Doing Wordpress SEO is not difficult, even Google says that WordPress is one of the best blogging platforms for search engines optimization. There is so much competition though so it is important to optimize your blog SEO to attract organic traffic from search engines.

WordPress SEO

I got an email about the new Scribe blog SEO software because I am user of the Thesis Theme. Scribe SEO was created by the same team as Thesis and I just had to check it out.

Scribe is basically a WordPress SEO plugin that helps work with the blog on-page search engine optimisation. Scribe sits in your blog post writing screen and allows you to analyse the blog SEO of the post by clicking the “Analyze” button.

Clicking Analyze brings up a pop-up screen which looks something like the screenshot above (analysis above is for the “What diet is your blog on” post):

I got a low grade of 51% for that post. Scribe looked at following things to decide the grade. The first tab is SEO Score:

Title

• how many characters
• how many words
• does it contain primary keyword
• does it contain primary key word at the beginning

Description

• how many characters
• does it contain primary keyword
• does it contain primary key word towards the beginning

Body

• how many words does the body contains
• what is the keyword density of the primary keyword
• how many hyperlinks are there in the post
• how many hyperlinks at the beginning
• what is the flesch reading score and level

Out of all these, it tells me which ones I am doing fine and which ones I have to fix. In this post the title doesn’t contain the keyword at the beginning, neither does the description, the keyword “blog” exceeds the maximum of keyword density, and there are no links at the beginning of the post. That is why I only got score 51%.

SEO Keyword Analysis

Second tab is Keyword Analysis which basically analyses primary and secondary keywords and phrases in your copy. It also lets you know what is the keyword density of each of the keywords.

Third tab is Change Keywords which tells you to use more of the keyword throughout the text if you want to make that keyword a primary one or use less of it if you want to make it a secondary keyword.

The Tag tab tells me the list of semantically relevant key phrases that I should use in the article.

SERP tab shows me how my listing will look in Google or in another search engine result page.

Blog SEO Best Practices

Last Tab is called SEO Best Practices. This is a text that gives me FAQ and a definition of terms used in the other tabs. It tells what the optimal length of the title, optimal length of the description and the body is, best practices around how many links per how many words, why the Flesch reading ease is important and so on. It tells how the score is calculated.

I analysed some of my best ranking articles and how to install WordPress post has a score of 65% and my best WordPress plugins post has a score of 87%! There is no “analyse all” button so I do not know which of my posts has the best score.

Scribe WordPress SEO plugin has been updated several times since I’ve been using it so it is good to know that it will be kept as current as the Thesis theme is.

All in all an interesting product that can help you take care of the generic on-page WordPress SEO and in the long run hopefully increase your search engine traffic.

It is important to note that on-page factors are only a small factor of the whole blog SEO so getting a lot of social media mentions, getting great links and having a keyword rich domain name are still the factors that will give you the most search engine success.

This post has been optimized to 100% for WordPress SEO and blog SEO according to Scribe so will be interesting to see how Google takes it.

1. Add Keywords To Optimize SEO When Writing Blog Posts
2. 7 Steps To Keyword Optimize Your Blog Posts
3. How Google PageRank affects my search engine rankings and traffic
4. What To Consider Before You Create Your Blog
5. Link internally to increase blog page views, improve usability and Google rankings

Looking for a place to create a free website?  There are plenty of resources that allow you to create you own website, blog, wiki, or social community without having to know any programming language.  These free website creation sites allow you to easily create a site, customize the design, add content, and use a custom URL.

Take a look at 45 best web builders to create a free website.

Google Sites

Hey its Google and they are letting you create a free site….so do it.  As usual, Google makes it extremely easy to build a free website with cool integration features like Google Docs, Google Calendar, and RSS.

Windows Live Spaces

Webs

Google Knol

Google Knol came out about 2 years ago and even though it has not gotten the same praise as Wikipedia, it is still a valuable resource that you should take advantage of.  Free easy to create your own free knol and help position yourself as an industry leader.

Jimdo

Jimdo is a new free website builder that is very clean and easy to use.  As you can see in the screen-shot you can create your own url and add text, photos, and custom design.

AngelFire

Edicy

Squidoo

One of my favorite places to create a free webpage is Squidoo.  Not only do these pages tend to rank well in the search engines, but you can monetize them by adding amazon affiliate products and links, share easily through Facebook and Tweetmeme buttons and much more.

Yola

Tripod

Wetpaint

Wetpaint is the place to go to create your own free wiki in a matter of minutes.  Similar to the other website builders out there, however like a wiki anyone can add, edit, and remove content from the page.

WikiSpaces

Blogsome

Weebly

Wix

I personally don’t have a lot of experience with Wix, but it seems like a very neat way to create free flash websites.  They have separated themselves from the rest, since most of the free site builders only let you create html pages.  Would love to hear from anyone that has used Wix.

Hubpages

Hubpages is very similar to Squidoo, in the fact that you can build free pages and they tend to rank very well in search engines.  You can also make money by adding affiliate products, links and adsense in your hub.  It has all of the cool features that you would need including adding images, videos, ratings and reviews, and the ability to comment.

Piczo

Webnode

Moonfruit

Let’s Eat

For anyone in the restaurant industry, Let’s Eat is for you. Let’s Eat lets you create your own restaurant website where you can add information about your restaurant, menu, hours, location, and more.

Sauropol

GoGoFrog

Launch Splash

Nexo

Roxer

Viviti

Ever

DevHub

SnapPages

SnapPages is the easy drag and drop website creation service.  No need to know css to position your site!

350

WebStarts

BlinkWeb

Thoughts

ClutterMe

DoTemplate

ComfyPages

Moogo

GetShopped

Groupie Guide

Hyper Web Enable

Notanent

Blogetery

Blogster

Flooha

FreeWeb

We have tired our best to include all the great services which allows you to build free websites. Don’t forget to give your thoughts about the article via comments section or tweet us at @1stwebdesigner . We always love our readers feedback.

Open Identity Exchange (OIX) is a newly founded non-profit organization, launched today at the RSA Conference 2010 by Google, PayPal, Equifax, VeriSign, Verizon, CA and Booz Allen Hamilton. The aim of this new organization is exchange of online identity credentials across public and private sectors; in other words, it can certify online identity providers to U.S. federal standards.

OIX is not to be confused with OpenID, which is a standard that lets sites such as Google, Twitter or Facebook share the same login credentials. U.S. Government sites require a trust framework, a certification system that enables a party who accepts a digital identity credential to trust the identity, security and privacy policies of the party who issues the credential. OIX is the first Open Identity Trust Framework provider, enabling certified sites to share their login credentials with U.S. Government sites.

“OIX grew out of a public/private industry partnership initiated by the U.S. government at this conference last year. OpenID and Information Card technologies can solve the technical problem of using identity credentials across different websites, but can’t solve the problem of how those credentials can be trusted at different levels of assurance. OIX is a solution to this problem not just for the U.S. government, but for many different governments, industry alliances, non-profit associations, telcos, academic networks, and others all over the world who need to establish trust across a wide online population,” said Don Thibeau, OIDF Executive Director and OIX Board Chair.

Today, OIX has certified Google, PayPal and Equifax (with Verizon awaiting certification) to issue digital identity credentials that will be accepted for registration and login at U.S. government websites. Of course, this will be implemented gradually; the first site to accept OIX credentials for login is the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Read more about OIX at the official site.

Tags: Equifax, Google, OIX, paypal, U.S. government

It’s like open source software. If it’s developed by IBM, there’s no reason for another company not to use it. The documents aren’t owned or controlled by Fenwick. Fenwick isn’t getting paid for them. I don’t think there’s a reason for another attorney not to use them, except if they’re concerned over reduced billings. Lawyers have a financial incentive to make things more complicated because they are paid more.

I'd like to differ with Marc on this one. First, as Brad Feld points out, there are now four sets of "open source" seed documents:

• TechStars Model Seed Funding Documents (by Cooley)
• Y Combinator Series AA Equity Financing Documents (by WSGR)
• Founders Institute Plain Preferred Term Sheet (by WSGR)
• Series Seed Financing Documents (by Fenwick & West)

There are no shortage of "standard forms" out there. TechStars uses one set. Y Combinator uses another. Founders Institute uses a third. Andreessen Horowitz uses a fourth. And USV and other firms uses a fifth.

The problem, as Brad Feld points out, is that nobody has done the work to get all the various players in the room and standardize on one form. Ted Wang showed me the Series Seed documents last year and while I am hugely supportive of his intent here, I can't and won't get behind the Series Seed forms because they leave out some critical stuff that we simply won't do a deal without.

I guess it's like open source software in that there are many flavors of it out there. One project might choose MongoDB for their project. Another might choose Cassandra. A third might choose Hadoop. All will get the job done and all are open source. But each one has its strengths and weaknesses and there is no standard. That's ok with me as long as everyone understands it.

Ah, back to a full sized Logitech keyboard and mouse. Much better.

Popularized by iPhones, there are apps for just about everything, including tools to help social media marketers on the go. In fact, there are over 100,000 iPhone applications to choose from. Many of those apps are extensions of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Others serve as productivity tools for more efficient social web participation or for content creation.

As a content marketer that is also a big fan of social networking and sharing, here are a few of my favorites:

Echofon – Twitter usage on iPhones must be out of this world and while there are many great apps for Twitter including Seesmic, Hootsuite, Tweetie and Tweetdeck, I like EchoFon the best. It’s amazingly easy to switch between multiple accounts, its fast and there’s an auto-complete feature when typing in Twitter handles that saves a lot of time.  It works with lists very nicely but does not offer scheduled tweeting, which I don’t personally use much anyway.

Facebook – I probably use Facebook more on the iPhone than through the web site. Personal social networking or networking as an individual on Facebook is pretty easy to do with the app. What I’ve pictured below is where I also get a lot of productivity, which is being able to manage our blog’s fan page. We’ve gone from about 80 to over 1,400 fans in about 3 months and the convenience of adding to discussions via the iPhone has a lot to do with that growth.

Foursquare – You know those social media shiny objects that you’ve come to avoid but then they gain so much momentum and buzz that you have to try it out and then you end up liking them? That’s my Foursquare experience. It was the same with Twitter. Using Foursquare for marketing as an individual isn’t as obvious as what one might do with Foursquare location based advertising.

However, it can be pretty handy at conferences and events for announcing/leaking certain kinds of information. As a retailer or other business with a brick and mortar presence, can you imagine how useful it would be to know who your most active consumers are that are also active on the social web?

LinkedIn – While I’m not always by a computer (can you believe it?) I almost always have my phone with me and that makes accepting LinkedIn invitations (or not as you can see below) easy to do. Status updates are easy to do and can be seen by as large a social network as you care to develop. Thus the LinkedIn iPhone app makes it easy to feed that network. Quality trumps quantity here by far.

UStream Live Broadcaster – Capturing live video and audio plus the ability to poll viewers and promote on Twitter seems like a fantasy app for a social media marketer. Especially when you’re at an event and you want to capture something and get it out immediately. It’s amazing how easy the UStream iPhone app (U Broadcaster) makes this process.

Flickr – Capturing and sharing images is an essential part of digital asset marketing and social media marketing. The Flickr App makes it pretty easy to upload and manage images taken with your iPhone.

Google Buzz – Privacy issues aside, there’s plenty of buzz about Google Buzz and the only way I’ll use it is on my iPhone.  Let’s face it, with Google’s dominance and momentum, you can’t afford not to stay on top of their obvious efforts to become a social media powerhouse. It’s not exactly a standalone app though. However, Google makes it easy to add a bookmark to Buzz on your iPhone from Gmail so you can use it directly.

Update via Mashable: Apparently there’s a new app called Buzzie for Google Buzz on the iPhone.

AudioBoo – This is a handy tool for capturing and promoting on-the-move podcasts. It’s really a no-brainer except when you’re like me the first time I interviewed Vanessa Fox for a podcast and held the iPhone right side up, which for podcasting with an iPhone, is upside down since the microphone is on the bottom. Doh!

AnalyticsApp.com – What good is marketing online if you’re not MEASURING? For those with Google Analytics implemented on their sites and blogs (who doesn’t?) this app gives you insight into all the details of web visitor data you’ve come to love with GA.

Are these the bestest, newest and most awesome iPhone apps for Social Media Marketers? For this marketer, the apps I’ve listed above take care of 90% of my mobile social media needs. In fact, 4 or 5 would probably do the trick.  I do wish there were more social media monitoring iPhone apps though. Especially those that offer Social CRM functionality with your contact list. I’m also keen on finding task management apps that work well with Outlook.

What are your favorite iPhone apps for social media marketing?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | My Top iPhone Apps for Social Media Marketing | 33 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

“If you don’t eat your meat you can’t have any pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat!” Pink Floyd, The Wall.

That quote from Another Brick in the Wall reminds me of the cart horse situation with social media marketing:  If you don’t know your customers you can’t engage them. How can you ever hope to engage your customers if you don’t understand who they are?

There are so many questions from marketers and agencies alike about how best to grow businesses through online channels.  Questions are particularly popular when it comes to best practices for social tools. “Always do this” and “always do that” is what most marketers have been bombarded with for as long as there have been conferences to attend and email newsletters to subscribe to.

Inevitably, many of the most pressing questions about social media come down to understanding who you’re trying to reach. For example, some common questions I hear a lot at conferences:

Q: Should we blog or focus on Twitter? Is Facebook or LinkedIn a better fit? Foursquare or Gowalla? (Or other shiny object)

A: Find where your customers spend their time and spend your time there too.

Q: What type of social content should we create? How often? Where?

A: Study your customers as they create, consume and share content.  Then you’ll know the what, how, when and where. They why has to come from your organization.

Q: What  is the most overrated social media site?

A: The one your customers aren’t using.

So much time is spent on tactics without a good understanding of goals, audience and how to measure success with social media programs.  As we discuss Roadmapping social participation with companies, audience research is one of the key areas of importance. As I mention above, how can you reach and engage customers if you don’t understand them?

Let’s say you’ve used a social media monitoring tool like SM2 to identify who is talking about your brand and topics of importance to your prospects and customers. Within this analysis, you’ve noticed that there’s alot of activity on Twitter.

A logical next step might be to further investigate influential Twitter users.  If a paid tool like Radian6 or SM2 don’t fit your budget you can try free tools Trackur or Social Mention to gain some insight into content types, commentary and sharing/publishing platforms.

Other tools you might use to identify influentials on Twitter include directories like wefollow.

Under the tag, “SEO” you can see that Matt Cutts is the most influential.  Since reaching out directly to a popular person on Twitter, especially a Google employee, might not be prudent, it can be helpful to learn more about that individual and who they are influenced by as well as who they influence.

Using the site Klout, you can see a Twitter influence score (78 is pretty high) and other information including predictions on who is most influenced by Matt and more interestingly, who may be an influencer of Matt Cutts.

There are other tools that show communities surrounding an individual such as Top Twitter Friends.

As for understanding what kind of content someone likes on Twitter, you can look at retweets and @ responses. You can also look at what kind of content and what user tweets get favorited most,. Favstar is a tool that does just that.

In this example, Favstar shows which Tweets Matt Cutts has favorited. The types of content and users can be noted for guidance with future outreach.

I mentioned free social media monitoring tools above including Social Mention. Below is a screengrab that shows how much information you can get from Social Mention with options to download into Excel friendly formats.

Other Twitter user analysis tools worth looking at include Twitter Analyzer and Twitalyzer.

The basic tools I’ve shared here are just that, basic. They’re good for poking around and getting familiar with discovery of social content and influencers.  However, it would take a more robust tool set (which is what Agencies and larger companies do) to scale monitoring over many topics, influencers and conversations.

Other customer social media research tactics include:

• Survey your existing customers for social preferences and behaviors
• Review web analytics for social media sources and behaviors
• Tap into Compete, Quantcast, Alexa  information on specific social sites
• Leverage profile information provided by advertising staff on social sites themselves

In combination with directly observed and experienced customer behaviors and preferences, general site data can compliment understanding of customer social content needs.  What are some tactics and tools you’ve found useful for researching customers on the social web?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | Customer & Influencer Research in Social Media | 26 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Mark Suster is a Partner at GRP Partners, a Venture Capital firm in Los Angeles. He blogs at Both Sides of the Table and can be found on Twitter at @msuster.

I’m often asked by entrepreneurs and business owners whether it is worth blogging, and if so, what they should blog about. On the first question, the answer is obvious to me — you must blog as an entrepreneur.

In this post I’ll cover why you need to blog, how to determine what to blog about, and finding your blog’s voice.

Why You Must Blog

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I believe that blogging in your business is vital to creating a public personae and making your company more accessible. In an era where companies like Zappos have differentiated themselves based on service, it is important to be public and accessible.

My industry of venture capital, for example, has been shrouded in secrecy for 30 years, making the process of raising funds opaque for most entrepreneurs. When I started my first company in 1999, there were almost no public sources of venture capital fund raising information. Years later I discovered the blog of VC Brad Feld, then later VentureHacks, and Fred Wilson’s technology & VC blog, each of which clarified and demystified the venture capital process.

So when I started blogging, I mainly viewed it as “earned media,” or a chance to let entrepreneurs get to know me by sharing my thoughts online with complete transparency; a concept that is repeatable for any business.

In less than a year I’ve attracted a large monthly following of readers who come to my blog to discuss how to build startups, how to raise money, and to get my thoughts on technology markets. By publicly sharing my thoughts, I’ve been able to engage in online discussions with people all over the world, and though it was an unintended consequence, my deal flow has gone up dramatically. In other words, blogging can be a valuable networking tool and help the bottom line.

What Should You Blog About?

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Start by defining the audience with whom you want to have a relationship. Presumably they are your customers, partners, suppliers and your broader industry as a whole. You should think about what kind of information they would find valuable. You should also try to talk about something that is differentiated from what other blogs in your field cover, even if your approach is just slightly different or new.

Make sure the topic is something that you’ll have a passion for writing about on a regular basis. If you’re not going to keep up with your blog, you shouldn’t start one in the first place. It’s a commitment, believe me. If you pick a topic that relates to your customers, but you’re not that passionate about it, then you may have a bigger problem on your hands!

The Right and Wrong Way to Blog

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Let me give some examples of the right and wrong approach to blogging.

Right: I always liked the Mint.com blog. Even in the early days when they were relatively unknown, they blogged about personal finance. They talked about how to manage credit and balance your bank account — obvious topics for a startup focused on managing personal money. They were able to take a leadership role in talking about managing your money in a way that supported their brand and created a community around their product.

Wrong: A friend of mine has a company in the personal finance space also. His blog was all about how to run a startup and raise venture capital. He was outrageous, brash and crass in his style, and I told him so. I said, “Your goal isn’t to be the cool kid in the venture capital circles. Your job is to build a great company and you’ll be a hero in entrepreneurial circles as a result of your success. Speak to your customers — that is what a blog is for.”

Finding Your Blog’s Voice

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So you know you need to blog, and you’re convinced you ought to write about something you’re passionate about and that speaks to your customers. How can you create something that people will want to come and read every day?

1. Be authentic

The thing that kills most blogs, in my view, is when you can tell that the writer is just going through the motions. You need to find a “voice” that is authentically yours. People will get used to your style and your style will become your signature.

2. Be transparent

The “old school” way of getting media attention was to submit press releases. These were artificially crafted documents that were filled with glowing reviews of your company. In short, they felt fake. The best way to establish your voice is to be transparent.

Be willing to talk like a human being. Be willing to show feelings and a point of view. Let your inner self come out rather than your “inner bullet point.” Don’t use too much lingo. Don’t feel like your prose has to sound like it was crafted by a university professor. Just speak!

3. Get inside your readers’ minds

I give this advice often and in many scenarios, including public speaking. When people speak to many audiences, they sometimes get into a canned routine. They give the same presentation no matter which crowd they’re addressing. The key is that each time you present, you need to think about who is in the audience and what they want to hear. The same is true for blogging.

On my blog, my audience is made of startup entrepreneurs and probably other VCs. When I write I try to be mindful of who these people are, the knowledge I assume they have, and what I believe they want to know.

4. Solicit feedback

I ask people what they want to read about. I regularly ask for feedback on what I’m writing. When people give me good suggestions, I try to cover those topics.

When community members write awesome comments, I’ll sometimes write a post about what they said to highlight them and their contributions. In my opinion, the best way to build an audience over time is to engage with them and to highlight those that really contribute positively to you.

5. Don’t be offensive or take big public risks

I sometimes read blogs that get extreme. I read a blog once that jokingly suggested “offering your angels cocaine if that would get them to invest.” It was intended to be funny. It wasn’t. And comments like this run the risk of offending people. This was a blog about personal finance, and I found the comment totally irresponsible and at odds with the brand image the blogger was trying to project.

I read a blog yesterday where the author was trying to make fun of a negative comment he got on his product. The blogger highlighted him and called him “retarded,” which I, and I’m sure many others, find offensive. There’s no upside to this type of comment, but there’s a big downside. My esteem for him went down.

Further, unless your company revolves around taking stands on controversial issues, it’s best to leave your political commentary at home. Statements like these stand to upset or anger half of your potential customers no matter what side you take.

6. Have fun

This may be obvious, but if writing a blog becomes a chore for you it will show. Try to make your writing fun and it will be easier to stick to. It will also reflect in your voice.

Happy blogging!

More blogging resources from Mashable:

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- 14 Fantastic Free WordPress Themes
- HOW TO: Build a More Beautiful Blog
- How the Resort Industry is Using Social Media
- Why Brands are Becoming Media
- 4 Elements of a Successful Business Web Presence
- How Social Media Helps One Small Business Connect with Fans

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, johnnyscriv

[Image Credit: Kristina B]

Tags: blog, blogging, business, entrepreneurship, how to, small business, social media

We're Not Fighting, We Just Have Different Goals

In blogs and blog comments there's some contentiousness about the goals and measurement of social media.

The debate is simply a misunderstanding. There are multiple goals, purposes, or functions of social media, including brand management, new business, customer service, and repeat business.

[I've noticed two more functions since I made this chart a month ago. I'll cover market research and competitive intelligence at another time.]

A lot of the debate is simply people who are branding-focused arguing with people who are direct-marketing-oriented.

Neither is wrong- it's a matter of what your goals are. We can stop arguing about whether Social Media's KPI should be fans, or market share, or revenue. It depends on your goal.

Which evokes my 5 steps of optimization: First choose a goal, then quantify it, then iterate toward your goal with flexible strategies and tactics.

Another concept you should understand is my 6 spheres of social media, which classifies prospects according to their distance or proximity to you. The following diagram comes into play in several of the social media functions.

Spheres one, two, and six figure into the following diagram about how the four functions of social media interact:

Get people onto your social lists: read section three about incentivizing action in social media.

Social list increases chances of conversion: the 6 spheres illustrates that people in your social list are closer to the cult of buyers you're looking for. They'll hear about you more often, which means it increases your mindshare.

Use special offers as incentives to purchase: there's more about this below and in section three here.

So, given the various functions, what role does ROI play, and how can you maximize it? You'll have to overcome these challenges:

Vigilant Chatter Monitoring and Quick Responses: Not monitoring chatter and responses to your campaigns can lead to negative PR. Social media is not neutral. People may lose affinity if you execute poorly

Vetted Messaging: Plan your messaging. Given a variety of character limits on different social platforms, how can you best say the various things you want to say? How will you combine social responses with the brand messages or offers you want to convey?

Planning and Protecting Offers: Do you have an offer for social media people only? Do you have one for repeat buyers? Do you have a special offer for each social platform? Plan these and then be disciplined. If a repeat buyer's special is offered to a new social customer, you make your repeat customers feel less special.

No Guts No Glory: If you want to get attention and interest in social media, you need to be unique, interesting, and stimulating.

Give People a Reason: Why should they do what you want? Because you're so awesome! Oh wait, that's doesn't work. Ok how about a carrot for the donkey? Watch your conversion funnels and add more carrots at conversion points that are slow.

Brian Carter is Director of SEO, PPC, and Social Media for Fuel Interactive, cofounder of TweetROI, and a passionate keynote speaker.

Post from: Search Engine People SEO Blog

Ensuring Social Media ROI, Part Two: The 4 Functions of Social Media