body/></p> in the template with

<p>

<!-- DIGG -->

<div style='float:right; margin-left:10px;'>

<script type='text/javascript'>

digg_url = '<data:post.url/>';

</script>

<script src='http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js' type='text/javascript'/>

</div>

<data:post.body/>

</p>

And that easily, its done.

The smaller buttons I have added to each post (you can have Digg here too) what you have to do is:

1. Find the buttons you would like to use, and upload them somewhere from where you can access them. You can use a site you have, or some free image hosting service.
   
2. Note the links to the image files for each.
3. Finally, create code like this for each service:

<a expr:href='&quot;http://del.icio.us/post?url=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;title=&quot; + data:post.title' target='_blank' title='Add to Del.icio.us!'><img border='none' height='20' src='http://www.wide-aware.com/share/delicious.png' width='20'/></a>

<a expr:href='&quot;http://reddit.com/submit?url=&quot; + data:post.url + &quot;&amp;title=&quot; + data:post.title' target='_blank' title='Submit to Redit!'><img border='none' height='20' src='http://www.wide-aware.com/share/reddit.png' width='20'/></a>

These are the two examples I have given, but really, you can do this to submit to any service you would like to submit to. Some popular submit urls for the commonly known services are:

• Blinkbits http://www.blinkbits.com/bookmarklets/save.php?v=1&source_url=
• Blinklist http://www.blinklist.com/index.php?Action=Blink/addblink.php&Description=&Url=
• Blogmarks http://blogmarks.net/my/new.php?mini=1&simple=1&url=
• Co.mments http://co.mments.com/track?url=
• Connotea http://www.connotea.org/addpopup?continue=confirm&uri=
• De.lirio.us http://de.lirio.us/rubric/post?uri=
• Fark http://cgi.fark.com/cgi/fark/edit.pl?new_url=
• Feedmelinks http://feedmelinks.com/categorize?from=toolbar&op=submit&url=
• Furl http://www.furl.net/storeIt.jsp?u=
• Linkagogo http://www.linkagogo.com/go/AddNoPopup?url=
• Ma.gnolia.com http://ma.gnolia.com/beta/bookmarklet/add?url=
• Newsvine http://www.newsvine.com/_tools/seed&save?u=
• Netvouz http://www.netvouz.com/action/submitBookmark?url=
• Rawsugar http://www.rawsugar.com/tagger/?turl=
• Scuttle http://www.scuttle.org/bookmarks.php/maxpower?action=add&address=
• Shadows http://www.shadows.com/features/tcr.htm?url=
• Simpy http://www.simpy.com/simpy/LinkAdd.do?href=
• Smarking http://smarking.com/editbookmark/?url=
• Spurl http://www.spurl.net/spurl.php?url=
• Tailrank http://tailrank.com/share/?text=&link_href=
• Wists http://wists.com/r.php?c=&r=
• Yahoo http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/myresults/bookmarklet?u=
  

Promoting your blog for more traffic takes sustained efforts. I hope this information helps. Do let me know if there are any problems or if you need anything in particular.

How to pay online MTNL bill

MTNL now allows you to pay your bills online using the billdesk service. Its really quite simple, but I can explain for whatever its worth.

Go to the MTNL Selfcare page. You don't need an account or anything. Just be sure to have a copy of your bill (or know your customer account number), and either your login for your online account, or your credit card.

In the form provided, fill in your details - your landline phone number and customer account number, and hit view details.

The results should display your current outstanding amount. Fill in the fields for contact details, and opt for online payment.

Then, it is simply a matter of selecting mode of payment, logging in to your online bank account, or adding credit card details, and submitting until done.

Just be sure to follow instructions exactly as given.

Difference between RTGS and NEFT

As more and more people are turning to online banking out of sheer convenience, there is this whole dust cloud about what exactly is the difference between RTGS and NEFT transactions.

I am not a banker, but highlighting some of the differences I know:

1. RTGS is Real Time Gross Settlement. NEFT is National Electronic Funds Transfer
2. RTGS goes through the Reserve Bank NEFT is between banks.
3. RTGS happens real time during the working hours of RTGS (09:00am to 03:30pm from Monday to Friday and 09:00am to 11:00am on Saturdays) - instantly - the benificiary bank transfers the funds to the individuals account within two hours. NEFT transactions are recorded and processed as batches 6 times a day (9.30 AM,10.30AM,
   12.00 noon, 1.00PM, 3.00PM and 4.00 PM) from Monday to Friday and 3 times during Satudays (9.30AM, 10.30 AM and 12.00 noon)
4. RTGS is recommended for sums of money greater than one lakh rupees. NEFT transactions have no limits.
5. NEFT transactions are limited to rupees and remitances can't be made to foreign banks.

Regardless of what transaction type you opt for, there is certain information required in both - Account name and number, bank, branck, IFSC code of the receivers branch, and of course, the amount to be paid.

I hope this helps.

For those who understand such things, and to find out about charges levied on the transactions, this is an excellent resource.

Passwords manager

The one thing that makes my life perfect in the online world is the software Roboform. I use a lot of accounts in many places - discussion forums, emails, blogs, websites, webhosting, advertising, social netwroking...... and they only seem to increase.

In a world where stolen passowrds are not impossible, I like to use complex passwords that are unique to each site. However, its not all that easy. Remembering them was a pain. Taking them along while travelling, etc was worse. Remembering them when I change them......

Even keeping a handy text file had its dangers and inconveniences until *drumroll*




Now, I literally go around the web merry as you please, doing my own thing, hardly noticing when I login to sites, because the Roboform toolbar just sits there happily in my browser and shows up any logins I may have to the site I am on. If I don't, I register, login, and save it with literally one click. So the next time I go there, I breeze through with a click or so.

The best part is the whole thing is secure. I can passowrd protect my list of passwords, so anyone using my computer without it can't use my accounts automatically.

I can create safe notes, form details to fill in with a single click and such things that earlier used to end up with me typing the same old stuff over and over.

Tried creating social bookmarking accounts to promote your site? Or multiple emails you have to check for various purposes...... the applications are literally endless, and this one tool is going to change your life.

Commenting on blogs

It is an important part of being a blogger to read and comment on other blogs. It helps you keep in touch with what other bloggers on your subject are up to, brings in new ideas and learnings, and helps you broaden your views and develop new perspectives about your own subject.

This is important because as we continue to write, we exhaust the things we originally wanted to say, and begin to get repetitive. Naturally, repetitive is boring. Also, unlike a book or a website, a blog is an evolving publication. Nothing here is frozen for all time, and it is a log of your own evolution as a person interested in the subject. Perhaps to be compared with a magazine with fresh issues each month to catch the readers interest.

Not evolving makes YOU boring. You don't want that.

Why comment? Remember the excitement you feel when someone comments on your blog? Well, other bloggers feel that too. Sharing the impact of the post on you is the easiest way to connect with an author. Connecting with other authors helps you build relationships in the online world, which mean a whole load of new things - links to your blog, references to you, blogging relationships, reputation, advertising income..... you get the people interested in you as a person, and you can get them to do a whole load of nice things for you.

Another way is of course to write about what they are up to on your blog. This needs some relevance to what you are up to. For example, we are now talking about blogging and commenting. Have you been to problogger.com? Darren Rose there has a fabulous way of writing about blogging in a way that leads to development of our skills and its really easy to read.

If you are interested in earning from your blog, look at John Chow's blog. Again, many useful tips and references that will help us.

So how do you go about reading and commenting on blogs? One way is to keep an eye out when you read something and look for opportunities to get in touch with the author. Now, inane comments are only going to irritate the author, but if you can share something others would want to know, people get interested in you quickly.

As an author for example, I enjoy knowing what my blog does to you. Do you feel happy, sad, irritated, inspired, challenged.....? When I go to other blogs, reading such comments give me an idea of the writer's relationships with the readers. Other comments I enjoy knowing is when you bring in a perspective that I hadn't thought of or add information that is not included in the original post.

Very often, and interesting comment makes me follow through to the commenter's link. I expect to find more of what I found interesting there. If nothing, I will follow links in comments on my own blog to see who is interacting with me. Never mind the search engines, even the kind of interest you can generate with this is quite high.

So if you want to do this actively, how do you go about doing it? What I usually do is I plan a post I would like to write, and search for blogs related with it as a part of the research. It gives me a good idea of the kind of approaches to the subject, as well as provides me the opportunity to interact with other writers on it. Then, I write my post and link to resources I found interesting and comment on the others sharing my experience of their posts and adding anything of value that occurs to me.

There are many ways of finding such blogs. Blog search engines, technorati, regular search engines are some. There are commenting softwares that make this much easier for you. They are able to search for blogs on a subject you specify that are open to comments. Comment Kahuna and Fast Blog Finder are two free examples. There are possibilities to look for page rank or no follow on links, etc, but their greatest strength is having a list of commentable blogs quickly lined up fo ryou.

While some bloggers frown on the use of such softwares, the real reason of the frowning is people leaving random comments on blogs that add no value and only spam links. If you are willing to read the posts and make an effort to comment in a way people would enjoy reading, the only difference the softwares bring in is that of removing places you can't comment on from your searches.

With judicious planning of the comments you make, it is possible to build links, relationships and a reputation in the online world.

10 Tips to an earning blog

1. Write regularly
2. Spend some time once in a while to look at your earning, but don't obsess - spend that time in working toward getting traffic
3. Invest your traffic and income efforts among various services - don't put all your eggs in the google basket. Try other ways of monetizing your content or getting traffic like Direct-link-ads, Linkworth, Chitika, Payperpost, Sponsored Reviews or any of the many programmes out there - these ones work very well for me.
4. Create a schedule and stick to it - come rain or sunshine.
5. Divide your time between content, presentation, promotion and income management - in that order.
6. Brainstorm for perspectives that could add fresh value and meaning to your blog
7. Interact with other bloggers and respond to the comments you get
8. Use your social networking profiles to create an interest in yourself and share your blog as another way to know you.
9. Add a reference to your blog in your signatures on emails and forum posts and links when you comment on other sites or share videos, etc. If you have photo albums, use your link as a watermark on the most interesting photos.
   
10. Don't get hooked to any one of these and keep your mood flowing and presence relaxed on your own blog, as well as other places you frequent online.

Promoting your blog for more traffic is an art and a science. Losing sight of either will not help.

4 Tips for Getting faster on a computer

Most people I know drive me nuts waiting for them to do something on a computer. Ok, so I am fast, but that really is no excuse for anyone to do things so slowly and painfully that their productivity is changed (or rather unchanged).

I am considered to be a wizard by my offline friends, simply because I am so fast. Of course, I am Nerd in Progress, but hey, what I know, I go all out for, which helps me get into learning the next thing.

Some suggestions I think will halve the time you spend on the computer, or double the things you can do in it.

• Make friends with the "enter" key. Each time you fill in something and then move your hand to the mouse, and then find the button and so on..... you could simply be moving your right pinkie and getting done with it already.
• Make friends with the "tab" key. A job for your left pinkie. fill in one form field, hit tab and the cursor jumps to the next - again, a massive time saving in locating the mouse, clicking, locating the keyboard, etc.
• Use the fingers you have. It takes practice, but honestly, its not all that hard. Chatting is good practice that is fun as well. Pecking away with two fingers and looking at the keyboard, then looking at the screen to see if there are no mistakes is time consuming. With a little practice, you can write as I am writing now - with my fingers spread over the keyboard so that no matter what key I want to hit, there is a finger near to do it. no need for absolutely classic ten finger typing, but more than two would be nice, and if you try, you will find other fingers entering the effort voluntarily.
• This is a progression from the previous one. Once you begin engaging all your fingers, you will find your typing speed going up on its own, as each finger learns its "job" soon, you will stop typing letters and will be typing words - much like speaking. This is a good time to look at the screen and type, only looking down at the keyboard if stuck, or a mistake happens.

It would be interesting to see if someone can time themselves and then track the time needed as these changes take hold.