Should I podcast? Should I video cast? Or should I blog? You know. Write. Hit publish. Rinse and repeat.

Blogging beats podcast beats video

Podcasts are cool. Unless you sound like me - tweezers on the nose, all nasally.

Videocasts are cooler unless you look like me. I mean, most people if they had a dog with a face like mine they’d shave the dog’s butt and make him walk backwards.

Blogging – the coolest. Just write. And hit publish. Images and links, too, of course.

But what is really cool about blogging is that it is searchable. Findable. Search engines can’t search video and podcast content. These mediums work best… ONLY work?… when they are embedded into a blog post and surrounded by searchable text.

Bottom line…. blogging wins IF you want to be searched out and found. Podcasts and Videocasts are what you serve up AFTER the reader gets there.

In short, nothing is better than the written word when it comes to wanting good search engine optimization.

This guest post is by Mary Leonardo

Mind what you say in Facebook henceforth as Google is coming up with plans to index your comments. After indexing these comments, Google will publish as part of its standardized search results. Google’s all seeing and all knowing search robots will help to decipher the comments even posted on a secret or private pages and make it available for public use.

These grand plans of Google are not only for Facebook but for any content that is accessible through HTTP post, but also for commenting systems like Disqus and other Java Script based forms and sites.

Earlier this year, search engine Blekko has started displaying Facebook comments in it’s search results.

For the readers, it means that their drunken stupor, embarrassing comments and most private discussions will be made public when their names are searched on Google. What worries most developers and the general public is that Google is no more of a passive crawler that snoops for data.

Google can now execute AJAX and Javascript for Indexing

It is coming out with bold and new techniques to enhance the search results. Many developers are also worried that this new plan of Google will ignore technical specifications of HTML and fears are rife that this will change the entire web architecture.

Before jumping to any conclusion, one has to understand a few basic concerns with the new changes to search engine.  GET and POST are two search initiatives a developer can access on the internet.

Bill in one of his previous post has also mentioned that how important the comments are when you are blogging for money and blog traffic.

A GET initiative will only read the data whereas POST initiative can not only Edit but also modify the content. Google currently allows only editing and opts for GET only. However, Google is now accessing POST pages as well and can modify the contents of the page.

However, such a scenario is highly unlikely as recently released press release from Google Web master says “Googlebot will perform POST requests when we think it is safe and appropriate”. There are some legal implications as well which needs to be addressed.

Further implications can be known when Google provides more information on the same.

Have you seen what Google did to their home search page to celebrate Mark Twain?

Google celebrates Mark Twain

Here’s a tip I have advocated for some time.

Find out what people WILL BE interested in reading about BEFORE they are interested and write about that. So, when their interest is piqued you are there waiting for them.

How many people do you think are searching about Mark Twain today after seeing what Google did to celebrate the American icon?

Try these two sites

On this day (NY Time)

 or

On this day (BBC).

Then read into the future, ask yourself what might people be celebrating or remembering in the days to come.

Write about those topics as they relate to your web site topic.

Man on the moon, celebrity birthday, death, anniversary of an invention….the sky is the limit.

In that way, when that day rolls around, you and your site will be primed to be read…provided you have been faithful to your site up until then.  Learn how to do this at my Facebook.com/TheTrafficProfessor page.

The Traffic Professor Facebook Fan Page

You cannot write one article a month and expect people to find that one article. Or at least I don’t know how to do that.

You can, however, faithfully write at your blog…find the good balance between appeal to readers and search engines…then when it’s your turn, you will be ready.

Abraham Lincoln, “I will prepare and some day my turn will come.” Hmm, now when was he born? Assassinated? Maybe I will write about those days….

Google’s freshness update on Search Engine Results Page created lots of stress and anxiety for websites around the globe. SEO forums were flooded with fears of a major apocalypse among the blogging community.

Last known chaos was witnessed when Panda update was announced. Panda had spooked the life out of many blogs and SEO forums.

Bill has written a nice blog on Google’s Panda update, you must read 5 Questions to ask your web site owner if you were pooped on by the Panda.

Google’s significant improvement to its search Engine will impact 35% of all searches. This is enough for bloggers to be gripped by chaos and panic.  However, when people started discussing the issue, the real picture started to emerge.

The freshness of your blog has the potential to take your business away

Google is doing nothing but following some “product management” strategies to solve a few issues with the existing algorithm. One of the major visible issues is when hot topics are searched, very little or no coverage is given to the topic itself.

Read more Who’s benefitting from the Google Freshness updates ?

Also when product reviews are searched, latest reviews are more relevant and hence the need for freshness in the search engine.

However, I have my own views about the implications of the update on bloggers. To know more about the uniqueness of the relationship between a Blogger and the search engine, read Blogger, Google and being search engine friendly.

1. Specific searches will make latest events and info more visible.
2. General searches will also reveal more relevant content as against just new pages
3. One concern is that only based on freshness, even poor quality contents will find place in the first page.
4. Also Google might contemplate if it is a viable option to categorize the searches to determine the freshness and quality of contents appearing on page A.
5. Although this update is not as nerve wrecking as the Panda update, however this has the potential to take your business away if freshness of content is the only criteria considered in the long run.

Overall, I can say this is an important update from Google. We have to ponder more to find long lasting impacts of this update.

I created this video – 5 most important SEO tips for blog posts for subscribers to TheTrafficProfessor.

Wilby applying 5 most important SEO tips for blog posts

After applying these 5 tips to the post I created, within 2 days and for 2 terms the post showed up on the first page of Google search…one was #8 and just below the fold (depending on the size of your screen) and the other was #3 above the fold (scroll down) no matter how you look at it.

To view this video – 5 most important SEO tips for blog posts, you will need to be a subscriber to TheTrafficProfessor.

That’s easy enough by clicking through and jumping through the hoops.

Then…you can apply the same 5 most important SEO tips for blog posts to your blogs and watch them appear on the front page of big G, Bing,  Yahoo as well.

Happy blogging.

One wonders what it takes to be a successful travel blogger.

Some wonder what it takes to be a successful blogger in any niche.

Travel blogger Wilby discovers traveling light

Problogger Wilby knows the answer…what it takes to be a good travel blogger, what it takes to be a successful (choose your niche) blogger.

1. Experience counts. Lots of bloggers what to claim authority in their chosen niche when in truth they just read and regurgitate stuff from elsewhere on the net. A real travel blogger has experience. NomadicMatt is a good example of an experienced travel blogger. He has a good following but could use some SEO help.

2. Sitting in a chair counts. It’s one thing to have the know how and (more…)

I may be wrong here and if so, I am sure someone will let me know, but I think that if your web site wasn’t affected by the Panda Update, then you ain’t/weren’t nobody. (almost anyway).

Folk hit by the Panda update kind of figured out how things work with the Google and being Search Engine friendly thing and all that entails. But then Google changed the rules and wound them backwards.

Absolutely, some (many?) sites abused their insights. But not everyone. Problem is, Google bots can’t tell the difference between those who are good at what they do and those who game the system.

In any event…what to do if the Panda pooped on you.

Google Wil.by

IM Ninjas (I met these guys at Search Engine Strategies SF) recommends the web site owner asked themselves the following five questions:

1. Would you be comfortable giving the site your credit card?
2. Does the site have excessive ads?
3. Do you consider this site to be authoritative?
4. Would it be okay if this were in a magazine?
5. Would you be comfortable giving medicine prescribed by this site to your kids?

Great questions. And truth be told, at some of my sites, I was more concerned with #3 than the other four. Ouch!

How about you? And your sites?

How do you see your web sites?

And more importantly, for those who care what Google thinks, how to you think the big G sees you?

Wanna share?

For other takeaways from SES SF please see:

Bill Belew Blogging Examiner

Rob Fulton of the Denver School of Music and Francis Wolff of Avoir Toutes Les Filles Que Tu Veux (I think this is French for Bill is cool and really knows blogging and SEO) and I are sitting in a room together in Mountain View, CA, the very heart of Silicon Valley, minutes from Google HQ and just miles from Facebook and Yahoo.

We are talking blogging and good SEO principles.

Wil.by demonstrating best blogging techniques

This particular meeting is fun for me as Rob and Francis are not coming to the blog world from zero. They know stuff. They know what works, what doesn’t, where time can be best spent and where money will fly if you don’t hang on tight.

They also know quite well that blogs can make a (more…)

The blogger and Google generally have a love-hate relationship.

Bloggers love the Search Engine giant when they (the blogger) have good findability. The blogger hates the Goliath when their posts are no where to be found.

The Google Blog and Wilby

Google, I reckon, tries to be fair. But in practice it is not always the case.

It seems to me, and I may be wrong, that if a post or a site can be found at/near the top in Bing, Yahoo, Dogpile, Blekko and the other search engines, it ought to be found in generally the same position in Google, no?

It doesn’t always happen that way. What’s up with that?

What does it take to be search engine friendly across the board?

What does it take to be ranked near the top of any and hopefully all Search Engines?

There is one requirement that is fundamental.

Content must be original.

Original can best be defined has generated by the blogger’s own brain cells and sent via nerves to the blogger’s fingers and imposed on a keyboard followed by hitting publish by the blogger.

Summarizing, paraphrasing and quoting are acceptable, even encouraged as long as proper credit is given (makes for a good quality external link!) and they are not done too much.

What’s too much? I tell my students that no post should be ‘borrowed’ in any form from any other location at more than 20%. Less is better, that is, more original.

For the blogger to be Google friendly, search engine friendly…start with original content.