Users typically see about first 2 words for most text items on the web; they’ll see a little more if the lead words are short, and only the first word if they’re long.

This rule applies especially for title links so be careful how you write titles for your posts if you want to attract readers attention. It’s also good for SEO as search engines give better relevance to first couple of words and read just 50 characters or so.

Good Links

• Use plain language
• Use specific terminology
• Follow conventions for naming common features
• Front-load user- and action-oriented terms
• Examples:
  • “Gift Cards & E-Gift Certificates “
  • “New customers apply online now”
  • “First 2 Words Are All That Matters”

Bad Links

• Bland, generic words
• Made-up words or terms
• Starting with blah-blah and deferring the information-carrying text to the end
• Examples:
  • “Working while you study: paying tax”
  • “Introducing Chase Exclusives”
  • “Profit Accelerator Overview”

Guide Users to Correct Links

• Allow users to confidently predict what they’ll get if they click.
• Be clearly differentiated from the other links.
• Not be misleading or promise too much.

Nanocontent (first bit of a link) just needs to be good enough that users will sniff the most promising links in full.

Post from: BizzArtic - Blogging Ideas and Tips

First 2 Words Are All That Matters

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As you probably know right know, blogging is hard business so don’t take anything for granted. Becoming a successful blogger is not as easy as many think so keeping focus on mainstream problems is very difficult. Thus I’ve done a short study to find out which are top ingredients that make a blog successful:

Content

What you type is still one of the most important things you do when you blog. Actually it is the most important of all four ingredients but still depends heavily on each one of them. The basic purpose of blogging is about its content so try to focus on your words and concentrate on quality.

Design

If you don’t have looks than your content makes no sense. Still, don’t mix great design with beautiful one as it’s not the same thing. Great design is also usable as beautiful may overlap good content.

Performance

Faster is better and with little errors as possible your site becomes a winner in not time. So how slow is still tolerable? If your initial load time for first time visitor doesn’t exceed 5-8 seconds on normal 1mbit connection than you’re OK. Still faster is better and faster you get better you are.

SEO

This ingredient is not at least important (as it’s placed on last place) moreover it is probably just behind great content. Of what use your blog is if nobody can read it? Thus optimizing your blog visibility to search engines is crucial if you want to spread your word to the masses.

Have to say that all ingredients are not worth anything if they don’t complement each other. Invest your time equally in all of them and you should be fine. Otherwise be a celebrity and none of this is important:)

Post from: BizzArtic - Blogging Ideas and Tips

4 Ingredients of Successful Blog

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Today I came across a good advice from Will Critchlow that remided me how important Search Engine Optimization really is. To investigate problem (investing in SEO) further I wanted to know if SEO is still as important as it used to be. The simplest way to find that out is to research how often does search keyword ‘SEO’ appear in google:

Based on the image above interest rate in SEO has risen substantially, maybe even more when first signs of recession and credit crisis have emerged. That said I guess people do recognize the importance of SEO in rough times and  want to invest in their online presence,…but still be careful as investing in SEO is not the most important thing (in crisis) if your business is not based online.

Nevertheless here is what Will Critchlow said in his blog post:

Thanks to Ciaran for pointing out a micro-site from FT.com about how to beat the feeling of impending financial doom pervading the world at the moment.

The answer, according to research by McKinsey showed that:

The companies who increased their spend in a recession were the only ones whose profits rose substantially when the economy recovered.

McGraw-Hill found (when analysing the aftermath of the early ’80s) found:

The sales of companies who had kept advertising during the 81-82 recession had risen 256% over those who had not.

As Ciaran points out, this makes a compelling case for investing in PPC just now. I also think there is a strong argument for working hard at your natural SEO at times like these as well. When your competitors pull back, you get more chance to shine – and this can become a self-reinforcing authority phenomenon which stays with you into the good times.

Now, it’s unsurprising that the FT (and indeed, Ciaran and I) think that people should keep spending on marketing their businesses, but the wealth of independent research that the FT has gathered (and their own behaviour – they are continuing to invest heavily in promoting their own business) is pretty compelling in my opinion.

It is still a bit of self-promotion from him but reminds me that SEO is definately sth I would consider if I had enough money to beat the cash crisis:)

Post from: BizzArtic - Blogging Ideas and Tips

Investing in SEO on Economic Downturn?

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As my internet and blogging trip goes on I’m eager to learn how things are working out there. I have spoken before that I don’t get more than 100 unique hits per day so I want to know why the hell that happens? I’m really getting angry as writting a blog isn’t so easy as people might think.

One thing is for sure, writting good content is not merely enough to attract new visits (I am not saying my content is the best though:), there are tons of other things you must consider: SEO, Fast loading times, Keywords of pages, Links, Links and Links again,…and there is also hosting, good domain names, brand recongition, blog looks etc…

So why I’ve chosen to get my blog on WordPress.com?

My preposition is that WordPress.com and other similar sites out there have much better positioning in search engines so starting your own blog is something you really have to plan carefully. WordPress also has its own established community so you probably get much more attention, at least when you’re starting blogging.

My blog on wordpress.com platform

*

Pitfalls of transfering your blog to oher platforms

• You lose your independance (not literally:) as your design is dictated by new rules
• You can’t advertise whatever you want
• You’re not administrator anymore (controlling everything in admin becomes a wishfull dreaming)
• I won’t enumerate more lines, I suppose you know what I think, respect:)

Please Note that my blog will not be transfered to wordpress.com platform as this is just the experiment in my exploration of traffic sources to web sites! It has nothing to do with performance of my blog and will be terminated (schwarzenegger way:) when experiment ends.

Post from: BizzArtic - Blogging Ideas and Tips

How My Blog Goes if Positioned in WordPress.com?

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After lots of consultation with my colleagues (with lots I mean 4-5 people:)) I’ve decided that I’ll go further with my idea about blogging according to current search trends on internet. What you’ll see next is testing with bizzArtic blog, where I’ll start with few articles about web business, wordpress and enterpreneurial tips (thats my current topic of interset on the blog). If all goes right I’ll consider building a new blog with idea evolved much further.

How will I do it?

• SEO optimized content to embrace current search trends on the internet
• Globally targeted keywords and content tags (if that is too wide than locally)
• Generated links (pointing to article of choice) from other websites (SEO)
• Use of content material from other websites and link to them
• Use of links to only relevent and important websites (for content source)
• A lot of luck hopefully:)

What are the benefits of trends blogging:

• Lots of traffic I hope
• Usable content for users
• SEO optimized content
• Revenue stream from building traffic
• Always in trend as ideas for blogging are generated by users

Post from: BizzArtic - Blogging Ideas and Tips

Testing Google Trends Blogging

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