Tutorials » The SEO Hobbyist

Google Adsense Alternatives

Here are two ad networks that I have used successfully as Google Adsense alternatives.  However, the best thing about the changes to Google Adsense’s TOS, you can now use both of these following ‘alternatives’ at the same time as Google Adsense. Remember, You can use any Ad network along side Adsense – once there is a clear difference between the two ad units. Your users should be able to clearly differentiate the two, and the best and safest way to do this is by changing colors and sizes.

Adbrite

Adbrite is one of the first ad services I used in place of Adsense. It has very similar CTR, eCPM, and Payout in my niches. One of its main benefits for beginner webmasters is that they have much more relaxed terms of services. Its easier for smaller sites or blogs to get approved and start monetizing their traffic – no matter how small. They do not have as many ad formats as Adsense but they do have the most common ones. After you add their HTML code snippet your page it can take a day or two before actual are serving relevant ads. If you can get over those minor inconveniences than it is definately worth checking out.

You share the revenue with the network, you get to keep 75% of all earnings.

Smowtion

I’ve recently learned about this international ad network called Smowtion. Some of the benefits are that these ads are great looking and have much higher CTR than my Adsense ads. The payouts were slightly lower Adsense, but as a secondary network it is great. Normally you only get to keep 60% of your earnings, but if you use this link you will get 80%. Since it is a relatively new network that is base offshores, many people are worried if it is legit or a scam. I can tell you from personal experience that they do pay.

Check this previous post if you are looking for Affiliate Partners and Direct Sale Alternatives For Adsense.

February 1, 2010 | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment »

How To Fix Canonical Domain Name Issues

What is the Canonical Domain Issue?

This occurs when there isn’t a Permanent Redirect (301) found at the root level of your domain. If not configured properly, search engines will treat your domain “http://example.com” and “http://www.example.com” as two different sites. This can seriously hurt your rankings! We will use that same domain name in the code examples in this tutorial.

Why is it so Critical?

This issue gets so much attention because it’s such a simple mistake that can hurt your rankings an incredible amount. It also gets written about often because the fix is relatively simple (with the proper instruction).  Follow the instructions below to make sure you get the “Full Credit” from every search engine.

How Can I Check My Website for This Canonical Domains Problem?

The easiest way to test if your site has this issue is to run it through one the following analyzers.

They both will tell you very clearly if there are any canonical domain erros, as well as provide you other information about your domain that is often over looked.

Here’s How to Fix It:

There are many ways to fix the canonical domain issue.  The first example is by using an Apache .htaccess file with the following contents. If your preferred name is http://www.example.com, then add the following to a blank text file named .htaccess, and upload it to the domain root:

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^example.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.example.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

Conversely, If your preferred domain is http://example.com then your last two lines would be:

rewritecond %{http_host} ^www.example.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://example.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

If you website is built in PHP, you can fix it with the following code snippet:

<?php
if (substr($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'],0,3) != 'www') {
header('HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently');
header('Location: http://www.'.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST']
.$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);
}
?>

And Finally, a 301 Canonical redirect using ASP:

<%
If InStr(Request.ServerVariables("SERVER_NAME"),"www") = 0 Then
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location","http://www."
& Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_HOST")
& Request.ServerVariables("SCRIPT_NAME")
End if
%>

How Can I Verify The Fix?

After making the above changes, re-run your website through the analysers that I linked previously. The fix should take effect immediately.

I hope found this article informative. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to enter them below.

<p style=”padding-left: 30px;”>r
January 26, 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , | 31 Comments »

I Created My Blog – Now What? An Essential Checklist For Your New Website

There is no better time to focus on your new blog or website’s search engine optimization than during it’s initial setup. Being an SEO and Web Development hobbyist, I find myself creating new blogs and sites all the time and have become very efficient at it. You’ve already spent all that time registering a domain name and choosing a web host. You’ve probably already decided, installed, and configured your CMS. You are finally happy with how your initial page looks and now what should you do?

All the following tips are free and easy to implement. Here’s my New Blog/Website SEO Checklist:

1) MAKE A BACKUP

Even the best web-hosts can not be trusted. When I was first starting in web development, I bought hosting from a company who promised me redundant 2 weeks of backups. What I didn’t know was that really translated to 1 backup every two weeks. My website crashed on a Sunday, which turned out to be the same day it was backed up. Come Monday morning, the only backup of my site was a few hour old copy of my crashed site. I had to learn the lesson the hard way, you should not! I will soon be writing a blog post specifically on how to keep your blog’s information safe!

2) Start your Web Tracking With Google Analytics

Everyone has to start somewhere. It is imperative to track your stats from the very beginning. Not only can it be a great motivational tool when you see increases in traffic – but also provides INVALUABLE information about your site’s audience. Even if you only scratch the surface with this tool, you can track your daily visitor count and then get comparisons to the previous month. If you love statistics like myself, you can go crazy with it. For example:

  1. What Time of Day Do I Get the Most Hits?
  2. Who are my Top Referrers?
  3. How Many Hits Am I Getting From International Users?
  4. Is Anyone Reading my RSS Feed?
  5. What Percent of my Daily Users are Visiting for the First Time?
  6. How am I Doing Compared To Sites Similar to Mine?
  7. Whats My Most Viewed Content?
  8. How Long Does an Average User Spend on my Site?
  9. How Many Pages Does Each Person View?
  10. If you really want to get crazy, you can find information like What Version of Flash Player are Most of my Visitors Using?

I could go on for ever about the benefits of Google Analytics, plus it’s free. Use it and thank me later.

3) Submit Your Website to the Following Search Engine’s Webmaster Tools:

Google Webmaster Tools
Yahoo Site Explorer
Bings Webmaster Tools

Not only will submitting your URL to these services help get you indexed faster, but they also provide useful statistics and information about how your site appears in their search engine rankings. I use Google’s Web Tools the most because they have the best stats on number of pages indexed and page load times. They also display the number of pages indexed in your sitemap right on the dashboard. I love seeing this number increase every time I log in. Another good use for Google’s Webmaster Tools is that they make it easy to find 404 errors (Pages Not Found) and have great keyword analysis.

That being said I think that Yahoo’s Site Explorer has more in-depth and accurate back-link tracking (sites that link to you) and updates at a faster rate than Google’s. I normally only submit my info to Bing’s Webmaster tools for the chance at faster indexing, but they have some great new features as well. For example, their tools are the only ones who give page ranks on your inbound and outbound links. It can be very helpful to know the search engine authority and popularity of your link partners. If possible I’d make sure to check back weekly on Google’s tools, and monthly on the other two to monitor your progress.

4) Run it through Website Grader

I realize that this is a cheesy/novice tool. But, if you can ignore that – there is no better way to get a baseline/benchmark (to improve upon!). They also check to make sure you haven’t made any classic SEO mistakes (like canonical domains).

5) Do Some House Keeping

These are the types of tips that are small and you should normally only have to do once.

Take care of the little things:

  1. Make Sure All Your Images Have ALT Text – Check this post for Top 5 Ways To Dramatically Increase Google Image Search Traffic.
  2. Define Targeted Categories and Tags For Posts/Pages – Having your targeted keywords in the URL is always a bonus.
  3. Remove Date Information From Permlinks – Having text like “2007/11/04″ in your URLs only increases the length and can make your content seem out of date and inadequate after a few months when that might not be the case.
  4. Add Meta Data to Your Headers – I’m aware this is mostly useless, but it only takes a minute and can’t hurt.
  5. Validate your HTML http://validator.w3.org/ – the fewer errors in your HTML the more search engine friendly it will be.

One last tip, after making all these changes be sure to MAKE ANOTHER BACKUP – Both Full File System Database!

Check back soon for my next scheduled articles:

  • 5 Essential SEO WordPress Plugins
  • 5 Firefox Plugins for SEO and Web Development
  • Best Google Adsense Alternatives
  • How to Keep Your Blog Secure

January 23, 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

The Top 5 Best SEO Tips for Beginners

I frequently get asked by readers to review their websites and give feedback on some simple changes they could make to improve their SEO. Universally, these are the top 5 problems I find that are easy to fix. Granted, they aren’t the ultimate solution by any means, but instead they are just easiest changes one can make that have the largest benefits.

1) Register your domain for longer than one year.

Believe it or not, all of the top search engines run some sort of background check on every domain they index. They compare your server’s IP address to make sure it isn’t listed on any spam blacklist, as well as performing WHOIS lookups to make sure your domain isnt registered by any known spammers. Another thing they look for is length of registration. If your domain is registered for longer than a year it shows the search engines that the owner is committed to the domain, and there is a lower likelihood that is a spam website. (Most spam websites are registered for short periods or time.)

2) Beware of Canonical Domains

This is the biggest killer of SEO rankings that I come across. It has a scary name but its really a simple idea. If you do not setup your domain name correctly,
example.com will be treated as a completely separate site from www.example.com. Check out this post on How To Fix the Canonical Domain Issue.

3) Utilize Free Tools

http://google.com/analytics
http://websitegrader.com
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools

4) Monitor and track your changes

5) BE PATIENT!

Many beginner webmasters expect for changes to happen overnight. It can often take weeks, even months to really benefit from the SEO tips found on this blog.

January 10, 2010 | Tags: , , , , | No Comments »

Registering a Domain and Choosing a Web Host

Not exactly an SEO tip, but this is my first article that ever went to print.  It was written for the Massachussetts Association of Realtors Bi Monthly Magazine, Bay State Realtor.  This article is the first in a three-part series aimed at providing you with the instructions and resources to help you get started creating your own website.

If you want to create a great real estate website but you aren’t very technical and you don’t want to spend too much money, this series can help you to get started. First, you need to register a domain name and choose a web host.

STEP ONE: REGISTER A DOMAIN NAME

The two most important reasons you will benefit from your own domain name are credibility and branding. A domain name that directly relates to or matches your company name can increase awareness to your personal brand and help to obtain new referrals if your current clients are able to remember your website address and pass it along to friends. Having your own professional website builds trust and tells customers you are forward-thinking and current with technology.

Selecting the Right Registrar

To purchase your own domain name, visit a domain registrar. See a full list of trusted registrars in the resources section of this article. The price of registration ranges from $7- $30 dollars per year, and the tools offered, such as e-mail forwarding, free starter pages, and advanced privacy options vary according to the registrar.

The most difficult part of this process is finding an appropriate and relevant name that hasn’t already been registered. Your first, second, and perhaps even third choices may have already been taken. Each registrar has their own tools to help you search for a name, and easy payment methods to have you registered in only a few minutes. Registration gives you exclusive use of that domain name for the length of time purchased. It is recommended that you register for at least two years. Also important to understand is the fact that most registrars offer their own web hosting packages, but you should shop around to find the right level of support, reliability, and extra services for you.

STEP TWO: CHOOSE A WEB HOST

The web host you choose can have a major impact on the experience users have when they visit your site. The most important things to look for are reliability and customer support. No matter your level of experience, it is imperative to find a web host that has knowledgeable staff and quick response times.

Web hosting costs can vary, from the budget plans ($5/month) to the premium packages ($20/month). The main factors that differentiate price include:

Web Space (amount of disk storage)
Transfer Volume (amount of traffic you can support)
Number of E-mail Addresses
Site-Building Tools
E-Commerce Support

Weigh Your Options

Be careful to weigh all of these options and think about what your website will need before committing to a plan. It is also important to note that many hosting packages come with a free domain registration. If you are having trouble selecting a host, consider researching on a forum site; one of the best is Webhostingtalk.com, whose primary purpose is discussing pros and cons of each host.

RESOURCES

Registrars

http://www.godaddy.com
http://www.netfirms.com
http://www.networksolutions.com
http://www.register.com
https://www.domaindiscover.com/

Discussion Forum

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/

Web Hosts

http://www.inmotionhosting.com
http://www.1and1.com
http://www.bluehost.com
http://www.aplus.net
http://www.hostgator.com

Look for parts two and three of the three-part series in the next two issues. Part two will cover how to decide on a CMS (Content Management System) and make it look professional, and where to find content to post. Part three will discuss how to market your website/ blog and how social media can help you.

| Tags: , , , | 4 Comments »