ISEdb.COM

I caught an interesting seminar today called “SEO Through Blogs and Feeds”
with Stephen Spencer, Rick Klau, Doug Hay and Greg Jarboe on the panel.
The following are my point by point notes that stood out as noteworthy.
Some of these tips are mirrored in my 3 part tutorial on blogging called Blogs 101 but as always some great new tips popped up.

Key Tips
For
those in a rush or who have already read my blogs 101 article the
following tips are very worthwhile reading – if just for their
importance as reminders:

• It is extremely important that
  RSS auto-discovery tags be placed in the header of every page within a
  website that has feeds available. By doing so you will provide users
  and search engines alike with a simple method of being notified that
  you have RSS feed(s) and it will allow immediate subscription without
  fuss. In contrast simply having a RSS logo hyperlinked with a feed
  provides little or no benefit and does not provide auto-notification
  that a feed is available.
  
  Furthermore it is recommended to
  create a unique auto-discovery tag for each available RSS feed and
  place them all in the header. If you think you have too many then I
  would recommend choosing the feeds that are most relevant to the page
  content.
  
  
• A WordPress plugin was noted called the “SEO Title Tag Plugin“.
  This plugin really impressed me because it allows WordPress users to
  see and individually customize the title tags of every post within the
  associated blog; without a doubt a powerful capability since title tags
  play a significant role in rankings.
  
  
• If you use paid
  Press Release services to disseminate your latest company news then it
  also works to your advantage to create a separate blog specifically
  used for your press releases. In this regard you can use the associated
  RSS feed to get some free publicity by submitting it to blog
  directories and other blog-syndicating properties.
  
  
• If
  you are finding it difficult to get the word out about a particular
  piece of news then Greg Jarboe has a great idea for you: track down the
  key bloggers that appear to be driving the news in your industry and
  contact them with your story.
  
  If your story interests even one
  of the bloggers and gets published then you could get a massive amount
  of publicity for zero dollars.
  
  During the presentation of this concept Greg Jarboe utilized a powerful online tool called BuzzLogic
  to identify which people drove the latest news in key topics.
  Unfortunately BuzzLogic appears to be priced well out of the
  capabilities of many small businesses (at $12,000/yr minimum) so I will
  provide a very basic free alternative to determining the leaders of a
  particular topic.
  
  Step 1)
  Search in your favorite search engine for the particular topic. Within
  the results separate the blogs from the other content. If you do not
  find at least 10 bloggers then try search again with different wording
  for the same topic.
  
  Step 2) Look
  at each blog individually and look for indications of readership or
  popularity. For example perhaps one of the website has a Feedburner
  subscription counter with the blog’s current readership OR take the URL
  of the blog and conduct a backlink check on Yahoo using “linkdomain:www..com” (without the quotes) to see which blogs have the most inbound links. Sort these blogs according to their popularity.
  
  Step 3)
  Find contact information on each site and then contact the writer(s)
  starting with the most trafficked blogs and pitch your news/idea/story.
  
  Note:
  I am not saying the steps above have anywhere near the quality of
  results that a full-fledge program like BuzzLogic has but it is
  certainly a great place to start.
  
  
• Promote your
  latest blog posting by taking advantage of a popular blogger’s vanity.
  Compliment them within your key article (somehow) using their full name
  and perhaps provide a link back to their website. Chances are that the
  blogger often keeps an eye on blog postings or sites that utilize their
  name. When they visit your posting there is a good chance they will
  read it.
  

General Blog and Feed Optimization Tips:

1. Providing
   full text feeds was noted regularly throughout the presentation as a
   far superior method for creating backlinks and getting found online.
2. Your blog feed should have 20 or more items never the minimum 10.
3. Provide a feed for every category your site/blog offers.
4. Ensure that you create keyword rich blog posts and ensure that your brand is well represented within the text.
5. Ensure the most important keyword/phrase is listed in the blog title.
   
   

Optimize Your Blog’s Linking Structure For Best Results

1. Provide
   a listing of the top 10 posts within your site so the stories do not
   get buried in archives or category pages. If the articles are
   performing well it is just logical to keep them in plain view to get
   more mileage from them.
2. Use Tag Clouds and Tag Pages to increase the possible routes to your valuable past content.
3. If you are using WordPress as your blogging tool it is a great idea to install the “Sticky Posts” plugin which allows you to ’stick’ an introduction or key post at the top of each category page.
   
   

Addressing Blog Duplication Concerns
By
opening up categories (a.k.a. ‘labels’ on Blogger) to the search
engines you increase the likelihood of having a great deal of
duplicated content. Fortunately the search engines have, so far, been
quite clear that duplicate content in blogs is not a concern because it
is a natural consequence of labeling. That said, there was a WordPress
plugin noted that would allow you to create controlled article excerpts
(or teasers) within the category pages. It is called “Optional
Excerpts” and by using it you can maintain the authority of the core
posting since the label pages will only provide a teaser versus the
full text of the article.