SEO For The Common Webmaster

In a journey to get the quick buck, many webmasters turn to automatic blogs. Basically an automatic blog is set up with either some software or a Word Press plug in to bring in feeds from other blogs. The automatic blog is made up of copies of someone else’s blog posts and articles.

There are a few problems with this. First, readers will catch up and you will lose your traffic. Readers like to read original content and when you copy other blogs, your readers will catch up and quit coming.

Another problem is that you may be infringing on copyrights of others. This could cause you to be sued, your hosting account to be suspended, or face other legal issues. Besides that, it is ethically wrong.

The final problem I will mention is the fact that many search engines like Google frown on this type of duplicated content. It could cause you not to be indexed in the SERPs or cause you to be placed so low that it does not matter of you are listed or not.

When creating a good blog, it is important to write for your readers and write original content. We all want to make some money but the short term quick buck of automatic blogs will dry up and you will be left started over from scratch.  It is better to do it right from the beginning and build your blog or website over time.

This does not mean that you can never copy a good article if you think it is useful. However, you should only do so with permission and only if you give credit to the original author.

Creating a blog or website can be fun and profitable, don’t take the cheaters way by stealing from others. Create the best you can with your talents and you will form a long term project that will attract lots of traffic and earn you money

What is your opinion on automatic blogs? Please share your opinion by leaving a comment.

One of the ways that many webmasters build their sites back links is through submission of articles to article directories. This is said to help build links when someone uses the article on their own site.

I am not a big fan of this way of building links. However, many are very successful at this. The basic concept is that you write an article and include links back to your site in the source box. When someone uses your article on their website or blog, they are required to keep the source box which includes your author information and links.

If you decide this is a method you wish to try, there are some rules. Most articles should be in the range of 500 words or more. Most directories have a set range that you must abide by. The article should be of very good quality. This means that you should be able to write good articles or hire a professional writer to do it for you. Cost for such an article would range from $.01-$.05 a word. Do not submit junk because no one will use the article and your reputation is on the line by being on the source box.

Write about a topic that is related to the topic of your website. When people place the article on their site with your links, you want links to sites that are going to interest that audience. For example, you would not write an article abut new video games if your site is about elder care. You want to target the people who are most likely to visit your site.

Here are my problems with marketing through submitting articles. First, I always want my best articles on my own site for the enjoyment of my readers. Second, many articles are used without including the links back to the original owner. There is no real enforcement of requiring the use of the author’s links. The user of the article could face copyright problems in the form of their host suspending their account but this does not always happen and your article could be floating all over with no credit to you.

My final problem with this form of marketing is that many of these articles are simply stolen by slight rewriting of the article. There are people who rewrite articles for a living and resell the article as their own or are hired in the first place to rewrite an article. I take too much pride in my work to have it stolen by others with no credit to me.

That is my opinion; many others are very successful at this form of link building. One could generate a bunch of traffic if the article is well written and a topic of mass interest. If you do not share my concerns or you hire someone to write the article, this could be a great way to market your website and build both back links and traffic for your site.

I will be working on compiling a list of article directories that are free to submit to and post the list here on SEO for the Common Man.

Please feel free to share your opinion about article marketing by leaving a comment.

The basis of any good website is good hosting. I have had many websites over the years I have been on the Internet and I have been happy with very few. I decided after my recent problems to share some advice when it comes to purchasing hosting.

First of all, the term “you get what you pay for” applies when finding good hosting. I once purchased what seemed to be a great deal off of eBay. The company was Vamp Host and it was only $9.99 for a year with unlimited everything. I was excited, they had good feedback, seemed pretty solid and I could host all my sites in one place. I jumped on the deal.

Well as I soon learned, cheap is not always better. I updated my site everyday with new pages only to go on and check the next day and all my work was gone. I contacted the host and was told they had to switch servers and anything I change that day was lost. I was annoyed but I understood and redid all my work. Then it happened a total of 14 more times in the three months I was with them. I switched hosting really fast.

As you know from my last post, I recently received a free hosting account in exchange for doing a review. I had the account for a couple of weeks and I started having the same problems as with Vamp Host. I lost posts, they had server problems and I just did not want to waste my time and damage my website with such garbage. I am not saying that all are bad. Just be careful who you deal with and make sure they have a good reputation. There are some really good ones that are truly free and offer a great service.

I am with A1 Web Hosting Solutions and have been very happy with them. I started with them a couple of months ago with my other blogs. They have several plans with reasonable prices. I have not had any downtimes and everything loads quickly.

My advice when looking for hosting is to look for the best plan that you can afford. Do your research by searching for information on your future host. If a deal sounds too good to be true, it is. There is no such thing as unlimited anything, all servers have a limit. The problem is that many hosting companies oversell their servers and hope you never use what you paid for. If you use too much bandwidth or space, they end up suspending your account. This brings up a big point when buying hosting.

DO NOT purchase hosting from the same place you have your domain registered. I am sure many of these companies have great hosting services. However, it creates possible problems for you. First, if you overuse the server and they suspend your account, you also lose access to both the site and the domain. This could also happen if you are reported for something bad such as copyright infringement. It would suck to get your site suspended and not have access to the site. Of course it would be worse to not even have access to your domain. You can get new hosting and get your site back up if your site is suspended but if they also control the domain, you could end up losing everything.

As with buying anything in life, it is important to think before you buy hosting. Do not rely on testimonies on the website of the host, ask around and Google the company for real feedback from customers. Look for good uptime, good support, what they are compatible with as far as PHP and such, and what they offer for features. I recommend looking for a host that offers Fantasico which allows you to add many of the popular programs like WordPress with ease. This is important for people like me who hate to do any kind of coding.

Other important features you need to look at are how many add on domains you are allowed. If you plan to have more than one domain, you want to know how many are allowed on your plan. You need at least one SQL Database for every software you plan to load like WordPress or a Directory software. If you have five add on domains and are only allowed two SQL databases, you will not be able to do all five domains with certain programs. You also want to know how many sub domains you are allowed to have. There are many other features that you will need to check depending on what your needs are. Just make sure that you have the option to upgrade if your site becomes so popular that you need more space or more bandwidth.

Just be smart and do not settle on cheap or free when often times for a little more you can get what you really want.

You can build the best looking website on the Internet and do your best at SEO but it means nothing without the filling inside. The number one key when building a good website or blog is to have quality content.

When you build a website, it should not be built for Google or any other search engine, it should be built for the people you want to visit your site. It does not matter if you are looking to sale a product or to entertain people or just provide information, quality is what you should have inside your website.

If you have the ability to write everything yourself, I highly suggest doing it. However, if you are not a good writer, I recommend you hire someone to write articles for you. Make sure you look at some samples of their writing and do not accept garbage for your website. I personally write many articles for people and I am available to hire to write articles if you find the need arises.

If you decide to write for yourself, make sure to use a good spell checker and if needed a good grammar checker. I love to write and I think I am good at it but I can not spell worth a darn. Luckily, all of the major web browsers have add on spell checkers and if you use blogging software, those also include spell checkers. You could also write all your articles in Word and then copy and paste it to your website. This will both correct many grammar mistakes and spelling mistakes. Just remember quality is key.  You do not want a bunch of mistakes that make it difficult for your readers to follow.

When writing content for your site, know your audience. This means write in a way that is best suited to attract who you would like to read your content. If you site is geared towards the teen population, it is OK to have some slang in your content. However, if you are looking to sell business cards to professionals, it would be best to make sure you use correct terms and good grammar. A good example is this blog. I want to attract webmaster but I want the articles basic so that even the common hobby webmaster can understand what I am saying. My information is good for all webmasters but I do not try to talk over the new webmasters who are just starting out.

Another point is to know how much content you need. If your site is a sales page, you want to provide enough information to get your customer interested but not so much that they will get bored and leave your site. If you are an information site, you need to have a lot of content for your readers so they will keep coming back. Again, you need to know your audience and you need to know what they are looking for.

Updating your content and keeping it fresh and new is super important. If you have a blog, make sure to add content as often as you can. This also applies to information sites, people want new and fresh articles to read or they will visit once and never come back. If you own sales sites, make sure you keep the descriptions up to date and the prices. Nothing is more annoying for a customer than to visit a website and trying to buy something only to find out you no longer sell it or the price advertised is lower than the real price.

In the push to fill your blog or website with content, do not take short cuts. Duplicated content is frowned on by both the search engines and your readers. It is OK to repost a great article if you have permission to do so and you give a link back to the original source. Many webmaster take the easy route and just try to rewrite someone else work and pass it off as their own, this is a bad way to run your blog or site. Remember how we started this article, quality is key.

Quality content will not only make you look good for the search engines, it will also build a following of visitors and customers that could make your website the next biggest hit on the Internet.

I hope this article has helped you focus on content for your website and if you have a suggestion or question, please feel free to leave me a comment and I will reply. Please keep checking back for more articles for the common webmaster.