Blog Directories

Just a quick post today about a subject I'm finding very helpful in my own SEO endeavours....

Blog Directories.

What is a blog directory? Simple, its a collection of links to blogs! Ranging from a single page with a bunch of links on it, to a nicely sorted collection of blogs, filed into categories with reviews and user feedback!

How can a blog directory help me?

Well, as I've mentioned in previous posts, one of the best ways to get your site moving up in search engine rankings is to have other sites link to you. Having someone else link to your own site, is essentially telling Google that you aren't a stand alone isolated page. Other people know about you and consider your page important enough to link to!

The obvious first step here is to get any friends or family who may have websites to add a link to you. What to do once you've exhausted those resources? Why, a blog directory of course!

There are several notable directories out there on the internet, and finding them is easy. Do a search! The draw of any blog directory is SEO, and they tend to make that their focus. If you can't find them through a search engine, the directory probably isn't worth submitting to.

Which blog directory should I use?

Well, take a look at the left hand side of my page, and you'll notice I've added icons for several of the top ranked directories. My advice would be to start here. You may be required to register, or add what is called a reciprocal link. (they link to you, you link back to them). All the directories are free and will definitely help improve your search engine ranking!

Pay attention to the description of your site!

All of these directories will ask you to include a brief description of your site. This text is what will appear to one of their users, so pay close attention! Make your description accurate, yet appealing. You want people to find you on the directory and to be enticed into clicking!

Should I pay for the premium service?

You'll find a majority of these websites have a paid or premium service available, promising to put you top in the listings or other similar perks. Stay away from this. You won't find a lot of traffic coming directly from the directories anyway, even if you are on the front page. As well, watch out for emails you may receive from them, offering a paid service to submit your site to search engines. Again, not necessary! In the coming weeks I'll be giving you all the tips you need, so stay tuned!

Tips to Grow your Traffic

Once you've launched your blog or website, make sure you are updating it consistently! I may have mentioned this to you before, but it warrants mentioning again!

Update, Update, Update!

One of the most important things you can do to ensure you site becomes a success is regularly updating it with new content. I've seen countless sites fail over the years because they didn't follow this one simple mantra. Always be updating!

If you're going to bother putting effort into attracting visitors to your site, ensure they have something new to read when they get there! If someone returns to your site for a second time, seeing a new update will help keep them coming back over and over again.

Updating is important for SEO!

Not only is consistency in updating good for your traffic, it also helps with your rankings in search engines, and generally visibility around the net. If every time Google comes to spider your site it notices new content, it realizes your site is active and will tend to give you a higher ranking than a site that is left to stagnate. The more posts and writing you have on your site, the more likely someone's search term will match something.

With that out of the way, let me move on to something of a similar vein...

Optimizing your HTML for Search Engines

A normal image tag in HTML, looks something like this...

<img src="/path/to/img.jpg" />

When Google or any other search engine sees this in your page, it has no idea what the image actually is! It can't index this. So today's helpful tip is this...

Always use the ALT attribute on your image tags!

In the HTML specification, image tags can optionally have an 'alt' attribute, which contains text describing the image. Here is an example...

<img src="/path/to/img.jpg" alt="A picture of my cat" />

Put several keywords or a short phrase into the alt tags on all your images. This allows search engines like Google to index the images, and is one of my best practices for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

With Blogger.com, adding text into the alt attribute is fairly simple. Once you've inserted the image into your post, click the Edit Html link, pictured below.



You will see all the raw HTML code for your posting. Now all you have to do is find any <img> tags, and put some text into the alt="" attribute that will already be there!

It can also help to name your images appropriate for what they depict. As an example, if you have a picture of your cat, name it something like 'a_picture_of_my_cat.jpg'.

The Basics of Online Advertising

I realize some of you may be to new to the world of online advertising, so before we go any farther, I'll take a moment to explain some of the basics.

To assist with my description here, I've bolded some words you may be unfamiliar with, and listed their definitions down at the bottom of this post.

How Much Money Can I Make Advertising Online?

The amount of money you make advertising online is closely tied to your website traffic. Advertisers aren't paying YOU to look at their ads, but for the visitors on your site to see them.

So with more traffic, I'll make more money, right?

This depends. Advertisers base all payouts to a publisher on some sort of valuation method. CPM, CPC, and CPA are the three you'll see most often. Each of these three valuation methods has its own ups and down for both publisher and advertiser, and they are by no means the only ones in use, simply the three you are most likely to encounter.

CPM deals are measured by number of impressions. An impression being a single view of an ad. Say you had a $3.00 CPM agreement with an advertiser. What this means is that for every 1000 impressions of a particular ad, you'll get paid $3.00.

For a publisher, CPM deals are the easiest money, as the viewer of your site doesn't have to interact with the advertisement at all in order for you to get paid. Put simply, the more people you get viewing your site, the more money you make!

CPC, or Cost Per Click, is a valuation that uses actual mouse clicks on an advertisement as a guage. A $1.00 CPC deal would mean you make a dollar every time a viewer on your website clicks on the particular advertisers ad. The payout on CPC deals tends to be much higher than with CPM, but the actual money you make can vary wildly.

A site with particularly good ad integration could see click through rates on advertisements as high as 10%! This is exceptionally high, and most people will never see this. On average you can expect a click through rate of 0.1% to 1%.

With both CPM and CPC valuations, the advertiser may apply an extra condition wherein they only count unique views or clicks. They don't want to pay you for the same person viewing or clicking the ad over and over again.

Finally CPA, or Cost Per Acquisition. With this valuation method, every time a visitor to your site signs up with an advertisers service via a link or advertisement you are showing, you get paid. It may help to think of CPA deals as comission based, i.e. when you send the advertiser a paying customer, you make a comission on that sale!

The money you'll make for CPA deals is huge compared to what you will see with CPM or CPC valuations. As an example, I once dealt with a web hosting company that was paying $200 for each customer I referred to them who signed up for a years worth of service.

The caveat here is that viewers to your site will hardly ever click through an ad to go sign up for a product or service. I know this from experience. You can expect an acquisition ratio of about 10000:1 on the high end, which works out to be only 0.01% of your traffic! Another downside here is your visibility into the actual purchase. Since the user has gone off to another website, you can't know for sure if a purchase has actually been made.

Which valution method should I use?

Advertisers set the terms of the deal and you take it or leave it. Your only choice here tends to be what advertisers to use, although sometimes you'll be given a choice between several different programs with the same advertiser.

Don't limit yourself to just one advertiser!

Having a mixture of ads from several different companies makes your website stand out a bit more, and provides some variety. Each advertiser has their own type and style of ads, and will appeal to a different people. By mixing it up a little you increase your chances of making more money!

If you have any questions, please leave me a comment, or email me directly. I promise to answer!

DEFINITIONS

valuation method - The way an advertiser determines what your site is worth to them, and what to pay you in dollars and cents

advertiser - The company providing you with the advertisements

publisher - You! the owner of the website.

viewer / visitor - A person viewing your website

impression - Showing an ad a single time (100 impressions == 100 views)

uniques/unique impressions/unique visitors - A viewer that hasn't seen or clicked the advertisement before. Generally based on IP address, coupled with a time span.

CPM - Cost Per Mille (Thousand)

CPC - Cost Per Click

CPA - Cost Per Acquisition

ad integration - Refers to the placement of your advertisements. Putting ads on your site in a way that blends them seamlessly into your content, and makes viewers more likely to interact.

click through rate - a percentage, calculated by taking the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions

acquisition rate - a percentage, calculated by taking the number of acquisitions divided by the number of impressions

payout - The dollar amount you actual get from an advertiser