This is common to many people, I’m not trying to impress anyone but sometime simple ideas are brought to me by others that make me wonder why I’ve never thought of them.

Anyway…  Categories can be used in a number of ways.  Many blogs will explain how to use them for PR sculpting, usability or funneling.  But, you can use them to help other sites.

If you write a post specifically about another site/post/page elsewhere that you would like to help in the SERPs then write a specific post about it.  Title it and make a stong article using all the onpage tools you know.

But also give the post its own unique category, even the same as your title.  If you do this on a blog with standing power (you who have one know what that means) then you end up with a few things .  First, the indent.  A strong blog will be in the index within seconds and most likely the category page will be as well.

Now you have 2 spots.  After achieving that then 301 the category url to your target site and re-categorize your post to a new category.  You have a page in the serps as well as your target site, but you retain the article content you wrote so you don’t have any disappearing articles.

If you’re no-following your categories or have them roboted out then use a followed taxonomy that works in your blog.

I received an email that says:

“May God find you and touches your heart once and for all to stop the attitude you’ve taken upon you with this web site to condem many.”

It was from “email@god.com” so I gave it some attention. It was also from the same ip of someone caught committing crimes and earlier called out here. Ironic? No, stupid.

LOOK – I DON’T “condemn many” (though God can’t spell that word). This email was in response to calling out a theft, a theft later admitted to. This person sent a follow-up to me saying “bless you”. Give me a break!

It is NOT condemnation to say “hey – you stole that!” It is a coward that steals. Anyone with courage enough to confront is NOT judgmental. Those without morality, courage or ethics can call me what ever you want – you have the personality flaws. Sad, the day when “godly” people redefines courage and honesty is now.

You Godly people that feel it’s okay to cheat, steal and benefit from the labor of other people have some problems. Am I condemning you? No – you have your problems to resolve later and it won’t be me you’re rationalizing to.

So, to “God” – I know what you REALLY do, and God is throwing up. You may also want to apologize to your victim…

I hope he doesn’t come back, Google is supposed to ban a PERSON, not an account. But, spammers are clever. Best way to get these guys is their wallet – Google asks for feedback on their ads people, USE IT – click the Google logo in the adsense on the blog that scraped your article and credited a fictitious author.

Bottom line is that if your site goes stale, so will your numbers. Remember to offer a feed of some kind and a method for readers to subscribe to posts and email your colleagues when you post something they may enjoy.

You can see that there’s an trend upward in hits after each post. Disregard the last week on this pic for this site, those were iPhone x-mas gift receivers looking for my tools. I stalled in posting in November to let my Web2.OhMyGod article stick on top for a while – I got some good clickthrough but people were reluctant to comment, I think it freaked them out.

So, I’ve got a great tutorial for WordPress users coming in a couple days so be sure to check it out if you’re a blogger wanting to better your theme.

Click To Play

After listening to Darren, I considered all of it. Hmm…. what do I get out of this blog? As ProBlogger is about “making money from blogging” this site is not that, I have many other sites doing that. This is a place where, yes, it serves myself. But, as Darren points out, that’s a bad thing. Not really – I am happy giving away some jems and sharing some wares that I’ve made.I’m not seeking comments (that’s obvious) but am satisfied when I see the logs, the number of downloads and more.This site serves a degree of mental stimulation as well. This site with others are great testing grounds, the logs are used to analyze some ideas as well as stir things up. Sharing this video is partly what satisfies me, and hopefully you.

So, I responded to some email and I was told they fear leaving a comment becasue I may “rip on them” or otherwise try to humiliate them or make them a “target”. Man, I’m really not that mean of a guy! Sure, if you say the sky is green I’ll argue that, opinions aren’t a problem, I argue FACTS. (even if we’re friends) For the record I do have a touchy feely blog elsewhere where people love to talk – hmmmm.

Ok, I deviated there. This lone post is to let people that figured out the no-follow disabling I employ within this blog is NOT FOR ANCHOR TEXT COMMENT SPAM or completely irrelevant comments made (from what I see) purely to generate links. Hey, I could have just added the no-follows again in a few months and take them away completely! So I’m compromising. Comments from the same ip or to the same family of sites with varying anchor text in the ‘name’ field (That IS FOR your NAME) are not going to be approved anymore. I’ll most likely get some email complaints – those will be ignored.

So leave a RELEVANT and honest comment if you want the link-love. The links will be good, but they will be honest.

For those of you that try to comment spam me for your own SEO benefit:

Get a unique look. I love this wordpress template generator. No, I wouldn’t use its generated template as a theme, but it’s a great way to experiment with colors and gain inspiration. If you find something you like you can go ahead and tweak the code for SEO.

Or, if your looking for a pretty good SEO’d template to start off with, try copyblogger. “Out of the box” it’s pretty slick, but the CSS is built for very easy customization too.

Top it off with a custom favicon too. Be sure to promote your blog through all the means you now and discover, and remember to chase the long tail terms and mistyped versions. Check out this tool for variations.

Ok, short, but hopefully a few tools to help and inspire.

K

1. Permalinks. Log into your blog and go to options. Select ‘permalinks’ and then choose ANYTHING but the default url structure. This will give you friendly url’s. There are a couple of benefits here – It gets rid of the ?= parameter in the url but it will also include your titles or post slug as part of the address.
2. Titles. Maybe this makes too much sense but we all fail with it at times. If you altered your permalinks described in tip 1 then your titles will be in your url as well. Use keywords in your post title, use those words again in the post.
3. Sitemap. Though there is some argument about using sitemaps from Google I really feel using it with a blog is a benefit. A blog, by nature, is constantly updated so using this will only help you. If you are working on a static site, then I would consider a simple html sitemap, but with WordPress, use the sitemap plugin.
4. Ping Them. WordPress by default will notify ping-o-matic, but why stop there? Ping everyone. (i have a list at the bottom)
5. Simple Tags. This plug-in will allow you to tag words for Technorati at the base of your posts.
6. Ultimate Tag Warrior. I like this better than the above plug-in. It allows site-wide control of all your tags.
7. Header.php. Clean up this file – most likely it’s filled with all kinds of credit tags and other crud you don’t need. Delete it.
8. CSS Sheet. Clean this up. Make a backup first and delete everything not used in your project.
9. Footer Credit. Use this area to credit yourself, and do it on other sites under your control to link to your blog.
10. Do Follow. By default, WordPress injects a no-follow tag to comment links in attempt to discourage comment spam. I believe that fair credit should be given to those that contribute to your blog, so using the Do-Follow plug-in will do that. Be sure to use akismet spam control though, or you’ll be buried in spam. Encourage your blogroll buddies to use this so you get fair credit for commenting.
11. Social Bookmarks. Bookmark yourself, I mean bookmark EVERY post. Tag it with keywords and your industry. Do it again with another account. Do it again. Also, get the “Sociable” plug-in – it adds social networking links at the base of your posts.
12. Subscribe to Comments. This plugin when activated will notify commentors by email when future comments are made to a post. It’s great for bringing past visitors back again.
13. Blogroll Your Competition. You may say “WHAT!?” Yes – linking to relevant sources boosts your credibility.
14. Tell The World. Get your blog url in your email signatures and link to it relevant ways from other sites under your control. Use MySpace to post a bulletin about your blog. Climb a tower and scream – just tell someone!
15. Your Behavior. This is very important – DON’T be a blog spammer. If you try to gather links by commenting on every blog you find then you may be flagged as a comment spammer by akismet. If this happens then kiss your link building goodbye. Just be smart, make smart comments relevant to the post, don’t overtly promote yourself or drop url’s in the comment. This will help, I promise.

I hope this list helps.

Ping list:

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://1470.net/api/ping

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.feedster.com/ping.php

http://api.moreover.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

http://bblog.com/ping.php

http://bitacoras.net/ping

http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://blogmatcher.com/u.php

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://coreblog.org/ping/

http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt

http://ping.amagle.com/

http://ping.bitacoras.com

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://ping.blo.gs/

http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc

http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/

http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc

http://ping.myblog.jp

http://pingqueue.com/rpc/

http://ping.blogg.de

http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://ping.weblogs.se/

http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/

http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/

http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/

http://rpc.newsgator.com/

http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://rpc.wpkeys.com/

http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx

http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts-PREP/submitPingExtended.doz

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php

http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b

http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.blogoole.com/ping/

http://www.blogoon.net/ping/

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1

http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php

http://www.blogsnow.com/ping

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://www.holycowdude.com/rpc/ping/

http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/

http://www.imblogs.net/ping/

http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php

http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud

http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php

http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php

http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2

http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/

http://xmlrpc.blogg.de

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

Plug-in download