SEO by Chris Estes

As indicated in my last posting about Helping Bloggers and Charity I talked about a guest post I wrote for a fellow blogger in need.

The post, entitled “Status Quo Blogging”, was about standard status quo blogging post. It is by far not a landmark post and serves as a working example of status quo blogging.

To read the post visit Social Desire, the blog “devoted to everything Social Media and Web 2.0.” You can view the post directly at “Status Quo Blogging“.

After a long break from blogging I am back in the saddle again.  I moved to New York City a little over a month ago and I am long over due on posting.  So over the next few days look for me to publish some new info. 

Some friendly reminders:

Don’t forget to up-date your blog software to the new version.  – The lastest version comes with some pretty nice additions and cleans up the administration area.  Make sure you check it out as it also comes with some DB upgrades.

Windows Vista is still a waste of time.  My new job requires me to use it.  It does have some promising features  but overall it is more problem than good.

Social media, or social bookmarking, has been a big fashion for quite sometime. But, What’s the hype?

As a search engine marketer I can tell you that social media is marketing. If you have ever been to sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, or Mixx you have noticed most of the content is geared towards selling something. Whether it be promoting the iPhone or a political candidate it is all a sales pitch. Original intention of these sites was an arena for information sharing. Marketing job boards are riddled with postings for marketers with blogging and social-media experience. Social media has become the new avenue of marketing. I have not seen a major university put Search Marketing in the course guide, I am sure it will eventually be an elective or maybe even a requirement.

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I apologize for the long gap between posts. Due to the holidays and a writers block I have not posted. I have been reading a lot of great SEO articles and I wanted to take the time to share a couple of them with you.

I came across Andy Hagaans’s Ultimate guide to link baiting – a great post about crafting an article to for linking and social media popularity.

The debate on the “No Follow” continues. – It isn’t much of a debate as much as controversy

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Ramkarthik at Blogging Tune posted a good article entitled “What Everybody Ought To Know About Blog Commenting“, and is the first in a series about Blog Commenting.

This article points out good techniques of boosting traffic by commenting on other blogs. I agree this is a great way for exposure and popularity. As a contributor to a few blogs I can say first hand that commenting is one of the best ways to boost traffic. You can help control the links, information, and public image of your blog/company/you.

With the fallout of the “Google Smack Down” in the fall most blogs use nofollow attributes on all external links from their blog. There are some rouge blogs, and movement along with them, that fight the system and aren’t using the attributes. Linking from blog comments will have little effect besides boosting traffic. Ultimately getting more traffic is whats important. As Ramkarthik pointed out some of the visitors will subscribe to your blog feed and become some of your chief commenter’s and most loyal visitors.

I have a few rules of my own when it comes to commenting.

1. Be Polite and Tasteful
2. Always share your opinion in a polite way
3. Don’t use fowl language
4. Use good grammar (this can be hard for even me, as you can tell)
5. Spell Check
6. Only put in links when relevant to the topic
7. Keep the length short no more than two paragraphs (write your on rebuttal and link back to the original post otherwise)
8. Always make a comment that you thought the article was good, interesting, loved it, found it hard to understand your point, an interesting take, or some other nice phrase. The point of this is to make the author and reader know your stance on the article.
9. Only comment if you can contribute to the topic
10. Be Polite and Tasteful
11. A bonus: The author should always be considered the winner of any debate unless they are blatantly wrong. It can be taken as an insult to the author any other way. I learned this the hard way.

I can not state it enough that you must be polite. There is nothing wrong with disagreeing, in fact I disagree with many people (persons wearing black hats and doing SEO for one), that can lead to a positive engagement. All comments should be positive in nature and written with the best intentions. If you aren’t able to be positive then just don’t comment.

I look forward to reading what Ramkarthik has to say in future articles about blog commenting.

Happy Blogging,

Chris Estes