Why WordPress.com is the best blogging platform . period!

March 22nd, 2009 by admin

It’s not a secret that we are huge WordPress secrets for blogging, especially since we have been offerring SEO blog templates for WordPress for years.  If you are an expert you already know that WordPress has Meta tags and other built in amazing tools for SEO.  You know that WordPress.org offers the MU (Multi-User), and the blogging software for FREE.  Which always catapults the most feature rich blogging tool in to being #1.

So Why is WordPress.com the best blogging platform?  Because it helps you setup a blog on your own domain for custom hosting within minutes and only $15/year (yes that is a year), DID WE MENTION INCLUDING THE DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATION? YES, THAT IS TRUE.

Some of us are not technical, and so the fact that WordPress.com hosts our free blogs is great, but we really want to be professional and blogging on our own domain allows us all to do that.  So the fact that it is super easy is another best feature.  Folks, I tried and spent hours on TypePad the (self proclaimed professional blog), it stinks.  I was willing to pay the $149/year (thank god they did not charge my credit card), but it was too rigid, templates were not professional enough, and the SEO was weak.  I expected so much more, but I would have just settled for an easy interface, but they simply made things hard for me to navigate.  Also TYPEPAD fees are non-refundable, so DO NOT BUY or Pay full in advance they do not prorate your monthly payments.  After the 14 day trial, you are literally hosed, stuck with their weaker blogging system.

Blogger and Blogspot are easy and Ok, they also allow domain hosting, for free I think.  Blogger blogging platform, is owned by Google, so it’s not that bad, nothing Google does is bad.  It simply does not have the features and customization that WordPress.com blogging has.

Anyway, It’s taken me a few days to blog about this topic as I have been busy blogging about my wife’s book Mommy’s Little Money$Maker, an Inspiration Guide for Mom’s to start a business or earn a part time income.  Check it out at MomBite.com, she has been blogging their every day.  She plans to provide a daily MomBite, a featured business owned and started by a Mom that can help to inspire other Mom’s.  Enjoy and don’t be afraid to pass it on to other Mom’s.  Thanks!

Posted in Blogger's Block, Blogging, Blogging Don'ts, Blogging Techniques, Blogging Terms, Books, blog, blogspot | No Comments »

Should you listen to an outdated expert?

November 24th, 2008 by admin

So I am reading this wonderful resource for internet advertising and marketing, called iMediaConnection and the top headline for today uses the word Sticky?

Ok, I have been around since 1999, well on the web with an Internet business of 1996, but who is counting. The world Sticky for websites is so outdated, I decided to not only not read the article.  I decided to write a blog about it.  Why, I think people who use outdated words like that are obviously outdated and should not be read.  So that is my one and only point.  I can stop now and start promoting our heaters or our free blogs or marketing book or something and stop blogging about it, right?  Well no, not yet.

I do want to explain what he means by the word “Sticky”?  Especially for all of you that are constantly trying to SEO and maybe SEM and definitly market their websites.  How often do we worry about getting our clients to our websites that we forget about having them stay there or come back?  We want repeat visitors not just unique first time visitors.  If you use Google Analytics we talk about things like bounce rates etc.  What are all of these advertising keywords and concepts, what do they mean?  They all trying to have customers stay in the modern day store (your website).  More tips on the subject later, got to get to the gym.  But here is a tip before I leave.  Give them valuable and fresh content often, they will come back for it.  Hello, is that rocket science?

Posted in blog | No Comments »

Internet Advertising still strong

November 19th, 2008 by admin

While it may seem that all of the world is coming to an end with current economic crisis, Internet Advertising is still a hot trend.  Why?  Because in Internet Advertising, especially in search advertising, but even in display advertising, the key is that advertisers can measure the performance unlike any other. And by in large Internet advertising allows the advertiser to lead directly to sale, not just build brand.  Some smart advertisers do you TV and other media to drive traffic to their website, but they are usually more a brand building play rather then a pure sales play.  Why is the keyword above “Advertising” linking to Advertising.Microsoft.com ?  I am doing an experiement to see if I these links will help that site rank higher from #12 to #9 or higher for the keyword “Advertising“. 

Here is an article from our Marketing book and from this past summer, enjoy:

The Online Ad Market size – SEO market size too?

The Online Ad Story in a Picture – Bits – Technology – New York Times Blog

The article above from the New York times discusses the trends and facts of the Online Advertising numbers, Why? The talks of Yahoo and MSN is not just important to SEO Services people, but to all advertising and marketing people. Here is a quote from the article, we are covering this as the SEO landscape will dramatically change if Microsoft and Yahoo combine.

“Of course Google is booming and the traditional portals are struggling. But the numbers are stark: Last year, Google’s advertising revenue of $6 billion was roughly the same as that of Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft combined.

Google’s growth is slowing, but it continues to be a juggernaut. EMarketer estimates that ad revenue at Google will increase by 32 percent this year. That makes it the only one of these four companies that will grow faster than the ad market as a whole, which is estimated to expand by 23 percent this year. (To be sure, the uncertain economy makes any predictions especially suspect this year, but the relative trends appear stable.)

So as we try to second-guess the mating games of the big Internet companies, this graph raises the question: Does combining two past-their-prime giants that are both losing market share really solve any problems?”

The reason we are covering the recent news about the Microsoft and Yahoo is that this combination could greatly impact your SEO, SEM, and Marketing strategies. The combined search advertising and organic results, if that is what the solution will be, will be difficult for most small marketing people to ignore. Large marketing departments and advertisers do advertise on Microsoft and Yahoo, not just Google. They could quite possibly be the driving force behind another big option, not just being too dependant on Google. So our hypothesis is that a bigger advertising network other than Google is needed, and we support Microsoft as we are from Seattle.

As always we are just trying to provide you simple information for marketing your blogs and web sites. And, mixing in some shameful self promotion of us and our SEO services clients and marketing products of our strategic partners. Reminder, that is why I like blogging so much, and we created this free blogs site MyTypes.com. We found SEO advice all over the place, but we wanted to provide people a blogging tool, that would them actually SEO their blogs and websites. That is also why we finished our Marketing book, about the power of blogs for SEO and search marketing.

So we are going to plug in our web design St. Louis client, ArtWorksDesign.com, and we are also launching a sister blog at MyTypes.com/WebDesign where we will talk about the web design techniques especially as far as they relate to SEO. Last year we launched, GreenIsBetter.org for the energy saving infrared heaters, and air purifiers by Steril Air purifier. We think the web design blog will essentially lead to a portal or blogs or forums of sorts for SEO savvy web design topics. We have incorporated our end to end SEO and blogging techniques in our marketing book, so this should just be a continuation of those topics, only with more focus on web design.

As we started to sell SEO services a few years ago, we knew that we had to work with third party web design firms. The owners of the website simply did not have the capabilities to make the small changes needed to SEO the site. These minor changes have to do with proper Meta Tags, content and footer links. The majority of the web design companies now days know the basics of SEO, but SEO Services provide a lot of off-site services such as content and link popularity assets. This is why most companies large and small need to use an SEO services firm. Usually off-site SEO work will yield better results faster, once the basics are done. But, that is coming from Internet Marketing experts at MyTypes.com, we did write a marketing book on blogs, SEO, search and Social. But how well do we rank, you ask? We are only ranked top 10 in Google and other search engines for very competitive keywords, such as “Create a blog“, “Blogging”, “Free Blog“, “WordPress SEO“, and we are usually ranked #6-#13 for “SEO“.

Posted in advertising advertising, blog | No Comments »

Google Analytics is way off – numbers always too low!

November 18th, 2008 by admin

I have always assumed this, but did not why and to what extent.  Read this great article

The disturbing inaccuracy behind Google Analytics