Ever wonder why you can have 548 friends on Facebook yet only 15-20 show up in your news feed? It’s not that those other friends have stopped using Facebook. Chances are, they are still there. It’s just that they aren’t showing up in your news feed.

Top stories is the Facebook default setting. Top Stories will only show objects with a higher edgerank.

If you haven’t noticed, there are two settings on your Facebook news feed: “Most Recent” which shows most of the content published by your Facebook fans in chronological order and  “Top Stories,”  which filters content based on “edgerank.” Friends and fan pages with a high edgrank are more likely to show in your “Top Stories” stream. Users with a low edgrank may not even show in your “Most Recent” news feed.

For businesses or others looking to market,  promote or just interact through Facebook, the implications of this are huge. “Top Stories” is the default setting so unless a friend or fan changes his default, it’s quite possible that they will never see your updates. No matter how good the content, no matter how well you manage your Facebook page, edgerank might be holding you back.

Edgerank Defined

Facebook looks at everything published as “objects.” These can be status updates, links, photos, video or anything else that can be shared on Facebook. Every object receives a ranking (edgrank) which determines if it will show in your personal news feed. Objects with a high edgrank appear in your “Top Stories” feed. Objects with a low edgrank will not. According to a study conducted by The Daily Beast, objects with a really low edgrank may not even show in your “Most Recent” news feed.

An object’s Edgerank is based on three factors: affinity or the relationship between the creator and user,  interaction with the object (likes, comments, etc) and timeliness. Add the three factors together using a formula that only Facebook truly knows and you’ve got an object’s edgerank.

Unlike Google’s Page Rank which stays the same from user to user, every object is scored based upon the individual Facebook user who may (or may not) view the object in his or her news feed.

Let’s take a closer look at the three factors that determine edgerank.

Affinity

An object’s affinity score is based upon the interactions you have with the “friend” or fan page that published the object. Friends or fan pages with whom you regularly interact receive a higher affinity score. Each time you visit a fan page, click the “like” button, comment on a user’s status or look at a picture, you increase the affinity score with that user.

As The Daily Beast study points out, this affinity score only works one way. I can’t increase my affinity score in another user’s feed by constantly clicking on his “like” buttons or looking at his pictures. Although doing so will increase the likelihood that you’ll see their updates, your objects won’t do better in their his feed until he returns the favor.

Level of Interaction

Different types of interactions are weighted differently in Facebook’s eyes. Activities which require higher levels of user engagement get a higher score than those that don’t. For example, leaving a comment on a photo takes more effort on the user’s part than clicking the “like” button. Objects that receive higher levels of interaction are more likely to show in a users news feed.

Timeliness

Most people don’t want to read yesterday’s news. Newer objects have a better chance of showing up in your news feed than older ones.

Armed with an understanding of these three elements, there are a number of things you can do to increase the likelihood that your content or objects will appear in your friends’ or fans’ “Top News” feed.

Publish Objects that Encourage Interaction

Objects that encourage interaction and sharing can increase edgerank.

Unless they are interesting enough to draw comments, simple status updates aren’t going to move you into Top News feeds. Publish content that naturally encourages click throughs or creates discussion. Objects such as creative games that require a response (ie. trivia, caption contests) open up opportunities to add highly weighted interaction and build affinity with new users.

Create a Forum

Ever notice how political comments on Facebook can generate a ton of comments? Although it doesn’t take long to realize that Facebook and politics don’t mix, people love to debate and discuss hot issues. Make your fan page a place a place for constructive discussion on the latest industry topics. Although this approach takes careful management, objects from a fan page filled with healthy discussion are more likely to receive a higher edgerank.

Make the Most of Photos and Videos

Photos and videos show up in the Facebook news feed as thumbnail images. Due to their size, they almost require interaction as users click on them to make them large enough to see. Be sure to add a comment that encourages users to open the photo and add comments of their own.

Share Links

Links require interaction as users click on the link to view the object. While it’s good to share content from your own website, don’t be afraid to promote content of interest from other sources. Twitter users discovered long ago that the more content of value you share, the better chance you have of driving followers to your own content when the time comes. Again, a comment that encourages opening the link or leaving comments can go a long way.

Keep it Fresh

The Facebook stream moves quick. If you’ve got objects that aren’t getting a response, don’t be afraid to let them go and move on to the next thing. If the object is good but didn’t get the response you desired, consider repurposing it or sending it out again at a different time of day.

Ask Users to Share

Don’t be afraid to ask users to share objects or click on the like button – especially if you are new to Facebook. It can take a little while for a Facebook page to gain momentum. Anything you can do to help it along will only speed the process.

Although the introduction of edgerank may make it more difficult to share information on Facebook, ultimately it still comes down to content. Publishing content that users want to share and interact with has always been vital to any Facebook marketing campaign. With the recent Facebook changes, that content may now need a little extra push to give it the attention it deserves.

A dynamic website which incorporates a blog forms the foundation of all social media marketing. Your website is where the content is published and ultimately, where the conversions happen.

Fellow content marketing specialist Patricia Redsicker created the infographic below pointing out the benefits of Blogging for business vs. Facebook marketing (I’m an especially big fan of the SEO benefits of blogging).

It’s not that Blogging is better than Facebook, however, the two should work hand in hand. That said, dropping a business blog in favor of Facebook could be a big mistake.

My background in SEO, web design and content marketing piqued my curiosity as to why so many Realtor websites seem to be missing the boat and along the way I found the same mistakes being repeated over and over again.

Here are five things Realtors can do to improve their websites:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Real Estate search engine rankings are easy pickings (at least from what I can see). Most large brokers either don’t provide SEO tools in the websites they provide for their agents or the agent doesn’t use them correctly. Of the Realtor websites I found that did include meta titles and descriptions, many were poorly written and often included some serious key word stuffing (which can actually hurt your search engine rankings).

The meta title and description provide information that helps the search engines index the web page and also helps determine what shows up in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Most good website content management systems (CMS) provide a place to enter meta data. This is one of the reasons I like WordPress for building websites as it is very easy for the end user to add the proper titles and descriptions for the search engines. Meta titles and descriptions should be created for every page on the site. Keywords are not as important as most of the search engines no longer consider them.

It is also important to include meta titles and descriptions on property listings. How many potential home buyers see a home and search by address? If your listing is not optimized for the search engines, chances are someone else has optimized it improving the chances of the property coming up on their website and not yours.

This is the SERP for JAL Communications. Good meta descriptions on each page can help break out website content in the search engine returns.

Writing a good meta title and description isn’t difficult. Think about what words the target audience would use to find your services. Use those words to create a summary of the page or blog post. It is also important that the meta title and description are engaging enough that they encourage the reader to click through to your website. With a property listing, title and description can be as simple as the address and description of the property. A good IDX service should do this automatically or allow you to create them with very little effort.

To see the meta descriptions on your website, right click anywhere on the page and choose “View page source”. Look at the top of the code for “<title>” and “<meta description>.” You should see the title of your document and a brief description. This is what the search engine sees when it looks at your site. For a more detailed look, a tools like SEOCentro’s Meta Tag Analyzer can provide greater detail and tips for improving your title and description.

Don’t forget the XML Sitemap.
Although this may seem a little technical, a Google XML sitemap acts as a road map for your website. It guides the search engines through your website, helps them to index the information on your site and notifies Google when your site is updated. This is something that your web designer should have built into the design of your website. Once installed, you don’t need to worry about it. There are a number of tools available to check that your XML sitemap is in place and working. Validome offers a basic one here.

If you are using WordPress, there are a number of plugins that will take care of the XML site map for you.

Integrate Blog Into Website

Blogging is one of the best ways to move your website up the search engine rankings but it only works if the blog is directly incorporated into the website. When you blog on a third party service like WordPress.com or Blogger, those blog post are not helping your website move up the search engine rankings. Google likes fresh content and each page you add to your website offers another opportunity for Google to find your site.

Blogs also give potential clients a reason to come back to your site. Good blog content builds trust with potential clients and demonstrates your expertise. Add a good call to action and you can direct your readers to take the next step in the buying process whether that’s capturing a lead or looking at a listing.

If you are going to blog, build the blog directly into your website.

Optimize For Mobile Devices

How many potential home buyers drive by a property, see a for sale sign and pull out their smart phone? If your website is not optimized for mobile than you are missing this potential client. Don’t believe me, take a moment and look at your website’s analytics  (you are using Google Anlytics or another analytics program aren’t you?). If you haven’t checked in a while, you may be surprised by the number of visitors using mobile browsers. This includes both smart phones and tablet computers such as the iPad.

If you haven’t already, open your website on both a smart phone and tablet computer. If you can’t easily view the site neither can your potential client. There are a number of ways to create websites that work on mobile devices. The most recent developments include “responsive design.” A website incorporating responsive design allows the site to adjust to any size.

This blog is mobile responsive. To see mobile responsive design in action, adjust the size of your browser window and watch this page adjust to your viewer. If you are looking at this on a mobile phone, you should already see the effects of mobile responsive design. (Forgive me as I’m still working out the mobile responsive kinks on the home page.)

Use Tools to Direct Potential Clients

While it’s handy to find mortgage calculators or other real estate tools directly on a Realtor’s website, too often they lead the visitor off the site with no easy way back. If your goal is to generate a potential lead or encourage a home buyer to contact you, sending them off the website without a clear link back will only drive them away.

Use third party tools to direct your reader to take the next step in the buying process. That could be as simple as offering an email for more information or downloading a customized pricing report. Instead of linking the tool to a different website or blank page, directly embed the tool into a page on your website. This allows you to add text, email subscription forms or anything else you need to direct your reader above or below the tool.

Be Careful With Canned Content

Look Familiar?

“If you are thinking of selling your home, chances are you’re caught up in a mass of emotions.”

Sound familiar? A Google search of the sentence above bring up more than 1.1 million results. Not only that, if you look closely at any of those pages, you will see that it comes from content with a copyright date of 2000. Maybe it is good information, maybe it isn’t but as a potential home buyer (and seller), I see it as seriously outdated. Since 2000 we have seen a massive real estate market boom followed by just as massive a bust. How would you feel about an investment firm that proudly displayed 12-year-old information on their website?

From a search engine perspective, duplicate content of this sort may again hurt your search engine rankings. Google likes fresh, original content and is making efforts to prevent websites filled with unoriginal  or worse stolen content from reaching the top of the search engine rankings.

Canned content of this sort may have a place if it truly provides information of value to your target audience. If the information is truly of value to your potential clients, use it as a way to generate leads. Package it into special reports or white papers and offer them in exchange for an email address. Use related articles as newsletter content for your growing list.

Don’t Allow Website to Become Cluttered, Outdated or Unprofessional

When potential home buyers land on your website, you only have a few seconds to capture their attention. Websites that are cluttered, outdated or unprofessional looking only encourage visitors to move on to the next website. Focus on clean simple design that directs the user where you want them to go.

Stuffing too much information into the sidebar or worse, on the main part of the website can drive potential clients away. Put your website on a diet and trim away everything that doesn’t directly lead to a desired action. Can’t decide what to drop? Use your website analytics to determine what converts and what doesn’t and build from there.

The fewer choices you offer, the better chance the visitor will make a desired choice.

The Solution

Fortunately for Realtors and other small business types, it has become much easier to build and manage a website. WordPress, once a popular blogging tool, is now a powerful website and content management system. A basic WordPress site can be built for little more than the cost of the time invested. More advanced WordPress designs can incorporate powerful SEO, IDX integration, featured listings with scrolling photo galleries, embedded Google maps and more. Once installed, adding new content or listings is about as easy as creating a document in Microsoft Word (if not easier).

With the advancements in webdesign and the affordability of WordPress web development, there is no excuse for not developing a powerful website that works.

Need help with your real estate website?
Click Here to learn more about our web design services
or contact JAL Communications and let us help you build a powerful website for your business.

Note: This article originally appeared on Social Media Examiner. It has been updated to reflect changes that have occurred since it was originally published.

In an earlier article, I talked about the importance of blogging and search engine rankings. A topical blog naturally adds keyword rich posts that increase your chances of rising to the top of the search engine results. However, once you’ve got the blog up and running, the next thing to do is to start optimizing your posts for the search engines. Although SEO can be overwhelming to the newcomer, once you understand a few basic concepts you’ll soon find that it’s really not that difficult.

While many think there is some deep dark secret to SEO, it’s important to understand that the search engines exist to help users find information. They do this by looking at a web page and quickly determining if the page includes the information the user desires. At it’s most basic level, if the web page is a close match, the site returns a high ranking. Once the search engine has found the web page, factors such as quality incoming links affect which site lands at the top of the page.

The first step is to make it easy for the search engines to find you.

Good SEO copy and a search engine optimized website accomplishes three things:

1. It is easy for the search engines to read
2. It is easy for the target audience to find
3. It is easy for the target audience to read

Everything you do to optimize a post or website is based around those three basic concepts. All you’re doing when you optimize a website or blog post for the search engines is making it fit those three criteria.

So with that in mind, here are five simple things you can do to optimize your website or blog posts for the search engines:

1) Start with quality content
The first and most important thing you can do is to write a good, informative post that is accessible, easy to read and appeals to your target audience. In the old days of SEO copy writing, web pages were stuffed with keywords to the point that it hurt the actual content. Aside from the fact that the search engines have caught on to keyword stuffing, readers are going to quickly bounce from a page that doesn’t provide the information they were seeking.

Information of value to the target audience is also much more likely to attract incoming links. When search engines see other websites linking to a web page, especially if it includes relative content, they determine that the web page holds information of value and moves it up the search engine rankings.

SEO starts once you’ve got a solid blog post or web copy.

2) Determine targeted keywords
Think like your target audience. What words will they be using to find this post? Once you’ve written your post, it’s important to decide how you want readers to find you. These search terms are your key words. With a well written post, the primary keywords are often obvious. However, there are a number of tools available to help with keyword research. One of the most interesting tools I’ve found is Google Wheels.

The great thing about Google Wheels is that it gives you an idea of how Google thinks. When you enter a search term, Google returns a “wheel” or web of related terms. You can then click on each of these related terms to create more and more wheels. Using the wheel, you can quickly find related key words that should be included in your post or meta information.

For example, the term, “seo tips” returns a Google Wheel with related terms such as “seo tools,” “meta tags,” and “search engine optimization tips” — all keywords that occur fairly naturally in this very post. With a little revision and by including these terms in the meta title and descriptions (see below), I can easily include these key words in my optimization. When Google sees a related keywords in all the right places, it can easily determine the information on the page improving the chances that the page will receive a higher search engine return.

To find Google Wheels you need to turn off Google Instant which can be found under the settings options on the top right of the Google search page. Once turned off, expand the left-hand column on the main Google search page and look for “Wonder Wheel.”

3) Write strong meta titles and descriptions
Meta titles and descriptions tell both the search engines and the reader what is on the page. The meta title and description are also what shows in the search engine results so it needs to convince readers that they should click through to the website. Good content management systems and and blogging programs include a place for Meta information. In WordPress, premium themes such as Thesis or Studiopress include fields for SEO optimization. You can also use plugins such as the “All in One SEO Pack” which makes it easy to input meta information. Other platforms such as blogger require some basic coding. Whatever platform you use, the meta information is a vital step in optimizing a web page for the search engines.

Good meta descriptions match the content on the page. Primary keywords should appear at the beginning of both the title and description. Title tags are limited to 72 characters and title descriptions approximately 165 chacters. Anything longer will be cut off in the search engine results. While it’s acceptable to use a number of keywords in the meta information (as long as it reads well), don’t overuse terms. Repeat a keyword more than twice and the search engines may actually penalize you for key word stuffing.

4) Analyze and revise
The next step is to analyze your copy, determine which key words are rising to the top and make appropriate revisions. The problem is, it can be hard to tell which words the search engines will recognize as primary keywords. Fortunately, there are a number of tools available that will analyze a web page and show you primary keywords or keyword density.

Most free tools require you to publish the page before you can run an analysis. SEO Centro’s Meta Tag Analyzer provides a detailed analysis of a web page or blog post. It shows the relevance of the meta content to the information on the page, how it will appear in the search engine results and an in-depth key word analysis which includes key word density.

Along with keyword density, SEOCentro analyzes meta tags and their relevancy to the page content.

Textalyser.net and Live Keword Analysis allow you to analyze copy and determine selected keyword density before publishing. With both of these tools you’ll need to determine the primary keywords based on the density of the term. When looking at keyword density, it is important to keep the density below about 5%. Any higher and you might be penalized for keyword stuffing.

I personally use Scribe for SEO to analyze a web page or post before publishing. Although a premium tool, Scribe will not only make suggestions for revision, it identifies primary and secondary key words and provides tips for moving alternate key words to the primary position. The latest version of Scribe also includes built in key word research and link building tools.

Once you have a clear picture of how the search engines see your page or posts, you can go back and revise to emphasize or change desired keywords.

5) Internal and External Links
It’s important to include both internal and external links in your post. Internal links help the search engines index your site, identify primary keywords and can increase the page rank of linked pages. When linking to other pages on your site, it’s important to link related keywords instead of terms like “click here.” Linking by keyword tells the search engines that there is related content on the linked page.

For example, note the first sentence of this article, “In an earlier article, I talked about the importance of blogging and search engine rankings.” A common SEO mistake would be to link to the term “article.” However, “article” has little to do with the content on both this page and page to which I’m linking. However, the phrase “blogging and the search engines,” includes key terms important to both articles.

External links or links leading to pages outside of your website do a couple of things. Like internal links, external links help the search engines identify important key words. Even more important, they can help create incoming links from other websites. When you link to another site, the blogger or webmaster will usually see a “trackback” or incoming link. If you offer related content, it’s possible that your colleague might find information of use on your site and in turn, link to one of your articles. Incoming links from relevant and reputable websites are highly valued by the search engines. Actually, they are probably one of the most important factors when determining search engine ranking.

Just like keywords, you don’t want to overuse linking. Too many links and it becomes spam. You also want to be sure that you are linking to quality websites both in the eyes of the search engines and your readers.

6 Optimize the URL
One of the easiest yet most overlooked elements to optimize is the URL. A simple URL which includes a couple of keywords helps the search engine determine what’s on the page. URLs such as www.yoursitename.copm/2010/09/12/post143 tell the search engine very little about the topic at hand. A URL such as www.yoursitename.com/seo_tips not only provides two highly targeted keywords for the search engines, it is much easier for your reader to remember when looking for your article.

A real world example:
An analysis of the text up to this point in the article (using Scribe for SEO) shows the following primary keywords coming out of this article:
the search
blog
posts
seo
engines
tips
Optimize

Not really the words I wanted to highlight. “The search” comes from my repeated use of the term “the search engines.” I would much rather see a term such as “search engine optimization tips.” It’s important to note that when I ran my analysis, my meta information looked like this:

As you can see in the meta information, I’ve included the term “the search” in both the custom title tag and the meta description. I need to drop “the search” from my meta information so that it reads:
Custom Title Tag – “SEO for Blogs in Six Easy Steps”
Meta Description – “SEO isn’t all that complicated. These six easy tips will help you optimize your blog posts.”

When I run the analysis again, I can see that “SEO” has become my only primary keyword. I’m not quite happy with that as I want “SEO tips” as my primary keyword so I’m going to change my title tag to read, “Six SEO Tips for Blogs” and change “easy” to “tips” in my meta description so that it reads, “SEO isn’t all that Complicated. These six SEO tips will help you optimize your blog posts.” Doing so makes both SEO and SEO Tips primary keywords.

In this case, changing the meta worked because I had already come close to my desired keywords through the natural process of writing on the topic. I could also refine even more by going back to my original article and increasing or decreasing the number of times a keyword is written.

Although SEO may seem overwhelming and it may seem like the rules are always changing, remember what I said at the beginning of this article. A well optimized blog post is easy for the search engines to read, it is easy for the target audience to find and it is easy for the target audience to read. If your blog posts and web pages stay true to these three points, you are already way ahead of the SEO game.

What are your favorite SEO tips? Is there an SEO tool you’ve found valuable in your blogging?

Editors note: This article originally appeared on Social Media Examiner

How many times have you heard someone say, “I just want that top search result on Google?” For a business website, the top spot in the organic search engine returns can be a lead generating machine. One of the best ways to gain that top spot is by blogging. Incorporating a blog into a website can have a huge impact on the overall website’s search engine rankings.

A blog does two important things in terms of the search engines:

1) Adds naturally occurring, keyword rich pages.

2) Increases the potential for incoming links from high quality
websites.

Let’s take a closer look at how each of the above affects a website’s position in the search engine rankings.

Playing the Numbers—Static vs. Dynamic Websites

The average small business website includes anywhere from 10-20 static web pages. These are the basic pages you see on most sites such as the home page, an “about us” page, product descriptions and even pages with contact information. Once created, these pages rarely change. In some cases, even small changes on these pages can be an expensive proposition that involves bringing in a web designer.

If the site is well-built with all the appropriate code and metadata, the search engines will index these 10-20 pages of content.  If the site is highly optimized and focused on a limited number of keywords, the search engines may connect those 10-20 pages with the right keywords (the search engine terms used to find information). However, due to the inherent needs of a website, some pages aren’t indexed for the desired keywords (i.e., contact forms).

Best-case scenario, 10-20 pages are recognized by the search engines as possible returns for the targeted keywords.

The Impact of Blog Posts

Now let’s take our static website and add a blog. For the sake of this example, let’s say that there are five representatives in the company who have each agreed to write one blog post per week.

Here’s where our blog really starts to pay off. Each time a new blog post is added, a new page is indexed by the search engines. By the end of the first month, the website has doubled the number of pages originally indexed by the search engines.

Within a month, our website—which originally had 10-20 pages in the search engine pool—now has 30-40 pages that can possibly be returned in the top spot on Google. Stretch that out over the course of a year and our 10-20 page website now has around 250 pages indexed in the search engines.

And while a blog post a day is a lot of work, scale it back to one blog post per week and we’ve still more than doubled the number of indexed pages during the first year.

Each indexed page adds another ticket to the great Google lottery. The more tickets you hold, the better chance of winning the top spot in the search engine rankings.

The Power of Incoming Links

Now let’s say that our faithful bloggers have been adding their daily posts on topics of interest to their industry. Word gets around that they put up some valuable information and at the very least offer a voice for the company.  A couple of blog posts have been emailed to fellow colleagues and even better, fellow industry bloggers are starting to link to the blog. The site starts to appear on fellow bloggers’ blog rolls and specific posts are linked as references and points of discussion in other online publications.

Google likes these incoming links. Google likes them even more when the links come from sites that are relevant to the content in the blog.

Then one day, a mild-mannered New York Times reporter is conducting research for a story related to our company’s industry. Because the blog has added a number of indexed pages to the website and others have started to link to the blog, it pops up in the reporter’s Google search. Our reporter includes a link to the blog in his article.

Google really likes incoming links from big, high-traffic sites like the New York Times. Along with the initial traffic sent to the blog from the New York Times article, Google sees that the New York Times linked to our site in an article related to keywords indexed in our blog. Google recognizes that the New York Times is an important Internet site and makes the connection that because the New York Times has linked to our little blog, our blog must be important. Thus Google moves it up the search engine rankings.

Congratulations. Thanks to the addition of a blog, our little website of 10-20 static pages now holds one of the top spots in Google search results.

Indexed Pages + Relevant and Reputable Links = Search Engine Success

At the 2009 WordCamp San Francisco (a gathering of WordPress users), Google’s Matt Cutts pointed out the importance of being both relevant and reputable. Incoming links from reputable sites such as the New York Times in which the content is relevant to the content in the post are highly valued by Google.

A blog is one of the best ways to continually add pages to a website that generate relevant and reputable links.

In the scenario above, our business blog has managed to provide both relevant content and generate reputable links—two big keys to success on Google.

Real-World Example

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at a real-world Google search to see the impact of a blog in action.

Let’s say that we’ve just moved to Baltimore and need a Realtor to help us find a new home. We go to Google and search “Realtor Baltimore .” Once we get past the map-based search results (important to note), the national sites such as Realtor.com and the national brokerages, one of the first local real estate agents to show up in the organic search results is Wayne Curtis at www.charmcityrealestate.com .

CharmCityRealEstate.com includes a blog with posts dating back to November 2006. As you can see in the image below, Google has indexed 145 pages of CharmCityRealEstate.com. Many of these pages are blog posts filled with naturally occurring keywords related to the real estate market in Baltimore.

Now let’s take a look at another realtor in the Baltimore area. This realtor’s website did not rank in the Google search results and does not include a blog. As you can see from the image below, the site shows only 14 pages indexed with Google.

Measuring incoming links is a little more difficult as different tools return different numbers. You can get a basic overview by using the search term “link:yourdomain.com” in both Google and Yahoo. Using Alexa.com’s “Site Info” tool we can see www.charmcityrealestate.com’s top incoming links.  The very first link returned on Alexa is a link from HDTV.com’s television series House Hunters , a highly relevant and reputable real estate site.

Quality of Pages Indexed and Incoming Links

When conducting this experiment, you can find sites that don’t rank as well on Google yet have more pages indexed. This is often because the pages indexed do not rank for the keywords searched.  A topical blog naturally lends itself to keyword-rich posts just by the nature of the content.

The same holds true with incoming links. Too many incoming links from websites that are not relevant to the content on the site can actually hurt a website’s search engine ranking.

Consider Keywords When Creating Posts

Now that you can see the importance of keyword-indexed blog posts, you can begin to optimize your posts to include relevant keywords.

Going back to our example above, we can use the Google Keyword Tool to see that during the month of March, the phrase “Realtor Baltimore” was searched on Google 2,900 times in the U.S.; however, the phrase “Realtors Baltimore” was searched 60,500.

Since “Realtors Baltimore” was searched around 57,000 more times than “Realtor Baltimore,” it would be wise to use both terms when writing a post about choosing a Realtor in Baltimore.

Incorporate the Blog

If the goal is to raise the search engine results of the larger website, it is important to incorporate the blog into the larger website. Use a call to action at the end of the blog post to direct the reader to other parts of your website. Keep it on the same domain and provide clear links that encourage visitors to explore the rest of your website.

Make it easy for your reader. If the path to your larger website isn’t clearly marked, they will never find their way.

Measuring the ROI of social media is tricky, but consider the value of the top spot on Google. How much would you pay for the top organic search return? Although it doesn’t happen overnight, a blog can be one of the best ways to get there.

A good press release can do more than just generate publicity. It can attract incoming links to your website from highly trafficked websites. These incoming links can give you a big boost in the search engine rankings. Many of the top distribution sites directly feed into Yahoo News Google News and other large new organizations. The problem is, press release distribution can be expensive and if your press release isn’t effective, you’ll be throwing money down the drain.

Here are five things you can do to ensure your press release is a success.

Make it Newsworthy
Reporters and editors scan distribution sites looking for news they can use in their publication. Your job when writing a press release is to convince the editor that you’ve got news their publication can’t live without.

One of the biggest problems with press releases is that they are often little more than advertisements filled with hyperbole and over used cliches. Consider a line like this:

“We are honored to see Acme Widgets receive this award. It’s a tribute to the people who work at Acme Widgets and our ongoing commitment to the quality of service we provide our valued customers every day.”

While I’m sure that the hard working employees at Acme Widgets appreciate the plug, put yourself in the shoes of an editor deciding what will go into his or her publication. Is this a newsworthy comment or p.r. schlop? A good press release presents the news an editor needs to make their publication successful.

As a blogger and former newspaper editor who’s sorted through his share of bad press releases, I don’t care about the top producer in your office or who sold the most widgets for the month of November but I’d be glad to sell you advertising space to announce it. However, if your widget won an award because it converts cars to run on solar power, I’m interested–not in the award but in the ground breaking technology of the widget.

Find the newsworthy angle in your story and feature it prominently.

Make the reporter’s job easy
The work involved in filling a daily publication can be overwhelming. When you provide a newsworthy press release that an editor can directly use to fill the pages of his publication, it’s a win/win for both of you. Editors can be very receptive to a good press release.

When writing, think and write like a reporter. Write it as if you were writing a news story using AP Style. If it looks like news and can be dropped directly into a publication, it has a much better chance of getting picked up than a release that needs extensive editing.

Deep link to inner pages on your website
When an online press release gets picked up by a large publication, the back links to your website can be very valuable both for SEO purposes and for directly driving readers to your website. To make the most of these pages, anchor links to targeted key words in the body of your text leading to specific pages on your website. This is where your businesses blog can really pay off. Instead of linking to your home page, you can link to related articles on your blog. You can then use your blog to direct readers throughout your website.

An effective strategy is to write articles on your blog specifically designed to support the press release. Look for opportunities to expand on your blog. When done properly, the links can provide a benefit to readers. The SEO value of deep linking within a press release can have a huge impact on the ROI of the release.

Write Powerful Headlines
Most pr distribution sites show little more than a headline. Editors scan the headlines and make a decision to read the rest of the press release based on the headline. A good headline can make or break your press release.

Make sure the headline is newsworthy, captures attention and physically fits the space allotted on the distribution site. Spend a few moments scanning the headlines on a press release distribution site to get a feel for what works and what doesn’t.

SEO Optimize Your Press Release
Make your press release search engine friendly just as you would a blog post on your website. Most press release distribution sites are crawled and indexed by Google and press releases will often come up in the search engine rankings. Editors also search distribution sites in the same way that you would search Google. Include appropriate keywords in headlines, descriptions and tags. Make it easy for both the search engines and the target audience to find the release.

Bonus tip: Hire a professional
Press release distribution on premium distribution services averages around $250 per release. A successful press release can quickly pay for itself through increased traffic, search engine ranking and brand recognition. At the same time, when you send out a poorly written press release that fails to meet your objectives, you’re throwing your money away. It’s often worthwhile to hire a proven professional with experience getting press releases published.

If you need a professional to write your next press release, contact me at jalodico@bizwritings.com. You can also find more information about my copywriting services at www.jalcommunication.com.

If your site is hard to read, people won’t bother. Thesis offers a clean design featuring stellar typography combined with a generous use of white space. It is pleasing to read and looks professional right out of the box. For bloggers who focus on the written word, the default installation looks great. However, it’s when you start digging into Thesis that the theme comes to life.

SEO, SEO and More SEO
One of my favorite features in Thesis is that it is built for search engine optimization. SEO customizations that would take some serious coding or plugins in other themes come standard. Along with custom fields for title tags and meta descriptions, you get the ability to optimize everything down to the categories and archive pages. You can guide the search engine spiders through your site using “nofollow,” “noidnex,” and “noarchive” settings for each page and can even optimize the “read more” link on particular posts.

Another feature new in 1.8 is character counts in the meta fields. Title tags and meta descriptions are limited to around 72 and 180 characters. The character count lets you know where you stand. Although it’s nothing groundbreaking, it’s one of the little things that makes Thesis nice.

Even if you know nothing about SEO, Thesis by default will put you ahead of the game. I personally saw one of my blogs jump from about the fifth position in the Google search returns to an alternating first/second position after switching over to Thesis. While I can’t verify that Thesis is the reason for the jump, I can’t believe it didn’t help.

Custom Control Panels, No Coding

Fonts and colors for the nav bar can be changed through the Thesis design options

With some themes, changing basic elements such as background color, number of columns, fonts all take custom coding. Thesis includes an extensive design panel that allows you to select colors, fonts, etc without the need for coding. Teaser display options, post date format (or no date at all), number of columns, framework options, to name a few can all be managed through the design control panel.

But that’s not all you can do through the control panels. Header and footer scripts such as those needed by Google Analytics can be directly added through the control panel. You can select pages, posts or links to include in the navigation bar, drag and drop to change the order in which they appear and even create drop down menus using the control panel. You can even change the display order of comments, trackbacks and comment forms with simple drag and drop.

With version 1.8, one of my biggest complaints with the theme has been fixed. With past versions, something as simple as adding a custom banner to the top of the page required custom coding. Now, header images can be uploaded through a control panel that automatically resizes the image and drops it into place.

Thesis also comes with a multimedia box that can be set to show throughout the site or on a per page/post basis.

Hardcore Design Customization
Thesis goes way beyond the basic blogging platform. Armed with a little coding knowledge, it can become a powerful web design tool. Developers can quickly save options and upload them to new sites, javascript libraries can be turned on with the touch of a button and custom pages can be created from scratch if needed. Customizations can all be done directly through the WordPress control panel without the need to upload files to the server.

Don’t Know Code? Problem With the Site? Help is Available
By far, one of the best features of Thesis is the support forum. Although the theme gets better and better with each upgrade, if you really want to customize it, you will need to do some custom coding. When I first started using Thesis, I knew very little about web design. However, as I’ve built more and more websites with it, I have always been able to get the code modifications I need through the support forums. When I couldn’t find the code I needed in the forums, I started a new thread and the code was provided usually before the day was over. All I needed to do was cut and paste it into place. When I was first learning, they even helped me paste it in the right place.

Personally, I think the support forums alone justify the price. They are always quick to respond and most important, they are patient users of all ability levels.

Pricing Options
DIY Themes offers a number of licensing options. A personal license which allows you to run Thesis on one site costs $97. A developers option which allows for use on unlimited sites you own is available for $164. Developers can purchase additional licenses for clients for $40 apiece.

Want to see more?
Check out the video below to see how Thesis can unleash the web designer in you.

Click here if you’re ready to rock The Thesis Theme for WordPress

Looking for other Theme Reviews? Be sure to check out my reviews of Headway and Studiopress.

That said, there are still a number of simple things you can do to help the search engines find your content. Sticking to the topic so that desired keywords occur naturally, writing meta data that is consistent with the information on the page and composing a search engine results description that is compelling enough that readers will click through to your site are all techniques that can help a page or post rise to the top.

Unfortunately, even for the advanced copywriter or blogger, it is hard to tell exactly what the search engine will see when a post or page is published. Enter Scribe Content Optimizer, a search engine optimization tool available for WordPress (and other content management systems to come). Scribe analyzes your post and meta content and provides a wealth of information allowing you to revise and reanalyze your post before hitting the publish button.

In WordPress, Scribe sits quietly in the corner waiting for you to finish your draft, custom title and meta description. . Once complete, you can run an analysis on your post. Scribe will give you a score based on a number of factors and make suggestions for revision.

As you can see in the image below, an analysis of this post up to this point returns a score of 87%. At this point, the post is still a little short for the search engine’s liking.

While I might be inclined to finish the post knowing that once I’ve got my 300+ words, this post will be fully optimized for the search engines. However, let’s dig a little deeper to see how I’m doing in terms of keywords.

While my earlier score of 87% might have looked good, notice that my top primary keyword is “common sense.” Not really a term I was hoping to emphasize. Fortunately, If I click on the next tab in the image above, Scribe will make suggestions for changing keywords. In this case wrote my title tag to read, “Scribe for SEO; Common Sense Review for a Common Sense Program.” As you can see, although it might make for a catchy headline, I’ve repeated the term “common sense” twice resulting in it being picked up as a primary keyword.

Revising the custom title tag to read, “Scribe for SEO; WordPress Plugin Takes the Guesswork Out of SEO Copywriting” changes “common sense” from a primary keyword to a significant keyword leaving just “scribe” and “SEO” as my primary keywords. “Common Sense” may still be getting a high ranking because I also used the term in my meta description which reads, “A Review of the search engine optimization tool Scribe. Scribe provides common sense seo allowing the user to edit and revise copy using this powerful seo tool.”

If I revise the meta to read, “A Review of the search engine optimization tool Scribe. Scribe gives users the information needed to edit and revise copy for the search engines,” the term “common sense” drops from the keyword list completely.

And that’s what Scribe is all about–providing the information needed to revise and rewrite your copy until it does exactly what you want it to do. Yes, you still need to be able to write but in the hands of a skilled copywriter, seo copywriting becomes an art and not just stuffing keywords into the page.

More than just keywords
While keywords are important, the SERP or the title and paragraph that show up when someone finds your site in the search engines are just as important. Once your page comes up in the search engine, the information the reader sees must be compelling enough to entice the reader to click through to the site. This becomes more important the further down the search engine results you go.

Using Scribe, you can see exactly what the search engine sees before you publish the page. Nothing is left to chance.

Using the SERP preview, you can be sure that important information isn’t cut short and that you’re giving the reader a reason to click through to your site.

Pricing and Page Analysis
Scribe is a premium plugin and requires a monthly subscription. Subscription rates begin at $17 per month and go up to $97 per month. The entry level rate of $17 gives you 15 page evaluations on one website. At $97/month, you can run up to 300 page evaluations per month on an unlimited number of websites.

Special Offer
If you purchase Scribe before June 4th and use the coupon code “PROMO27″ you can get all the benefits of the $97 dollar level for only $27/month.

Want to learn more about common sense SEO
The creators of Scribe have put out a great report on optimizing content for the search engines. Be sure to check it out here.

Need compelling search engine optimized copy for your site? Contact me here or at www.jalcommunications.com.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, WordPress premium themes have a number of advantages. Along with features you don’t find in most free themes, premium themes usually come with an active support community which can more than pay for itself when it comes to learning the them, customizing and helping when you run into problems. Of the premium themes available, one of the most interesting is Headway. Featuring drag and drop design, Headway brings advance design features without the need for advanced programming.

Visual Editor

For those who don’t like getting their hands dirty, the Headway visual editor makes it very easy to change colors, fonts, character spacing, just about anything you want without even thinking about HTML code. About the only coding you’ll need to know are the HTML color codes. One of the great things about the visual editor is that you can see your changes as you make them. No need to jump between browser windows refreshing the page.

Each content box is shown in a sidebar with drop down menus making it easy to make changes. If you don’t know the name of a corresponding field, you can click on the appropriate box in the sidebar and it will momentarily highlight the coordinating field. For example, if you don’t know the header from the body, it is easily identified so you can make changes to your site.

Leafs

Leafs are by far one of the most interesting features of the Headway theme. Leafs are basically content boxes that you can drag and drop wherever you want them on the page. This allows you move elements on the page in ways usually only possible with advanced coding. Don’t like the size of a content box, change it. Want to see featured posts on the bottom left corner, drag it there. Don’t like that look, move it to the right side of the page. All can be done visually without any custom coding.

Another aspect of leaves I really like is the wide variety of content that can be added to a page using leafs. Along with the usual featured posts and rss feeds, leafs also include advanced photo slider and gallery options and widgetized sidebars that run horizontally across the page wherever you want them.

Site configuration and Navigation Menu

As with the rest of Headway, uploading headers, changes to the nav bar and full width framework can all be done from the control panel. Header elements such as logos and advertisements can also be changed using drag and drop. Drop down menus and the ability to hide pages from the nav menu are just a few of the features that can be changed without coding.

Easy Hooks

Adding content such as banner advertisements or text below each post usually requires going into the WordPress files and making PHP programming changes. Headway uses what they call “Easy Hooks” that clearly identify the hook and provide a field for entering text, images or whatever. Say you want to add an advertisement after each post. Just use the drop down menu to find “after post” and insert the advertisement. That’s all there is to it.

SEO

Although I haven’t tested Headway’s SEO abilities, it does include everything you could ask for in a premium theme and more. Along with the basic meta fields, Headway automatically optimizes WordPress slugs, includes the ability to set no-follow and no-index links and uses categories to create breadcrumbs throughout the site. This last feature is interesting as it creates the potential to use categories as powerful keywords.

Design Without Programming

Headway is a great theme for those who want to design their own website but don’t want to spend time struggling with code. Designers may also want to consider the theme as a way to speed workflow and quickly build great looking websites.

Headway offers a personal option for $87 which allows the user to use the theme on two websites. A developers options is available for $164 which allows for use on unlimited sites (including client’s sites) and the removal of the Headway footer credit.

Behind the scenes, premium themes often include control panel modifications and SEO optimization features that greatly improve upon the WordPress platform. Also, premium themes are often built with cleaner programming code resulting in better SEO and faster load times.

For professional looking blogs and business websites, a quality premium theme can often take you to the next level. Here’s the first in a five part series on premium themes you should consider:

StudioPress
StudioPress offers a number of themes that look great without the need to customize. Studiopress themes are built using the “Genesis Framework” upon which you can add any of a number of “Child Themes.”

StudioPress themes include a number of page layouts that allow each page to be individually customized without additional code. This allows for quick creation of any of a number of page designs within the site. SEO optimization such as meta titles, descriptions and tags and nofollow options are also built into the theme eliminating the need for extra plugins. There are also a number of sitewide SEO options built into the theme.

StudioPress featured post widget options

One of the features I like best about StudioPress is the ability to quickly create and move content on the home page. For example, the home page on the Executive Child Theme is broken into separate content boxes that can be modified using special widgets. By dragging and dropping widgets, content can be customized to show featured posts/pages, categories or even your latest Tweets.

Pictures are easily incorporated into the home page by adding a thumbnail photo to a page or post and adding the post to the featured post widget. With a combination of widgets and thumbnail images, you can quickly create a professional looking home page that looks like it was built by a designer.

Header customizations are also fairly straight forward allowing you to upload custom header images without modifying code. You can also use widgets in the header making it easy to add logos, advertising banners, search forms or other specialized content.

At the moment, changing colors does require changing code although a beta version that includes a design panel is being tested at the moment. Expect future upgrades to include this feature. Fortunately, as the program is now, changing colors is not difficult as it’s just a matter of changing the html number for the desired color. One thing to note is that many of the colors you see on the StudioPress sites are actually gradient images. When you change the color, you will lose the gradient.

Although I’m still exploring StudioPress, there are a couple of other features that look nice including the ability to change navigation menu features with widgets and widgets for email/rss feed subscription.

StudioPress also offers AgentPress, a specialized theme for Realtors that includes photo sliders and special fields for home listing information.

Pricing/Licensing
Most StudioPress themes cost $79.95 for the first theme which includes the Gensesis Framework. Additional child themes can be purchased for $29.95 and a developers option which includes all StudioPress themes is available for $299.99. Purchase includes unlimited use of the theme (on as many websites as you like including client sites), access to support forums and lifetime upgrades.

If you’re looking to build a professional looking site without the expense of a designer, StudioPress is a great option.

Editor’s Note: Since writing this post I have started building all client sites using the Studiopress Genesis Framework. Be sure to check out my Web Design services to learn more.