blogging 102

Reading time: 6 – 10 minutes Most webmasters today hardly have enough time to manage their web business and like to outsource most things which can be outsourced effectively. Outsourcing a web design or a service like SEO saves precious time and money when done correctly. The challenge most webmasters face today is finding the correct outsourcing partner. One who is well qualified to carry out the job, has the necessary references of past work experience and is also affordable. This article is an attempt to guide webmasters to correctly outsource SEO services. The SEO Outsourcing checklist: 1. Does the SEO Company/Professional you are hiring have a pre-formed plan for how they plan to execute your project? 2. Are they professionally qualified and do they have any third party certification which can be verified by you? 3. Do they have a website where you can examine their credentials, prices, testimonials, SEO package details? 4. Do they have contact details on their website like... 

Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes One of the very first articles I ever wrote on Internet Marketing had to do with RSS and it was entitled “10 Reasons To Put RSS On Your Site.” That was in 2004 and RSS was somewhat new and many webmasters were just beginning to place blogs and RSS feeds on their sites. If you do a search in Google, you can still find that article on around 2,000 sites. Most people now refer to RSS as “Really Simple Syndication” — although it originally stood for “Rich Site Summary” and was a very simple way of summarizing and syndicating your content in real-time to all interested parties. RSS had its early beginnings with Netscape in 1991 which introduced the first version of RSS (RDF Site Summary). Later versions would be introduced and made popular by Dave Winer of ScriptingNews and Userland fame who is considered by many to be one of the major founding fathers of RSS. Most people today associate RSS with blogs and blogging.... 

Reading time: 4 – 7 minutes RSS feeds are a great communication medium, and when properly managed, web feeds can bring in significant Internet traffic. RSS feeds should contain compelling themed content with episodic titles that are united in common broad theme. Use RSS feeds as an online marketing and search engine optimization tool. Just as optimizing an HTML web page will increase exposure, so too will an RSS feed that is properly optimized and promoted. Use these simple tips to improve your web feed exposure. Channel Title The channel title in your RSS feed is one of the most important aspect. The channel title should be keyword rich and contain information related to the general theme of the RSS feed. In order to maximize compatibility with RSS readers, it is best not to include any HTML in the channel title. The channel title is a website visitors first glimpse at the RSS feed, so its important to make an impression and attract the interest of casual browsers. Additionally,... 

Reading time: 8 – 12 minutes There has been much debate recently on the practice of ethical Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The recent removal of a high profile SEO company from the Google results has plunged the industry into yet another debate on what is ethical and what is not in our profession. I have been involved in the SEO industry for a few years now and the mention of the word ethics and best practices in what is still an unregulated industry creates a level of confusion the likes of which I have not observed in any other industry. Why does this reluctance to discuss ethics and best practices exist? After all, we call ourselves professionals and as professionals we should strive to be part of an industry which stands for best practices and quality of service. The confusion seems to come from the way that search engines rank sites. Each search engine has an algorithm which is a complex method of giving a value to a site which will ensure that it is returned in the search... 

Reading time: 4 – 6 minutes Before proceeding to other parts of the article, please take your time to read the following definitions: RSS: RSS, rich site summary, or really simple syndication, is an XML format for sharing contents (such as news items) among different Web sites. Feed: It is an xml file containing headlines and descriptions also called news feed, content feed, xml feed or web feed. Web Syndication: Web syndication is a form of syndication in which a section of a website is made available for other sites to use. This could be simply by licensing the content so other people can use it, but more commonly these days web syndication refers to making Web feeds available XML: Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a W3C-recommended general-purpose markup language for creating special-purpose markup languages, capable of describing many different kinds of data. Its primary purpose is to facilitate the sharing of data across different systems, particularly systems connected via...