Blogging for SEO

This article is not for those of your thinking about blogging to make friends: its for those of you who have a blog to improve your site's site engine ranking. For those who think that a BLOG stands for a Better Listing On Google.

Heres the steps.

1. Set up a blog giving it a name and description that utilizes your target keyphrases. I don't know which blogging software is best. I don't know if its better to have a blog on a site (eg www.homeschoolonline.org) or have it on a blog hoster (such as www.homeschoolblogger.com/edmouse ).

2. Write a few dozen articles. Short. Maybe two paragraphs each. Schedule them for publishing once a day or once every few days or whatever. Space them out. They should make sense, be on target, and be OK. These initial ones won't get many readers so don't go all out.

3. Include links to leading sites that are relevant to your subject. Maybe a link or so in each article. This establishes your blog as legitimate.

4. Get others to link to you. This could be done by intelligently commenting on other blogs or in forums or newsgroups in ways that mention your site or using your site as your byline. If you do it right, this draws traffic, makes friends, and soon you are getting links. It helps if you really care about your topic. If you are terribly witty and social, it helps. If you have insider insights, it helps. But then, you would be writing for people, not just for the spiders (which is this article's topic).

5. Make sure pingomatic or other blog registers get "pinged" (notified) each type your articles are published. Some blogging software does this automatically, others don't.

6. After awhile, include a few links to your own domain. The links should come come from your target keyphrases. For instance, second grade math help .

7. Make the links as relevant as possible. For instance, if you are writing about John Edelson, discuss a number of johns and edelsons and maybe some johnsons and edels and then at one point, link to the site like this: john edelson

8. Keep this up for a few years.

9. Repeat with different blogs on different addresses with different content as necessary.

Eventually, all else being equaly, it will help raise the visibility of your site. I hope. Good luck. Lets hope google doesn't switch to a new type of algorith which focuses on user preferences rather than site links too soon...

more...on seo blogging including linkbacks and articles

Having students with learning issues? Dyslexia - Attention Deficit - Sensory Processing Disorders - Autism - Aspergers - Downs Syndrome

Is there a free lunch? Not in the homeschool domain monetization space.

Uhg, I just looked at this month's results on traffic club for the six sites that I parked there. Web Home School, family homeschool, gifted child, Florida HomeSchool, gifted child, and gifted student : literally $.83!!!

Here's what the table shows. It shows that theres no traffic......
A total of 17 visitors for a total $.83.

I somehow thought their service included directory submissions etc. Guess not.

Home Page issues - SEO vs Readability

I just reread my home page and I decided to bite the bullet and rewrite. It was written by an SEO geek with the intention of driving traffic. The terms he built around:

term / my google position
Educational teaching games 1st
learn to read 18th
lean to read programs 6th
learn to read program 20th
kid (s) math game (s) 62 / 64 / 85th
kid (s) reading game (s) 42 / 45 / 47 / 55
home education not in top 100

What I hate is that the page just does not read very well.
Also, it expresses a point of view of Time4Learning circa early 2005.

What has changed?
- We've learned that members care passionately about curriculum and educational content.
- We've learned that all the educational bells and whistles (reports, redos, detailed scope and sequence, teaching guides, answer keys) are of great importance to our families.
- We've not found much of an audience who cares about using our service as a "better-than-video-games-type" entertainment baby-sitting service

So, I'll focus on improving the writing and try to pick some new pictures. I'll retain the two expressions that we have done well on:
- educational teaching games
- learn to read programs
And drop the others.

About About, 101, Bella, and ivillage

There are an array of megasites which seem to appear in the top listings for alot important keyphrases. I suspect that they know what they're doing in terms of seo. Here's what I'm wondering about...Is there a reason that they use addresses that have the key term on the left side of the URL instead of the right? And, how do they do it? Are these independently listed URLs? Examples:


http://parenting.ivillage.com
http://homeschooling.about.com/
http://specialneedschildren.bellaonline.com/Site.asp
http://autismspectrumdisorders.bellaonline.com/Site.asp
http://specialneedsparenting.suite101.com/

Examples of the other way:

http://about.com/parenting/
http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/homeschool_curriculum
www.amazon.com/100-Top-Picks-Homeschool-Curriculum/dp/0805431381
http://www.time4learning.com/homeSchool-curriculum.htm
http://www.bellaonline.com/site/Homeschooling
http://www.time4learning.com/learning-dyslexia.shtml
http://www.bellaonline.com/site/specialneedschildren
http://www.time4learning.com/learning-sensoryprocessingdysfunction.shtml
http://www.time4learning.com/autism.shtml


Is there a difference in terms of SEO impact? Does this require registering different domains? If not, how do they do it? I thought domains were defined by a common domain name which meant www.domainname.com . I've never fully understood the relationship between www.domain.com and domain.com but I'm not at all sure how to think about www.onetopic.domainname.com and www.anothertopic.domain.com .

Anyone know any articles on the topic?