Cranial Soup

How can you rank well on search engines, without fussing with SEO?

2010-07-02T16:07:00.002-04:00

If you want to rank well on search engines without fussing with SEO, then pretend it's 1995 and there are no search engines that will list you, because you can't afford the high fees for inclusion.

Now, how are you going to, in an ethical way, make people want to visit your site, stay awhile and explore, come back often, and share what they find with others?

Your site should work well and not be broken.

Make sure all links to pages on and off your site actually lead to where you want them to.
Make sure you don't have broken images.
Make sure the content loads correctly in all the major browsers.
Make sure your pages adhere to W3C standards and they validate.

Your site should be designed for people.

Make sure your template is pleasing to the eye and not painful to look at.
Make sure it has good navigation and is easy to discover and find the content your site has to offer. Good use of sidebar links to important stuff. Links to similar content pages on your site.
Make everything within 2-3 clicks of the main page.
Break up huge amounts of text with related images to help the eyes stay focused where they should be,
Your site should load fast. Use real thumbnails for your images and not just merely resizing with HTML.
Don't overwhelm people with ads.
Remove spam promptly.

Your site should invite people back.

Give your visitors multiple ways to be notified and access new content (RSS feeds, email subscription, follow on Twitter, a Facebook fan page.) Make sure new content reaches them wherever it's convenient to them.

Your site should encourage sharing.

Make sure you don't use frames. Every page should have its own unique URL that shows in the address bar.
Use Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Google Reader/Buzz buttons.

Your content should be unique and of high quality.

Don't copy other people's stuff, write your own.
Check your spelling and grammar.
Put thought into what you write.
If you post YouTube videos, add some unique commentary that doesn't exist anywhere else on the web.
For every sentence you quote from another source, write 3-5 of your own. So if you quote 3 sentences, you will have to write 9-15 to balance it. Don't quote in every article. Don't quote any more than what is necessary, less is much better than more.
If you are supplying information, make sure it is complete, accurate, and up to date.
Write about stuff people will care about enough to want read it. Don't write about what you had for lunch unless your a restaurant critic.
If your site is a blog, link out in every article to quality related content. Linking out to pages on other good blogs has the bonus in that it may earn you a trackback link on that page, or at the very least attract the eyes of the author of that blog who will stop by and check out who is linking to him.

Interact with your visitors and make them feel important.

Allow commenting and respond to comments as soon as humanly possible.
Give your visitors a means of contacting you privately, either by supplying an email address or a contact form.

Spread the word.

Become a highly respected member of a large community with similar content.. Put your link in your profile and signature. If people respect you, they will click the links.
Reach out to blogs by reading and participating in discussions. Never leave a "nice post" comment. Put some thought & work into your responses. You want to catch the attention of other readers and the bloggers themselves, and make them ask "Wow! Who is this guy?" so they will click your name and visit the site it links to. Always make your comments increase the value of that bloggers page.
Participate on social media sites and interact with people in a positive way. Get conversations going. Again, you want to make people ask "Who is that guy?" which will lead to them checking out who you are (your profile) and where you came from (your site).
Find an ad network that gives away free advertising. (I happen to really like Project Wonderful, personally)

If you do all of the above, quality inbound links will happen on their own and between the fact that others think high enough about you and your site to write about it and link to it, combined with having a great site, structurally, that makes it easy for spiders to find your content, you will get the ranking in the search engines that you deserve.

Above all, be patient, work hard, and don't engage in any "evil tricks". Good ranking does not happen overnight.

How to Get Google Buzz Alerts Out of Your Inbox (and keep them out)

2010-02-10T16:06:00.001-05:00

Google Buzz is the new social networking and sharing tool from Google that many are now trying out. It has a feature that some may find annoying:

Whenever you comment on an item, if anyone else comments after you, it is sent to your inbox, much in the same way as an incoming email. If you are especially active on Buzz, that could be a lot of stuff in your inbox, and for especially popular items, they could keep coming back like a bad penny.

There are two ways to stop it.

Stop following that item.
Create a filter to automatically label it, skip the inbox, and archive it.

Here is how you set up the filter:

Step 1: Open one of the items in your inbox.

Step 2: At the top, under the “More Actions” menu, select “Filter messages like these”.

(click image to view full size)

Step 3: Type “updates.google.com” in the “from” box and then type “Buzz” in the “Subject” box. Now click “Test search”. All of the Buzz items should show below the box. Click “Next Step”.

(click image to view full size)

Step 4: Place a check mark in “Skip the inbox” and “Apply the label”. Then select from the label dropdown list “New label” and type in “Google Buzz”. To archive and label the ones currently in your inbox, place a check mark in the box next to “Also apply filter to conversations below”. Then click “Create Filter” and you are done.

(click image to view full size)

From now on, instead of the messages ending up in your inbox, they will be archived under the label “Google Buzz” on the sidebar.

Forget getting more Twitter followers, here's how to keep the ones you have

2009-09-13T13:21:00.002-04:00

How to annoy people on Twitter (or at least me).

Don’t do these things and you will be more likely to keep the followers you have and get more followers by being recommended by them.

1. Copy & paste quotes from famous people instead of letting your followers read what you have to say.

2. Send them an automatic DM with a link to your crappy site, a free gift, or some valuable secret info you want to sell for the low price of $49, as your very first communication with them.

3. Send them a DM thanking them for following you when you are the one that just followed them first.

4. RT every link posted by Robert Scoble ASAP. Since we are all following him already, it's not likely we saw it when he posted it 30 seconds ago, right?

5. Tweet links to pages that look like a bad ebay ad, selling some new method of getting millions of twitter followers overnight, how to get your site on the front page of Digg, how to get tons of traffic for your website, or how to make a fortune on Adsense.

6. Do searches and tweet people you are not even following, attempting to sell them a $100 mini flashlight, just because they mentioned a flashlight in one of their tweets.

7. DM people unsolicited links to photos of your hairy scary ass or other equally ugly body parts that you really should keep covered.

8. TWEET IN ALL CAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111

9. Tweet the same message 10 times in a row.

10. Make sure at least 1 tweet per hour contains the words "FREE LAPTOP".

11. Tell every Windows user to "just get a Mac"

12. At least 50% of your tweets should be about how great your iPhone is.

13. Have your ENTIRE lifestream feed into twitter from friendfeed, then go on a huge "like" spree with every LOLcat posted there in the last 6 months.

14. Follow and unfollow the same person repeatedly.

15. Publicly welcome every new follower you get.

16. #Make #every #word #in #your #tweets #into #hashtags #and #toss #in #a #few #extra #popular #but #irrelevant #ones #just #for #the #hell #of #it. #Don't #forget #to #finish #by #making #one #up #that #is #complete #nonsense. #ljhgliu

17. Use URL shortening services to make links that point to links already shortened by other shorteners.

18. Beg for retweets.

19. Post many tweets in a row for #followfriday with just a bunch of names and no explanation of why anyone should follow them. Every childless person on twitter should follow that stay-at-home mom that tweets diaper changing and toilet training tips, right?

20. Use a service that auto-tweets spammy paid ads from your account.

My Top 10 FriendFeed Friends

2008-12-04T17:42:00.001-05:00

In response to Growmap's Top 10 FriendFeed Friend Challenge, I figured I'd post my list and tell a little about my FriendFeed experience and give some tips to those of you that might be new or may be a bit nervous about jumping in and friending strangers.

What exactly is FriendFeed?

Simply put, FriendFeed is a social network that aggregates your activities from other sites and networks. It's lifestreaming.

But it is much more than that. It's a great place to meet people that share your interests, share content, discover great content shared by others, keep up with news and events, engage in conversations, etc, etc, etc. It's the grand-daddy of social networking and a never ending internet content feeding frenzy.

It does not replace the social networks you are already a part of. It compliments them, making them even better.

How did I find FriendFeed?

I was introduced to FriendFeed by Chris Brogan. I was looking for a way to combine all my internet activities into a single RSS feed that my friends and readers could subscribe to. Sites like FaceBook were falling flat and not fulfilling the needs I had. I needed a service that wouldn't limit the number of blogs I could add, could handle some obscure services, and would be able to include my Backtype feed, containing comments I leave on the blogs I read. Chris assured me that FriendFeed was more than capable of doing all that I wanted, so I decided to give it a try.

How did I find people to follow?

When I came to FriendFeed, I came alone. I had no friends that used the service (that I knew about). Originally I didn't intend on using it for social networking. I just wanted to get myself together in one feed.

But curiosity got the best of me and I decided to do some exploring and see what kind of real potential the site had, beyond consolidating my activities into a single RSS feed. To do this, I had to start from scratch, finding interesting people to follow.

I decided to start by subscribing to Robert Scoble and working my way from there, following the writers of some of my favorite blogs and other people of interest. This was the same thing I did on Twitter, although I didn't find Twitter as engaging as FriendFeed. (conversations are much more difficult for me to participate in and follow on Twitter)

Who are the most interesting people I have found?

Of the almost 300 people that I have subscribed to on FriendFeed, these are the top 10 that have captured my interest the most:

Rahsheen - Author of the social media blog, SheenOnline. He is always posting something interesting to to think about and discuss.
Mona N. - Author of Pixel Bits, a great blog about gadgets, technology, pop culture, and Legos. She posts lots of stuff that just screams for you to comment and share your thoughts and opinions.
Kol Tregaskes - Author of the Squashy Frog photography blog. He is always posting links to lots of visually appealing stuff. If you want to be a better photographer, he's the one to follow. And if you just want candy for your eyes, you won't be disappointed.
RAPatton - Subscribing to this guy will bring you a real mixed bag of stuff, most of it quite interesting. If you love click adventures as much as I do, you'll really appreciate what he shares.
Stupid Blogger (aka Tina) - Author of Is This Stupid?. Besides informing you of all the ridiculous stuff she comes across each day, she is also very friendly and down to earth. She is one of the few that I am subscribed to that really lets you inside her head. She makes it quite easy to get to know her as a person. If you are a nice person that has no real friends (online or off) subscribing to her will make you feel like you have at least one.
Live4SoccerVacations - When you have had a bad day and need a good laugh, if you are subscribed to this guy, you won't have to look far.
Cee Bee - If it's cool, unusual, amusing, or nostalgic, you'll find it here.
Duncan Riley - Editor of The Inquisitr.
Robert Scoble - He's Robert Scoble. Need I say more? You can not join a social network he is a member of without subscribing to him or finding him interesting. It's just not allowed.
Zee - Founder of We Do Creative, he has also contributed to The Next Web, ReadWriteWeb, and The Inquisitr. As a fellow reject of the "Internet Addicts Anonymous" outreach program, he'd rather stay addicted than limit or give up his surfing habits. It's a good thing for him that he was able to find numerous ways to make his addiction profitable.

Just as important as the content this group posts and shares, is the conversations they start and contribute to. They really understand what social networks are for and they know how to do it right.

How should you find people to follow?

Now, this might not be the appropriate list for you to subscribe to, since your interests may differ from my own. The nice thing about FriendFeed is that it is different for everyone. Your Home page is not like anyone else's. It's what you make it, and you do this by subscribing to people that post the type of content you are interested in.

My suggestion to you would be to visit each of the pages of the people from my list, look over the postings they make, click some links that catch your eye, read the FriendFeed comments to their posts, then move to their "Likes & Comments" page and do the same. If you like what you see, subscribe to them so you can see more of it.

Make sure you post content, too. This is how people become interested in you. The more you post and share, the easier it will be to find others that like what you like, and more people to subscribe to. Commenting and clicking that "Like" link helps, too.

And check out the rooms that the people you follow are subscribed to. You can find interesting things and people there too.

You could even subscribe to me, if you want.

With some effort from you, you might find yourself on someone else's FriendFeed Top 10 list, some day.

WARNING:

Be really careful with FriendFeed. It is very easy to get sucked in, addicted, and totally obsessed. If you find your productivity going downhill, you will have to set some limits for yourself. Try Instant Boss and only pay attention to FriendFeed while you are on a scheduled break.

The 10 Commandments for Marketing Your site on Digg

2008-11-24T21:17:00.009-05:00

Never submit pages from your own sites. Never Digg anything from your own sites. This is the most important rule of all, so this is why it is first. If you follow nothing else on this list, at least follow this single most important rule.
Create a proper profile with an image and links to your websites and profiles on other social networks. Your profile is an important part of your site activities. It allows people to get to know who you are and more about you. The default image provided by Digg doesn't make a good impression on anyone. A properly filled out profile invites social interaction. Digg is a social site. It's important to be social. Most of the traffic I get directly from Digg is people visiting my sites through links on my profile.
Avoid using the Digg shout system as much as possible. Even if you keep your shouts private, people and search engines can still see and find them. These shouts can hurt you. It can be viewed by some people and search engines as a form of spamming.
Make friends with your Digg mutual friends on other social sites that have a private message system in which private messages are never made public and accessible to search engines. Or even better, use instant messaging and email, instead.
Get your Digg friends to submit your content for you, and don’t use the same person too frequently…rotate them. (use the private message system on other sites to suggest what to submit and Digg) And not every page on your site is a worthy candidate for submission. Be selective and only give them links to the best content you have on your site. Be very critical of your own work. You know what will appeal to the masses and what won't. Don't act like you are stupid. Don't submit things that will likely only get a few Diggs. This will hurt your site, in the long run when your content is submitted to Digg and gets a low number of Diggs. Google rates your content in part, by the number of Diggs it receives. Choose wisely.
Get real friends that are also members of Digg to submit and/or Digg your stuff. (same thing…contact them offsite) Make sure those friends are not connected to your Digg profile in any way.
Digg a big variety of content submitted by others (not just your friends), from the upcoming section, and don’t Digg anything lame. Think massive quantities of mass appeal. Ask yourself the following: "What would the majority of people assume about me if they were to see this in my Digg history?" If it's not something good, don't Digg it, even if you really like it.
Make sure you comment and say something intelligent that won’t get voted down, on at least 50% of what you Digg. Commenting and interacting with others is being social. You need to be social on a social network, or it just won't work. You want to be one of the first few to comment as frequently as possible, and you don't want to seem like you are some sort of idiot. And vote up the intelligent comments that you like, made by others. The more you are an early commenter with something intelligent to say, and the more social you are, the more likely it will be that you will catch the eye of a more powerful Digger that likes you for what you have to say and what you Digg, and he will be more likely to check out the other things you Digg, and then possibly Digg things that you Digg. More powerful Diggers have crowd appeal that you don’t. Their followers are what you are after and you get to those through them.
Do not attempt to friend the top dogs on Digg until you have established a very strong profile and have an abundance of experience. They are not going to friend you back if they don't know who you are and have never seen you around the site. An even better idea is to wait for them to friend you, first.
Never friend anyone on Digg that breaks the above rules. Remember the old saying "Birds of a feather flock together". Don't mark yourself as "guilty through association". Anyone that breaks the above rules are poor quality Diggers and their activities can get you marked as a spammer or poor quality Digger, yourself, and then either your account will get banned, you submissions will get constantly buried, or people just won’t Digg your stuff. If that happens, then you will be useless to your mutual Digg friends, and they will not be willing to help you as much. They may even stop following you. Leave the poor quality Diggers that break the above rules as just followers and not mutual friends. Don’t follow them or you will be following them to failure. Associate yourself only with quality.

And what kinds of things should you submit and Digg besides the usual stuff that has mass appeal, and content of good quality from your friends? Submit and Digg high quality pages that link to yours. Your goal should be indirect traffic coming from those sites to yours and not from Digg to yours. This is one easy way you can reward people that are kind enough to write about you. You give those pages more traffic and a boost in page rank and have more links pointing to you in the top 10 results in the search engines.

The goal is not to get a day of traffic from Digg. The goal is not to increase your own page rank for your site (this will happen any way if you follow my suggestions). The goal is not for your site to make the front page of Digg.

The goal is to take over the entire front page of the search engines so all links will point to you, directly or indirectly when someone searches for something.

Most people never go to page 2 of the results. They usually find what they want on page 1. If every article on page 1 sends them to you, you WIN BIG TIME, even if your site is buried on page 8 of the search results, which it won’t be if you are paying attention and learning from what I just said.

The higher the page rank of the sites that link to you, the higher your page rank will be. Why have a bunch of PR0 sites linking to you when you can actively do something about it and help turn them into PR3 or higher? This is one case where nice guys don't have to finish last. Being nice can help you finish first.