There is a bit of a disconnect between what SEO gurus say, and the reality of blogs.  I don’t think it’s intentional, but it does exist.

SEO 101 says that a great way to build back links is to comment on other blogs that are relevant to your blog.  You get to have a backlink included with your name, Google picks that up, and over time, your Page Rank improves.  Here’s the disconnect: WordPress defaults to setting a “NoFollow” on Comment links.  Most blog owners either don’t know about it, or they never got around to removing the no follow.   That means that although other readers can click through to you blog, the search engine spiders will not follow that link back to you.  Even the big boys like ProBlogger use the nofollow block.

The reason WordPress sets comments to nofollow is simple; comment spam.  Some sites, especially porn sites will run programs that look for blogs that they can post comments that will allow the link back to their site.  So the simple solution is to stop all comment links.  Unfortunately, that punishes your readers who you are encouraging to participate on your blog.

I’m experimenting with removing the nofollow on my comments.  Links within the comment will still have a nofollow block on them, but not the signature.  That means you will be able to take advantage of the backlink potential of posting comments, just like the gurus promised.  If the spam becomes overwhelming, I may have to revert back, but for now, we’ll see how it goes.

The plugin I am using to make this happen is: remove-nofollow.zip. Just load it up, activate it in your Plugins menu, and the nofollows will be removed from your comment headers, while leaving the block on links within the comments.

I’ll keep you updated on how it works out.

I mentioned in my last post that I was going to start righting about how to improve your search engine results, and attract more readers to your blog. So this is the first step in that process.

One of the things I love about the blogging community is the spirit of cooperation that exists. There is a sort of camaraderie among fellow bloggers that you don’t always find in other areas of life. That doesn’t change the fact that other blogs are your competition, especially blogs that are in your niche. Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote before about joining in the Thirty Day Challenge. While I was a little moire than 30 days in reaching my goal ( it was 40 days, and I made a little over $50), it was an eye opening experience in how to drive traffic to a web site. The biggest benefit for me was that it started me on a journey of learning how to compete with other web sites that are in a similar niche.

Let’s be honest, we’re in this because we want readers to our blogs, otherwise we would just be writing in diaries. Read the rest of this entry »

Wow, this past month has really been intense. I have been taking part in Ed Dale’s Thirty Day Challenge, and it has eaten up all of my free time. No freelance work, but I have been writing my butt off. I have started three new blogs that I have been using for the 30DC, plus I have really increased the amount that I have been writing on my restaurant blog. I haven’t made any money yet, so I haven’t won the challenge, but I have learned some very important lessons about what it takes to get your site ranked. I’ll be writing more about that in some upcoming posts. Read the rest of this entry »

One of my goals for ‘08 was to get better at using social media as a marketing tool. This week I’ve been taking a look at Squidoo. If you haven’t see Squidoo, you should really check it out.

nce you set up your free account, you get to create a lens. A Squidoo lens is like a mini-page that focuses on whatever you want to focus on. You can write a little about yourself, about your business, even about your pets if that’s what you want to focus on. This is great from a marketing point of view, because you can make as many different lenses as you want. Read the rest of this entry »