Allowing DoFollow Links (Gulp)?

Even the best website in the world is nothing without traffic, and to drive traffic may seem like a daunting task. Your hard earned website deserves to get the recognition and profit that it deserves! However, many beginners wonder how they can attract more website traffic without compromising the quality and value of their website. There is a whole field dedicated to this topic, called Search Engine Optimization or SEO. This subject focuses on simple ways to make your site soar to the first few search engine results, increases people’s chances of happening upon you. Here are ten easy ways to apply SEO principles to your own website to drive traffic.

1. Choose your keywords.

   If a person were looking for services and products that you offer, what would they search for? Are there any common misspellings or grammatical errors that you can capitalize upon? It’s important to choose words that are commonly searched for as well as less common ones—remember that everyone in your field is after those few top terms, so there is a lot of competition for them.

2. Place keywords carefully.

   You may think that the most important keywords will come up naturally in your text, but this is actually where they have the least impact. Keywords are most powerful when they are placed in titles, headers, urls, and image names. The page header and title tag are the two most important places, so use these wisely. Keywords should also be present in your text, but this is more of a supporting role when it comes to getting search engine results. However, keep in mind that there are consequences for putting too many keywords in an article. Search engines will ignore your site altogether and the customers who do happen to visit will be annoyed. As well, and just a little trick, the search engines like to see your main keywords in the first and last sentences.

3. Arrange your website for easy access.

   The easier a search engine crawler can access different pages, the higher their rank will be. Use a site map, which is a page linking to all of the pages on your website, as well as a logical organization pattern. Link frequently from new content to relevant old content. If your links are appropriate, this can build SEO ratings from within and drive traffic internally in your site. As we said above, name these pages with keywords to make it clear what they are about.

4. Update constantly.

   This will increase your rank on different search engines, but it will also give your readers a reason to return and a reason to link to your site. Having related web pages link to your site is one very valuable way of increasing your search engine ratings. Stick to your main topic, but explore different areas of it and try out different keywords to see if they attract a lot of traffic.

5. Use images cautiously.

   The major search engines are looking for ways to make images searchable, but this is still in experimental stages. Until they figure it out, images are not searchable and therefore should be used sparingly. However, image tags have a huge impact on your SEO results, so marking each image with descriptive text and keywords can make up for any loss of text. Captions and the text immediately surrounding your images also have a sizeable impact. It’s okay to use images—in fact it makes your website infinitely more readable—but use them sensibly and in a way that will bring up your page rank rather than sinking it.

6. Avoid flash.

   Flash and Ajax both have a common problem: they do nothing at all for your SEO and thus are almost a waste of space. The same goes for frames. Search engine crawlers don’t know how to read them, so nothing gets registered. If you really feel strongly about having Flash or Ajax, use them sparingly and surround them with relevant texts and navigation links. Avoid frames altogether; they do nothing for your site except making it virtually invisible to search engines.

7. Cross link with related websites.

   Find the big, highly ranked blogs and websites in your field, then contact their webmasters and ask them to link to you. They might say no, but many will surprise you. Reciprocate with a link to their site. This will bring up the page rankings of everyone involved. However, avoid link farms and link exchanges with non-relevant sites. Search engines watch for this behavior and will drop your page ranking to nil.

8. Go social to drive traffic.

   Your website should be linked to your social networking sites and vice-versa. However, you also should link to specific pages and info and even re-tweet or otherwise redistribute some of your sites information. This will bump up your search engine visibility and also increase traffic from the social networking sites in question. You may even want to start a blog, as this gives you the double whammy of fresh content and plenty of new stuff to link to.

9. Watch your website traffic stats.

   The only way to know if your hard SEO work has paid off is to watch your website stats. How many unique visitors are you getting now compared to a few months ago? Where are they coming from? What is your page rank with services such as Alexa and Google? Even more important, what search terms are taking people to your site? These investigations will let you know whether your SEO is working and also why certain people are visiting your website. You can use this information to adjust your SEO strategies and find the ones that work best for you.

10. Promote Constantly.

    One of the major benefits to linking in Social Media is the ability to promote. You will want to take your best pieces of content and continuously promote them again to your Social Media sites. This in turn will drive traffic to your website, and happy readers.

Another great article by Mashable. Please leave me a comment below if you enjoyed this post.

Now you’ve gone and done it. You’ve come across a list so enormous, so useful, and so awesome, our futile attempts to describe it have been lost in the tubes of cyberspace.

We’ll just say this: No matter what you’re into — Twitter (), Facebook (), Mobile Apps, Business Development, or good-old-fashioned YouTube () hilarity — you will find it below.

So put down your barbeque, send out another huge thanks to our men and women in uniform, and limber up your scrolling finger — it’s a big one.

If you dig the uber-list, be sure to send some comments our way down below!

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Social Media

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• HOW TO: Disable Facebook’s “Instant Personalization” [PRIVACY]New menus on the Facebook home page this week took users by surprise, and left many concerned about the privacy implications of being suddenly more “connected” to their favorite sites and interests. If you’re looking for ways to opt out of these new features, this guide will show you how.
• HOW TO: Spring Clean Your Twitter AccountAn untended Twitter feed can quickly become overgrown with useless tweets and dead weight users. These great tools will help you streamline your Twitter account in no time.
• How Freelancers are Using Social Media for Real ResultsSocial media can be a boon for those who make their living gig-to-gig. Sheer networking is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to landing work via the social web. We spoke to freelancers in a variety of fields to find out how they make it happen.
• 9 Essential Social News and Bookmarking Sites for Designers
  The design community is always hungry for content, inspiration, and tutorials. These nine networks are a great place to discover and share creative resources.
• 4 Ways One Non-Profit Uses Location to Increase Engagement
  The National Wildlife Federation has been getting creative with their social media awareness campaigns, particularly when it comes to location-based technologies. This post discusses some of their innovations.
• Tim Ferriss: 7 Great Principles for Dealing with Haters
  For all the personal connections and open sharing done on social networks, you’ll always find a fair share of scathing negativity. Tim Ferriss, author of The Four Hour Work Week, gave a talk at The Next Web ‘10 event in Amsterdam, and had these seven points to share on the subject.
• Gowalla CEO Talks About the Future of Social Media [INTERVIEW]
  We sat down with Josh Williams to discuss the origins of his location-based network, and what current trends in the space mean for the future.
• 5 Free Services for Pre-Scheduling Your Twitter Updates
  Whether for marketing purposes, event promotion, or just keeping your account fresh while you’re on vacation, a tweet scheduler can be a handy tool. Check out these five great ones, all of them free.
• How Twitter’s New Media Blog Aims To Teach By Example
  Twitter’s new blog highlights news organizations with smart Twitter integration in the hope of becoming a resource for the media. We spoke with Twitter about their strategies and goals.
• Top 10 LEGO Movie Tributes on YouTube
  Those stop-motion goodies are back, this time reenacting our favorite flicks in all their colorful plastic glory.
• Top 10 YouTube Cover Songs
  For better or worse, YouTube has become the ultimate repository of musical tributes. From guys in their bedrooms, to a capella cleverness, to guitar-wielding toddlers, this hand-picked list highlights some of the best around.
• 5 Ways to Support World Malaria Day Online
  The fight to end malaria in the developing world has become a rallying cause on the social web. Check out these five easy ways you can make a difference online.
• How Non-Profits are Using Social Media for Real Results
  Social media has become an essential tool for non-profits in their efforts to spread awareness and raise funds. Check out some real-world examples of how some organizations have put the social web to good use.
• Why Content Curation Is Here to Stay
  At times, content creators and content curators have been at odds. But the sheer volume of “stuff” and noise on the web has made curation essential. This post discusses the status of the curator on today’s social web.
• Social Enterprise: 5 Tips for Getting Execs on Board
  There’s no longer much question about whether corporations need to be engaged in social media, but convincing the head honchos of the value can be challenging. We spoke to some of the top names in social strategy and got some great tips on bringing the boardroom up to speed.

Another great set of useful Social Media site from our friends at Mashable. If you liked this, please leave me a comment below.

No matter how much quality information or witty repartee we send out into our social networks, first impressions are almost always visual. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that the first thing we see when checking out a new Twitter () follower, Facebook () friend, or LinkedIn () connection is a profile photo. And in a world of quick clicks and divergent attention, if the photo you present isn’t eye-catching, or illustrative of your personal brand, you may miss your shot at making a positive first impression.

We asked social design experts for their take on what makes for a killer profile pic, and they’ve provided some strategies on implementing your personal brand, and a few tools for snazzing up that boring Facebook self-shot you’ve been clinging to.

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1. Start With a Quality Photo

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This may seem obvious, but we’ve all come across countless social profiles with blurry, dark, or low-res images. When your initial photo is inadequate, there’s no amount of post production or digital magic that can bring it up to snuff.

“If there is one element that lets so many profile images down, it’s a lack of sharpness,” said Grace Smith, owner of Postscript5, a micro-design studio based in Northern Ireland. “Of course now there are numerous Sharpening Photoshop Actions, but in order to cut down the amount of work in Photoshop, it’s best to adhere to a few simple tips. Namely, use a tripod to avoid camera shake, shoot in continuous mode for more challenging conditions, try to invest in good quality lenses, and aim for a low ISO [image sensitivity] to keep the amount of noise low.”

Smith cites the Digital Photography School website as a great resource for learning how to capture better digital images.

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2. Be Consistent

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A rule of thumb touched on by many is consistency. Because followers and friends will be looking out for your face first, it’s important that once you find a photo that works, stick with it.

“Don’t change it every few days. Don’t even change it every month,” said Chris Coyier, web designer and curator of CSS-Tricks. “Make one, do a good job, and leave it alone for a long time. People’s attention is split a million different ways these days, and you only get a split second to try and make an impression and forge a connection. Consistency makes that easier.”

This may be especially true for Twitter, where networks tend to go beyond personal friends and family.

“Your Twitter profile is your personal brand and with any brand, consistency is key,” said web designer and illustrator Brad Colbow. “When you market yourself, your avatar becomes your logo. It will be seen on Twitter, Ning networks, Flickr (), and in blog comments, everywhere.”

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3. Be Conscious of Formats and Dimensions

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Social networks often play by different rules when it comes to images. If you plan to look your best on all your networks, you should brush up on some of the technical requirements of your profile pictures.

“To ensure that you maintain a consistent and professional brand identity in various social media/networking sites, you should rescale your avatar in a graphics editor like Photoshop or GIMP (),” said Jacob Gube, chief editor of the design blog Six Revisions. “If you upload a file that is too big or too small, the site might render your avatar in ways you might not expect. For example, on Twitter’s profile pages, the standard size is 73 by 73 pixels, while on Digg (), your profile page’s avatar size is 120 by 120 pixels.”

The ideal image dimensions are not always apparent on every network, but Gube offers a trick for discovering them. “In Firefox (), what you can do is to navigate to someone’s profile page, right-click on the avatar, and choose “View Image Info,” which will display details about that image, including the dimensions of it.”

Another great post from the masters at Mashable.