Denver SEO Blog » Blogging

Blog Comments Now Pass Juice – No More `nofollow`

Zack Katz — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 04:00:36 +0000

After lots of back and forth, I have decided to make comment links dofollow (removing nofollow); meaning that links users have in their comments will be followed by search engines. This adds value to the recipient’s site.

Please note:

If dofollow becomes a hassle, I will take it off
It’s easy for me to add nofollow to any comments, so please keep the conversation relevant. Manual link building sucks. But try hard to add value!
This blog uses Lucia’s Linky Love and always has, so post 3 or more times!

Enjoy, don’t abuse.

WordPress Comment Form 404 Error – Now Fixed!

Zack Katz — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 19:14:23 +0000

Disabling the Cookies for Comments plugin broke the comments form.

On the recommendation of Matt Cutts, I added the Cookies for Comments plugin to this blog, and also added their recommended .htaccess modifications:

RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !^.*XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.*$
RewriteRule ^wp-comments-post.php - [F,L]

When I realized that Cookies for Comments was slowing down my blog considerably, I disabled the plugin, but did not think to remove the .htaccess rewrite rule. The remaining .htaccess rules broke the comments on this blog (for two weeks now, could it be!?).

Comments are up and running.

Now that I’ve removed this code from the .htaccess file, comments are once again working – sorry for any inconvenience! I hope this helps others avoid frustration as well.

Denver SEO Blog Hits 100,000 Visitors

Zack Katz — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:23:23 +0000

I launched this blog in January 2008 – only 19 months ago. Since then, the blog has seen 100,000 visitors. I look forward to creating more posts that you find interesting.

Last year at this time:

The blog was averaging 18 readers per day. Now it averages 357.
The blog had 14,677 visitors. This month, we hit 100,000.

“Next year in Jerusalem Denver”, SEO Blog!

I’d love to see the blog continue to grow at this rate. That would mean that the site would hit:

11,283 visitors per month, 376 visitors per day, and 158,517 total visitors by next January
14,313 visitors per month, 477 visitors per day, and 253,436 total visitors by next July

For people who like statistics, this is the equation for the polynomial trendline. Check out the equation on Wolfram Alpha. My numbers may be off (I couldn’t stay awake in my 8am Statistics class in college!), but either way, I’m looking forward to checking in on the numbers in a year. Thank you, readers!

Integrate Blogger Into your PHP Website using Includes

Zack Katz — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:04:31 +0000

PHP includes for Blogger

Before writing this post, I looked online to see if others have written about this same topic. This might as well be Michael Gray’s “Integrating Blogger Into Your Website: Part II”, which he never wrote — though he did write Part I.

Step 1: Switch Blogger files to PHP

First, you need to update your publishing settings so that Blogger publishes your posts in PHP, not HTML (thanks to DevDoctor):

Set up your blog to publish via FTP (on Publishing tab)
Change the ‘Blog Filename’ to index.php
Change ‘Archive Filename’ to archive.php (on Archiving tab)
Finally, delete the old index.html file from the blog directory (otherwise it will probably take precedence over the new index.php)

Once you’ve got Blogger pushing out PHP, you’re able to do PHP stuff with the site:

Update the entire site at once - When I create a website, I always want to create the structure using PHP includes, so that I can set global site variables, and if I change it in one place, it changes across the whole website.
Set active navigation – Using SSI includes, I used to have to include a different file for each blog section on the site so that I could up. Here, I just send a variable to the navigation.php file, which tells it what page is active.

Next, I will show how to include these files.

Step 2: Get the absolute path to the includes

Note: the most important part of this code is that it uses an absolute path, not a relative path.

To find the absolute path of the file you are trying to include, you can:

Run the code below, and the error should show you the path in the error text itself, or;
Can add this to a file in the same directory as the files you’re trying to include, then go to the file in your browser:

Step 3: Update your Blogger.com template

Once you have the absolute path for the file, you can add the includes to your Blogger template:

global $pageID; $pageID = 1; // You can tell these files what page you're on include('/absolute/path/to/website/includes/navigation.php'); include('/absolute/path/to/website/includes/header.php'); include('/absolute/path/to/website/includes/sidebar.php'); ?>

Note: One of the items I was going to write about was passing some variables back and forth, but I’ve included only the $pageID variable. If you want to see more code, let me know in the comments below.

I’ve used this method in a couple of websites (designed by Atomic Idea and developed by Katz Web Design). Check them out to see the integrated Blogger blog:

Amp Alarms
Split Rail Fence Company

Step 4: Ask any questions you might have below

How to embed a private video on your blog

Zack Katz — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:29:31 +0000

Embed videos that won’t be indexed by Google or viewable by the public.

You might want to create a video and put it on your website, but you don’t want the rest of the world to find it via search engines or YouTube.

You may have a blog, and you want to give a few people access to a video that no one else will be able to watch.

Here’s a protected video embedding solution:

Upload your video to Viddler.com
Click Edit Sharing Options
Give the video privacy setting “Just You.” This prevents anyone else from seeing your video.
Click Enable next to Secret URL
Copy the Secret URL code
Click Embed This
Choose your player type and size options
Copy and paste the embed code from your video into your blog

Here’s the vital part:
Find the “secreturl” part of your Secret URL code from Step 5.
http://www.viddler.com/explore/your-username/videos/1/?secreturl=123456789
Edit your Embed This code from Step 8
- You’re going to be adding “0/yoursecretcode” to the end of two parts of the embed code. The added parts are shown in bold below. This allows your private video to be embedded publicly. Be sure to update the code for both the movie PARAM and the EMBED.
- 0/123456789" width="437" height="370" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowScriptAccess="always" allowFullScreen="true" name="viddler_aaa2e747" >
That should be it! Save your post and you’re done.

Thanks goes to Colin Devroe from the Viddler.com staff for presenting his solution. I wanted to share this with the world, because it’s hard to find a protected video solution that works well. They say it doesn’t work anymore, but I have tried it, and it does. Hush, hush!

What’s your solution for private, embedded vidoes?

I wanted to use Vimeo or YouTube, but their solutions didn’t really work for me. Do you use or know of any other, better options?

EasyVideoPlayer WordPress Plugin

SEODenver.com is new home of Denver Web Design & SEO Blog

Zack Katz — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 23:46:10 +0000

I’ve taken the plunge: the katzwebdesign.wordpress.com site is now mapped to seodenver.com, a domain I purchased last year. I’m not sure what the long-term plans are for this domain, but at least I’ll be building links to my own domain, not to WordPress.com…

This blog has great PageRank!

Zack Katz — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:21:15 +0000

So I’ve been working on creating great content for everyone out there, which happens to include Google. Well, it turns out that the Denver Web Design & Denver SEO Blog has been given a PageRank (their system of measuring the quality of a website) of 5/10…which is great.

I enjoy blogging for many reasons other than SEO, but it’s always nice when there’s a great reward, including good PageRank from Google.

Encouraging clients to write often…or using a blogging service?

Zack Katz — Fri, 09 May 2008 15:57:16 +0000

I’ve been working with the WordPress platform for a little while now, and I’ve been a regular blogger since January (though I had been promoting blogging for years earlier, and had my first blog in 2000 [yes, I'm a bit insecure about my blogging creds]). I’ve created many sites with blogging capabilities, some of them based on Blogger.com integration, and others WordPress.

I’ve explained the benefits of blogging many times to my clients, made nagging phone calls reminding them to blog — all to little avail. I even wrote an article about the importance of blogging to help explain myself. But still, the blogs remain silent.

What I tell my clients about the benefits of blogging

If my clients already know what a blog is, then I can dive into why it’s so important (other than people KNOW that it’s important). I tell them the following:

Blogging is a great way to reach people who may not be searching for what you want them to be searching for. Let’s say you have a service for “healing touch,” but it’s not “therapeutic touch.” With a normal website, you would not be able to rank well for the other key phrase. If you write an article on the differences between therapeutic touch and healing touch, you then will be able to rank for both phrases, even if your business only focuses on one service.

The more you write about what you know, the larger your online sphere of influence grows. By writing consistenly about topics important to you, you’re able to rank better in Google and other search engines, build a community of people who follow what you write, and become an authority on your topic.

There’s no other marketing medium like blogging where all you need to invest is your time, and you’ll get direct benefits. Fliers, radio, tv, newspaper, business chambers — they all take money. Blogging is free to set up, and free to use. You will get out of it what you put into it.

That’s the jist of what I tell people about blogging. They generally get very excited, get a blog, and post a few times. One month later, cobwebs form on their admin login form.

Maybe try a professional blogging service?

One thing I’ve considered is writing the articles myself. I’m no copywriting expert (I’m a Denver web designer), but I do know my clients’ business well. If they don’t have the time or commitment to write their own articles, they should find someone to do it for them. There are many professional blog writing services out there, maybe I should start recommending them?

Does anyone have any experience using a professional blog writing service?

How to increase online exposure through social bookmarking

Zack Katz — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:53:16 +0000

Are you having the exposure blues?

ArrayDo you write articles that few people read? It may be because they aren’t finding your article! Writing on your blog is not enough when you’re starting out. It’s important to spread the word.

Doing a little legwork after you write an article makes a large difference in the traffic you will get.

When you write a blog post, what happens?

Depending on the blogging platform you use (WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Movable Type to name a few), when you write a post, a few things happen:

Upon posting:

Your sitemap will get updated
Search engines and other websites will be notified of the update
Your RSS feed will be updated
Gremlins dance a jig around a cauldron of boiling yam juice and frog eyes

These processes will notify the search engines, but in order to increase your website’s exposure, there are a some websites you should submit your article to. After writing an article, take 5 more minutes and submit your site to bookmarking websites.

There’s a long list of social bookmarking services, but I’ll list a few here:

Some good places to start submitting articles:

Digg.com — the largest social bookmarking site. From their website, Digg is “…a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users.” Post your article to Digg here.
StumbleUpon.com – Add your article to StumbleUpon, and be discovered by people looking for interesting content online. ”Channel surf the internet with the StumbleUpon toolbar to find great websites, videos, photos and more based on your interests. StumbleUpon learns what you like and makes better recommendations.”
Reddit.com – Submit and vote on your article. Similar to StumbleUpon, “reddit is a source for what’s new and popular on the web — personalized for you. Your votes train a filter, so let reddit know what you liked and disliked, because you’ll begin to be recommended links filtered to your tastes. All of the content on reddit is submitted and voted on by users like you.

So when you’ve written your opus, and you want someone to find it, don’t leave traffic up to the search engines. Submit your article to multiple sites and watch as you get more users flowing in.

Long term effect

When you share your articles on these websites, you will experience an impact beyond the one-day increase in viewers.

Receive hits from users searching these sites for your article topics
Attract new readers who may decide to subscribe to your feed
Expand the reach of your website beyond the search engines
Increase exposure on the search engines
Attract fans and meet an online community

So, when writing your next article, don’t post and forget. Post and submit it! Plan on spending 5 minutes signing up and setting up each service, and another 2 minutes per article submission.

How to get more comments on your blog

Zack Katz — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 11:02:46 +0000

Array
I was asked a question by a potential client about blog comments. She was concerned that some of the blog designs I’ve created have little user interaction. She wrote (emphasis added by me):

I have been looking at the blogs you have created. I am wondering why there aren’t many comments. I want to use my blog to have extensive viral discussions; mainly to ask questions to moms that want to go back to the workplace. I want my blog to be primarily questions with as many comments responding as possible.

The question is a good one: why aren’t more people interacting? I wanted to dig deeper into the question: what contributes to comments?

I did a quick Google search and found some articles that try to answer how to get more comments:

10 quick methods to increase blog comments
5 Surefire Ways To Increase Comments On Your Blog
10 techniques to get more comments on your blog

Some solutions presented in the articles above:

There are the technical aspects:

reduce hinderances to commenting
remove rel=”nofollow”
allow users to follow responses to their comments

There are copywriting aspects:

feature open-ended questions
write in an interesting manner
be controversial

There are administrative aspects:

Respond to comments promptly
Moderate comments
Set rules (no hating, on-topic only)

But in the end, getting more comments on your blog is what happens when you build your blogging community.

My take on how to increase comments?

I responded to my potential client with this letter:

Dear [potenial client],

The essence of blogging is that you are actively building a community. No website can automatically generate a community; it needs to be built, nurtured, and worked on. Blogging is a commitment not only to writing articles, but becoming part of the blogging community. Blogging is as much about loyalty as it is about content quality and interest. Loyalty is both your loyalty to your readers, and theirs to you.

I started writing on my blog on January 23 of this year. At that time, I averaged 40 readers a week. Now, I average ~400 readers a week. The reason? More content, more interest, and more commitment = better results. When more people find my blog, more will follow it.

By working on developing interesting content and spreading that content online, I have grown my website’s influence. And yet, I still average only 1 comment per post…but each post is being seen by more people every week. It stands to reason that each week/month/year, I will get more comments on each post.

So, regarding your question about the number of comments on blogs:

You must continue posting through the lack of comments, and your website will come out stronger on the other end

Blog posts must be interesting, well worded, and open ended to encourage comments – especially the titles

The focus of a website may contribute to the nature of your visitors.

If it’s in their interest to comment (if they’re looking for feedback or advice), then you may get more comments

How many comments a post gets is also directly influenced by the vitality of your website’s community

Here are some websites that are great for blogging tips:

http://www.doshdosh.com

http://www.copyblogger.com

http://www.problogger.net

I am happy to discuss ways we can improve the “comment conversion rate” of your future website. I can also guide you on how to spread the reach of your posts online.

What do you think is the best way to improve comment response?

What you do to get more interaction with your readers? What works, and what doesn’t?