The whole idea of On-page SEO is based on keywords and keyphrases. “Keywords” is the name usually given to the words or phrases that best describe your page content/purpose and best match the words people use when searching for your content. Keeping this idea in mind, what you need to do to get your website optimized for search engines is to pick one of the most searched words or phrases which best match the content of your page.

For example, if you have a web design company, a good keyphrase would be “Web design”, because hey! it’s the most searched keyphrase all over the Internet related to your content (5.000.000 searches a month). So anyone would think that this is the best idea, but actually it isn’t. A very often searched keyword is more likely to have a very large amount of competitors (everybody wants the jackpot), which means that you will need to work harder and spend more money in the rest of the optimization (which is sometimes virtually impossible).

Now, you may be wondering, how can I know how many searches a month does a keyword get? This kind of information is provided freely by some ad systems like Google Adwords and Yahoo Overture (among others). In this article I’ll use Google Adwords keywords tool which I believe is the best to work with.

The URL for Google’s tool is https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. There’s no need for registration, once you enter the page you can start searching for keywords. The tool usage is very simple, you just need to enter a term, for example “web design”, and fill the security code field. Once you submit the form, a list with searches related to your keywords shows up.

The resulting list will not only tell you how many searches a keyword gets on a monthly basis, but will also give you an idea of how many people may be targeting their optimization to that keyword (the more searches a keyword gets, the more optimized pages you will find). This is why you may not want to look at the top of the list. My advice is to pick up something with 1.000.000 searches a month or less (for the previous example, it could be “web design company”).

Besides, you can also use this list as a suggestion tool to pick up a more accurate keyword. For example, if you were looking for something like “web design” you may find that a more accurate keyword for your company would be “web design services”, just because “web design” is a very extensive topic that could go from tutorials to templates.

Lastly, take into account that search engines get cleverer everyday, so keywords shouldn’t look artificial anymore. This means that you shouldn’t repeat your keywords constantly all over the page. Instead you should make slight changes to the keywords so they keep saying the same thing but with different words. In the previous example, the variations could be: “website design”, “designing a website”, “design of websites”, etc.

Source: TextCafe.net

For those who want to add a multiple-line email signature in their device, here’s how:

1, Open the MemoPad app

2. Type in your contact information like name, phone, etc using the enter key to create separate lines

3. Press the menu key and press “Select” which allows you to highlight the text. Use your device pointer to highlight all the text

4. Press the menu key again and select “Copy”

5. Escape from the MemoPad app by using the red disconnect button to go back to your main icons or wherever the “Email settings” icon is located

6. Select the email address you want to append the email signature to (that is, if you have more than one email address created in your device), select “Edit” and scroll down to the “Signature” box. Press the menu key and then select “Paste”.

Use the “Save” button to save your email signature.

That’s it.

Send yourself an email and see if your email signature works. Please note that when you compose an email in your Blackberry, your email signature is not displayed but when the email is sent out, the email signature is appended to your message.

Know of similar techniques? Why not share them with us?

Up to now, we still see people displaying their email addresses in their blog posts. And these include columnists of major news sites which we find very disappointing.

The practice of displaying email addresses in web pages is an open invitation to spammers who use spambots which crawl on webpages to harvest anything that looks like an email address.

There are several methods to fight off spambots.

One method is to use an online contact form which obfuscates the recipient email address.

If you are using WordPress, there are a number of “contact form” plugins.

Here are two of those available in the WordPress community which we have been using in our websites:

• WP-Spamfree eliminates comment spam, including trackback and pingback spam. The plugin includes spam-free contact form feature which can easily be installed in two minutes or less.
• Contact Form 7 which allows you to design as many contact forms you want in your website. It also supports features like AJAX submitting, CAPTCHA, Akismet spam filtering, and file uploading.

With contact form plugins that can easily obfuscate email addresses, are you still displaying your email address on your site?

In the past few months, we posted two articles on how to encourage audience response.

One article suggested a comment rating system to promote interaction with readers. The other article is about online polls to measure readers’ reaction.

But aside from these two, what else can a blogger do to encourage audience or readers response like leaving comments?

Let me share with you what others have written and which I have also found effective:

1. Ask your readers to leave a comment. I guess, this is the easiest part. You can end your post with statements like: “Please, leave your comment on this post before you go,” or “Feel free to share your thoughts on this topic” or “I would love to hear what you think. Why not leave your comment.” Most readers would be just too happy to comment if there is a direct statement them to do so.

Here is an example: “What do you think? Should we abandon the use of apostrophes when writing in Tagalog?”

2. Write about hot topics. An interesting article can capture your readers’ attention, and stir them to share their views about your post. What is a hot topic? Depends on your interest or rather your area of expertise. I’m sure you know the danger of blogging on topics that the writer does not know anything about.

3. Do not let your readers feel that they are alone. Respond to your readers’ comments appropriately. Thank them and make them feel that you appreciate their efforts in sharing their views.

Other techniques to encourage response and repeat visits include adding an auto-notifier link which allows your readers to subscribe to your comment page. An auto-notifier will alert subscribed readers when there is a response to their comment. This means when you or another reader has replied to their comment, they would know right away.

You can find an example of an auto-notifier in the comments box below. Why not demo it to see it in action?

So, which techniques have you found most effective in your blog? I am certain there are other ways that you know to encourage your readers to leave their comments? Why not share them with us. // Thanks.

If after installing and correctly configuring Featured Content Gallery, a WordPress plugin by iePlexus “that creates an automated rotating image gallery of your posts or pages for use anywhere within your theme,” still the images do not display, chances are you have an active Lightbox 2 plugin installed in your WP site.

All you need to do is deactivate Lightbox 2 which has almost the same functionalities.

That was an experience I would like to share with you.

Going over the topics related to WP.com blogs we have covered so far, it would seem that we would have covered most of the main concerns of our WP.com bloggers. We will be posting new articles, albeit short, on this site relating to WP.org blogs or the so-called self-hosted WordPress blogs to address queries hitting our mailbox.

That said, we would still be covering topics related to WP.com blogs but we would first pass it through our WP.com page before re-posting them here. That way, we would be able to sort out any issues with the WordPress.com developers before getting them bedded on this site.

In an earlier post, How to customize your blog with widgets, leanpearl asked: “How do I put text widget in my header? I wanna use it for social networking sites’ icons.”

I thought I use my response to that question as a separate post so it wouldn’t get lost as we progress.

Here is my response:

That’s a very interesting question. Unfortunately, I don’t think I have an expert answer to that.

But here are some thoughts and observations:

1. The widgets in a WP blog are dependent on (a) the plugins installed and active in a site, and (b) the structure of the blog theme, ie, whether the theme had been coded to allow widgets in the header, sidebar or footer.

2. As we all know, most WP themes display widgets in the sidebar, and some themes also display widgets in the footer. I have checked the more than 70 themes in WordPress.com, and I have not found a theme with the options you have in mind.

That said, you may wish to check your theme options including its Custom Header, if any.

For example, this theme I am currently using has several options to customize its header. I can insert a standard 468×60 banner to the right of my site name (which obviously I did not do). The banner can be replaced with other displays like SNS icons using HTML, or anything within the TOS of WordPress.com.

In short, the key to customizing your header is to look for a theme that gives you that option – to change the image, to change the color, to change the text or to insert other objects.

Hope this helps.

This is me, of course. Others may have differing views or ways of customizing a blog header.

Let us hear from you.

When a WP blog shows off on its sidebar the following:

or worse,

without any additional information, I start asking: “What exactly does that mean?”

If a blog stats are presented in this fashion, the numbers look like a block of meaningless information.

Blog Stats widget dialog box

I know this may be hard to swallow, but that is the truth.

Let me just backtrack a little bit and elaborate before someone starts calling me names.

1. Currently, there is no method which can claim to produce web statistics with 100% accuracy. And the resulting numbers are dependent on what methodology is applied to generate those numbers. The fact that even Google has to explain the terms used in its analytics and how the Google numbers are calculated shows the difficulty in coming up with commonly accepted standards. You may wish to check out this page as an additional background.

2. Without being critical, WordPress.com in its Support page provided not enough information as to what the Blog Stats numbers are. Perhaps, to others the numbers need no explanation? Or perhaps there is another related Support page which I missed? I certainly don’t have the answer to that.

3. Again, without being critical, the same WordPress.com Support page says that we, the bloggers, can choose which word to use in describing the numbers. The two popular words, according to WP, are: “hits” (which is the default label in the Blog Stats widget dialog box), and “views”, the label “views” being more consistent with the label “Total Views”, used in the Blog Stats Dashboard | Summary Table.

4. The use of “hits” was okay, and even a buzzword, many many years ago. Is it still okay to use “hits” these days without defining what you mean by “hits”?

5. In technical terms, “hits” is not “visits” nor “views”. “Hits” are the number of files served when a web page (no distinction here between WP “post” and “page”) is requested from a server. A graphic, an icon, a banner and all sorts of files that make up a page are, technically, “hits”. For example, when you opened this page, the server’s log should have recorded at least 40 “hits” just on the bullets, icons and images alone displayed on this page.

Given this background, where does that leave us if we want to show off our WP blogs stats?

You may have other ideas, but right now I can think of only two things we can do to correctly show off our WP blog stats:

1. Stick to using “Views” to label those numbers. I will not use labels like “hits” or “visits” if I were you. In the absence of additional information from WP, these labels may be inaccurate information. You may be describing the numbers something that they are not. In the Blog Stats dashboard, the numbers are labeled “views”, remember?

2. Disclose the period covered by the stats. Again, the numbers are pretty much meaningless unless the period to which they relate is described. Here is an example to show how futile and frustrating it is to read blog stats crafted using the Blog Stats widget:

If you are the owner of this blog and you know that your blog stats are for 12 months, no problem. You know what your stats stand for. But if you are a visitor of this blog and you don’t have that same information, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? What do these 3,000 views represent? Are these yesterday’s views? Or perhaps, last week’s? Or last month’s? Or, last 12 months’? And how do I compare the “popularity” of this blog with another blog with only 1,500 views but I know that this other blog has been online for only 2 months?

Any suggested wordings?

By the way, I am not fond of showing off my site’s stats whether here at WP or in my company’s websites. We also do not display in my company’s websites any stats counter or meter. But if I were to show off my blog stats on the sidebar, I would probably disclose the numbers this way:

or something like:

A little bit long, you think? But no one will argue the suggested wordings are not misleading. And they are easy to understand.

Again, in a worst-case scenario too, you can present a screenshot of your blog stats dashboard plus some other information about your blog to prove that the blog stats you are claiming are factual. That is, if someone starts questioning your numbers and you need to show proof. About your friends being very pleased? I am sure your friends would be happy to come to your rescue and say they are pleased with your blog!

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End Notes: The WP Blog Stats inside my blog’s dashboard is an excellent tracking and management tool. With the Blog Stats, I learn a lot about my blog. But when used as a widget and without additional information about the numbers displayed on the sidebar, the stats are meaningless. Did I step on sensitive toes with this post? I hope not. But if I did, that’s a risk I take.
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After seven weeks, I have written more than 20 articles including How to customize your blog with widgets. When I had only 15 or less articles, I did not have any problem listing all my articles on the sidebar using the Recent Posts widget since the widget allows 15 for linking.

But what if you have articles much older than post number 15 which you want to promote and get the most out of those posts? How do you promote them?

I am not sure about others, but I have looked at widgets like Top Rated or Top Posts, and they may not be the answer to my quest. After all, if the posts we want to promote are already top rated or most visited, there is really no point highlighting them for our visitors to notice, is there?

The other approach is to configure your blog Settings > Reading to whatever number of posts you want displayed on your main page. The default is 10 posts. The downside of this method (aside from it being an indirect method) is that your visitors would have to scroll all the way down and may not even notice the article you want them to see. And worst, what if the post you want to show is, for example, post number 75?

Activate the Tag Cloud widget? Again, this is very indirect, and does not immediately display the results you want.

Why not simply be straightforward? As they say, be bold. Stake your claim.

Use the Text widget.

All you really need is insert your promotion text and a little knowledge of HTML coding to direct your visitors straight to your target posts. The top sidebar of this blog is created using the Text widget. See also Personal and more… in my personal website for another demo.

In the hands of an HTML writer, the Text widget is the easiest and most effective method. With the Text widget, you also have better control on how to display your promotion messages.

To me, the Text widget is a powerful tool. Are you going to leave it idle?

By way of background, below entry was meant to be posted at my WordPress.com blogsite to conclude my seven weeks of blogging there. Instead, I decided to post it to this site. Hopefully, this will explain why most of my posts and articles in this site refer to WordPress.com.

I am using the same title I have at WordPress.com for this blog, Working and WordPress-ing. In my seven weeks of blogging at WordPress.com, I have posted more than 20 entries mainly dealing with “how-to’s” which made available in this site.

***

On day 1 when I started this blog, I mentioned that I am here at WordPress.com to gain insight into how it is to blog at WordPress.com.

Now running into my seventh week into this WP blogging journey and after 24 posts, I think I can say that I have achieved my objective. I’ve learned a lot, and I thought I was able to return the favour by sharing with you what I learned plus my experience as a self-hosted blogger.

We have covered various topics by way of posts and comments including the following :

• A PollDaddy poll outside your WP blog
• A simple solution to tweet and retweet your WP posts
• How to embed a Vimeo video
• How to embed a video in your WordPress.com-hosted blog
• How to blog spam-free at WordPress.com
• The role of internet service providers in curbing spams
• Displaying photos in a gallery as an instructional aid
• If you want to customize your tweets from your WP posts, do not ignore the developer’s Support page
• Revisiting PicApp images and embed codes
• Experimenting with PollDaddy in my blog
• How to encourage audience response
• Experimenting with PicApp images in my blog
• How to customize your blog with widgets
• How to post by email (an experiment)
• How reliable is Alexa in measuring your site’s traffic rank?
• How to upgrade your WordPress theme
• How to start a blog at WordPress.com (A quick digression)
• How to XHTML validate a WordPress theme
How to select a WordPress theme
• How to blog at WordPress.com

The above articles are available on this site as well as in my WordPress.com blog.

Now that we have covered most of the basics in WP blogging, it’s time to move on. ( Note: I exported my WP posts to this site today.)

I will still be writing articles on WordPress-related topics, but these will be posted in my self-hosted blog and if allowed, distributed here.

What makes a self-hosted WordPress blog attractive to me? Conversely, what makes a WordPress-hosted blog unattractive to me?

Here are four reasons:

Themes. I like to experiment with themes, their layout, their architecture, their CSS, etc. This, I can not do here at WordPress.com unless I upgrade my account. Currently, WordPress.com has 77 themes. They are good themes, I admit, but most of them do not meet my requirements. (Like this theme I am using right now is not among the 77 themes.)

Plugins. I am restricted from installing plugins or scripts.

Inbound Traffic. Whilst a WP-hosted blog can leverage on the traffic coming from the traffic of other WP blogs flowing from “Possibly related-posts” linked at the bottom of every post, the traffic that I generate for my blog is “credited” to WordPress.com. Should I decide later to blog in a self-hosted blog (like this one), the traffic ranking I generated for my WP-hosted blog remain with WordPress.com. It is not portable.

Revenue. On paper, there are restrictions from running third-party ads in a WP blog. This is covered by point #5 / Item 2 of WP’s Terms of Service (see part of the provision which I styled in bold, below):

the Content is not spam, is not machine- or randomly-generated, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing);

Setting up a self-hosted WordPress blog is not that difficult. If you need help, please do not hesitate to contact me. Our group offers web hosting which includes WordPress and other blogging platforms.