BloggerCamp.com

Christmas time is fast approaching you don’t know what to get that special blogger? Well don’t fret, I’ve put together the top 10 Christmas gifts for Bloggers. A tad unconventional and actually geared towards bloggers buying for bloggers (BFB badge anyone?).

If you are a blogger, consider these Gifts for Bloggers

• Long-tail link
• Short-tail link
• Free Full Site Review
• A Guest Post (gives them content and you some links)
• Stumble Upon one of their better posts (previously unstumbled)

Otherwise consider these Blogger Gifts

• A comfortable chair (invaluable if they blog at home)
• Gift cards/certificates for their favorite coffee shop
• Dual Monitors (or just a second matching monitor if LCD)
• Buy them some text link ads or similar
• A large external hard drive

I know I’d personally like any of those things for the holiday season… or at any time for that matter! I’m welcome to other suggestions to make this the perfect list.

Other Gift Ideas:
10-best-gift-ideas-for-bloggers/

Popularity: 49% [?]

A few weeks ago I blogged about Google Webmaster Tools Updated - The Holy Grail.

I recently began (June-July of 2007) a few niche market websites… not too specific niche’s either. Of these three project sites I started each of them has thousands upon thousands of competing sites. I still manage to place well(top 50 to 100 results) within the short-tail keywords as well as some of the more popular long tail ones. A few of which I place in the top 10. None of these websites have a Pagerank(don’t put stock in PR) but they all have one thing in common.

 Google Webmaster Tools. I use these tools religiously, especially the keyword tracking tool — affectionately called “Top Search Queries” which tracks your google position for popular terms that return your website. It goes as far as 6 months back, and has been invaluable for my search engine results gaming.

If I notice that I’m in a top 50 position for certain key phrases (keyword) I’ll tend to find something to write about within that category, thereby, increasing the chance that I’ll either stay in that position, or possibly move up in rankings.

 Live by this tool, unless perhaps… you have something better?

Popularity: 9% [?]

I don’t know about you but I’ve read my fair share of Problogger, Copyblogger, DoshDosh, and even a few of the not-so- A List Bloggers.  Is anyone else starting to see the trend of recycled content?  It’s assumable that they would all write about the same general topics, using the same short-tail keywords to illustrate to googlebots that their sites are, infact, king turd.

I’m find myself wondering if anyone has read some truly innovative and persuasive posts from any of these writers as of late? I can’t really think of anything off the top of my head.  I’ll still read their sites, participate in discussions here and there, but I am currently finding myself tired of the same “blogging tips” just reworded to sound new.

Even if you aren’t Internet savvy, you would/should know that advertising yourself comes first before getting advertisers for you, (insert any blog tip here). The sad thing is, at the risk of over generalizing, most people I would hope understand that most of the “blogging tips” being presented are actually common sense.

I’m not saying that I claim to be any better. Infact, I think my niche market of “WordPress SEO” and general “Blogging Tips” is quite overly saturated. At this juncture I believe that I’m blogging because I want to help people, solve problems, and start some new friendships… all of which I believe the aforementioned writers blog for.

 I guess, I’m casually entertaining the idea of inviting some A-List Bloggers, and perhaps even a few of us little ones, a chance to develop a dynamic think-tank. There has to be more to blogging tips than what’s currently being regurgitated. So how about it?

I challenge anyone reading this to write about a <strong>NEW</strong> topic geared towards anything in the realm of “blogging tips”. I’ll see what I can come up with myself.

Popularity: 10% [?]

If some of you have been coming around my site, about half of you have been seeing the old bloggercamp.com (hosted on dreamhost) the other half have been seeing a default install of wordpress for bloggercamp(hosted on hostgator).

I recently switched host providers from dreamhost to hostgator in hopes that access times, and server downtimes would improve. I had quite an experience when I switched.

Immediately after I purchased my plan from hostgator, I logged into Dreamhost in order to swap my dns servers to hostgators. Great, worked like a charm… but GASP, I had forgotten to backup WordPress, MySQL, and files left on my hosting plan for Dreamhost.

Exactly one day later, I fire up my trusty browser at work to check out what host I was currently on… and low and behold, I was able to access my dreamhost version of bloggercamp (entire site and all) I promptly exported my WordPress xml file. I was saved.  Apparently, DNS had not propogated completely, I’m guessing I have about a day until EVERYONE can read this post… so thank you DNS.

Moral of the story: Back your crap up before major changes.

Popularity: 15% [?]

If you aren’t familiar with Google’s Webmaster Tools you should be. If you’re just starting a WordPress blog, or any kind of website for that matter, GWT can be undoubtedly beneficial to you and your search engine rankings.

There are several features of this service that can be invaluable to anyone concerned about Google’s search results, and how Google specifically indexes your site. I personally use this tool nearly everyday to optimize my blog for search terms.

Lately, one of the nice new additions to Google Webmaster Tools is “Top Search Queries” on google. Prior to the update, Google only included the last 7 days of your highest ranking search terms. NOW, it goes back as far as 6 months ago. You can see how you’ve increased seo positioning(or decreased) for key terms.

So grab an account if you don’t have one, verify you are the webmaster for your site, and head into “Google Webmaster Tools” as soon as possible.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Welcome back for Part 2 of this Comprehensive Guide to WordPress SEO, yesterday I covered the importance of permalink structure. Today I’ll be going over the importance of Dynamic Title tags as well as your common header tags.

Title Tags:

Title tags go inside your html -> head statement, and are generally used by indexes and search engines to display a clickable link on the search engine results page (SERP). So with that knowledge my basic recommendation for the title tag in your standard header.php file is the following:

<title> Key Description | Website Name </title>

If I show up in the top 10 searches for SEO(never going to happen), from a standard user’s perspective “Top 10 Ways to Get into the Top 10 Results for Google | Bloggercamp” looks much more enticing (read clickable) than the reverse. There is one caveat on this, if you have or ARE an established brand, ALWAYS put your brandname first.

There are a few standard suggestions for dynamic title tags (single page, single post, categories, etc) in the header.php and most involve either knowing a little bit of code, OR, you could just use uberdose’s All in One SEO Pack which pretty much saves the day when creating dynamic titles for each individual post/page/index.

I can’t stress enough how great All in One SEO Pack is as a tool. Get it, swear by it. It’ll save you time and headaches. Aside from Akismet, this should be the first plugin you activate.

Header Tags:

Header tags are used ideally as physical importance flags, not presentation. Search engines typically look at a myriad of things on the source of a webpage and as it stands, the text between header tags should be treated much the same as anchor text(links).

Headers are useful for Keywords, Long Tail Keywords, and subsections of an article. Think of headers as sign posts for search engines “hey this might be important”.

Now that we know the use of headers, how to we apply to correct order of headers? Some of you already know that there is H1 through H6; although H4-H6 are seldom used.

<h1> through <h6>
• H1’s should be for Sitenames, description…
• H2’s should be for Article or Page Titles
• H3’s should be for Important sections of an article or Sidebar Headings (section headings)
• H4’s and beyond to display hierarchy of importance in subsections only, category names is acceptable as well.

Next time I’ll be covering the important <meta> tags that go inside the <head> tags at the top of your headers.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Over the course of the several days/weeks I will be revealing comprehensive and indepth findings for Search Engine Optimization(SEO) in regards to WordPress. This time I will be covering the importance of Permalink Structure.

Permalinks:

Permalinks: Permanent Links, links that SHOULD not change.

The first thing you should do when installing WordPress is to deny the option to publicize your blog(you can turn this on later). When installing WordPress for the first time, after you enter your blog name and email you have the option for “Blog Visibility” presented to you. Select “I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors.” This tells WordPress that you will tell the Internet (i.e. google, yahoo, etc) when you’re ready to be indexed.

Why is this important?

If you go for a couple weeks posting without changing your permalink structure, you are practicing poor SEO, and are in essence digging yourself a hole. By default, WordPress’s permalink structure is not very pretty, nor is it Search Engine friendly.

Admin Panel -> Options -> Permalinks:

So deny the ability to publicize your website, then the first thing you should do is RUN to the Admin Panel -> Options -> Permalinks Tab and go buckwild.

Well not exactly, at the VERY LEAST it’s important that you have your post title within the permalink structure.

Custom Structure: /%postname%/
http://bloggercamp.com/comprehensive-guide-to-wordpress-seo-permalinks

If I had another post of that name, WordPress would automatically append a -2, -3 etc on the end (but I think that’s ugly and assumes that the post is paginated or multipart from the structure).

Instead, I use the following permalink structure:

Custom Structure: /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%category%/%postname%/
http://bloggercamp.com/2007/11/2/wordpress-tips/comprehensive-guide-to-wordpress-seo-permalinks

This allows me to include the category name (used as a keyword if you remember) and the entire post name. Besides, I just like the look of the date instead of -2, -3, -4, etc at the end of my post titles.

For the most part it is safe to write a few posts now, get used to the permalink structure, but I still recommend not publicizing your blog just yet. There is still a bit of optimization work to do before we get to that point.

Part 2: Title Tags and Headings

Popularity: 21% [?]

I will never claim to be an expert in successful blogging but I am an expert at what doesn’t work. Two key factors in outlining a “successful” blog.

First we have to understand what a successful blog is. I tend to lean towards selfpreservation in that, each blog should have individual goals… and if you meet those goals, then you are a success. Nothing more, nothing less.

Persistence Pays:

You will never succeed with blogging if you don’t constantly blog. Set a personal goal for yourself, no matter the product you pitch, set a blogging goal. The point is to pick something that works for you, not what other people say is right for you.

• 1 post everyday = 365 posts a year
• 1 post every week = 52 posts a year
• 2 posts every week = 104 posts a year
• 3 posts every week = 156 posts a year

If you fall off the blogging horse, don’t fret… just get back on as soon as possible. The comes a time in nearly most people’s lives that they feel a lack of motivation or drive to do something. I’ve experienced it, you’ve experienced it, but in the end if you focus on the end results it’s much easier to motivate yourself.

After you’ve established a few posts (more than 50) you begin to feel it. Ideally you will receive a slight upswing in comments per post and an email or two from your readers.

Avoid Statistics:

DO NOT let statistics decide your success… don’t even look at your stats for the first couple of weeks, I know this is hard but don’t look at your stats everyday either! There is an upside and a downside to statistics (as there is with anything).

Upsides:
• If your blog is doing well it be a motivational factor.
• If your blog is doing poorly, it might also serve as a motivational tool to beef up your content.

Downsides:
• If you are doing poorly it will affect your attitude towards blogging
• Also if you are doing poorly or it might motivate you try that much harder
• If your blog is doing great, it might appear okay to “slack off”.

It both cases, the human condition is that it’s easier to believe the bad things… and as such, statistics in general lean towards the bad. I ask that you wait and check your stats maybe once every 2 weeks, maybe more.

If you check everyday you’ll see a fluctuation of visitors. However, if you are blogging pretty steady if you check 2 weeks from now, you’ll almost definately see a rise.

What are some key mistakes you’ve made as a blogger?

Popularity: 9% [?]

Over my tenure as an avid WordPress user and blogger I’ve come across various plugins that deserve a bit of the limelight. A few of these I use on other blogs, including bloggercamp. I’m shocked at the community behind all the great WordPress Plugins.

So follow on and find out how to save some time with these 5 WordPress 2.3 Plugins that Save You Time.

1. In Series:

The “In Series” plugin by Travis Snoozy saves you time by selecting posts in a series from the “Write Post” screen, instead of manually adding them by getting the links and pasting.

Time Saved: Depends on length of series, but per series it saves several minutes.

2. WP 2.3 Related Posts:

“WP 2.3 Related Posts” by Denis saves time by adding related posts to your post pages via the use of similar tags.

Time Saved: Countless hours

3. Better Comments Manager:

“Better Comments Manager” by Keith Desouza allows you to reply to comments within the admin panel, as well as on a per post basis.

Time Saved: Depends on comment traffic, but can be a minute or two per comment reply.

4. Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam:

“Peter’s Custom Anti-Spam” by, you guessed it… Peter Keung allows you to save time by adding word validation on an image to your comments… reducing time to sort through spam comments.

Time Saved: Depends on popularity of your blog, but typically several minutes per post.

5. Share This:

“Share This” by Alex King inserts a bit of code at the end of posts to allow your users to share your content across a multitude of social networking/bookmarking websites.

Time Saved: With the ability to quickly edit what networks you want linked, its still negligible but overtime proves useful.

Suggest a plugin to be added? Contact Bloggercamp

Popularity: 21% [?]

The following tips will increase your search enging rankings for keywords, articles, and your blog in general. In combination with obvious SEO techniques such as link baiting with clever post titles this is a no fail combination.

1. Permalink Structure:

The permalink structure is exactly that, a permanent link to your articles and pages. By default WordPress uses sitename.com/?p=123 … the 123 being the post number. Not very descriptive is it? There are 2 main options when considering your page for SEO methods. Either date and namebased:
/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/ or the custom field.

However, I personally use the custom field and use the following tags as a base for all my blogs:

/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%category%/%postname%/

The belief is that if you add the category to your permalink structure you will increase “search engine awareness” of your posts, and add one more item for search engines to associate with your post. Which brings us to the next WordPress SEO tip.

2. Use Only One Category:

By using only one category you can reduce confusion for your readers, reduce the chances of google(or other search engines) thinking you’ve got duplicate content(and being penalized for it). If you follow tip #1, you’ll have less headaches as well.

An added bonus of using only one category is returning more results for that category.

3. Categories are Keywords:

In wordpress categories are a prominent feature for you blogs/websites. Avoid using non-descriptive category names… such as “ranting, miscellaneous, dribble, etc”, these naming schemes don’t do you or SEO any good.

Each category name should be descriptive, short(1-3 words), to the point. Each time you write an article and have the category it’s under listed in the post, that is another internal link to associate with your blog.

4. Tags are not the same as Categories:

In WordPress 2.3, tags and categories are identical from a database point of view, but are treated entirely differently. WordPress 2.3 automatically adds rel=”tag” to each tag(a href) you put in your posts. The rel=”tag” symbolizes that the link is for internal purposes only.

Do not attempt to flood your posts with unrelated or undesirable tags. It won’t help you and your individual posts will suffer in rankings.

5. One Plugin to Rule them All

All in One SEO Pack by uberdose is THE one stop shop for search engine optimization.

Read over the help file to grasp exactly how powerful this plugin is for SEO.

One this plugin is installed and activated be SURE to check ON ALL of the following in the options panel:

• Use Categories for META keywords:
• Use noindex for Categories:
• Use noindex for Archives:
• Use noindex for Tag Archives:
• Autogenerate Descriptions:

Popularity: 61% [?]