Mark Tosczak» SEO

Why you should attend ConvergeSouth

Mark Tosczak — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 10:15:16 +0000

Blogs and social media are great, but you can often learn more, meet more people and have a richer experience attending conferences, seminars and other events in person. There’s a big difference between skimming a blog post in your RSS reader and the immersive, interactive experience of a conference.

That’s why, if you’re interested in social media, search engine optimization (SEO) and doing business online, you should attend ConvergeSouth 2010. (Disclaimer: I am one of the volunteers helping to put the conference together. I’m involved because I’ve attended several past ConvergeSouth conferences and I think it’s a great conference.)

So far, this year’s line-up of speakers includes:

Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist
Elyse Porterfield, of quitting a job via whiteboard fame, on viral video marketing
Will Carroll, Sports Illustrated’s Fantasy League writer
SEO pro Brent Payne (who’s in charge of SEO for 50+ Tribune Co. websites)

There’s a full schedule over there on the right-hand navigation menu of my blog. Want to learn more? More importantly, want to register? You should. Visit the ConvergeSouth website and sign-up today. It’ll be worth it. I’ll see you there.

12 things to do when you don't feel like blogging

Mark Tosczak — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:05:47 +0000

Don't resort to cat blogging. (Photo source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1244985)

This is another one of my occasional posts on what to do when you don’t feel like blogging.

1. Update your bio/about page. If you’ve been doing this for any length of time, chances are it’s out of date. You should also make sure that you’re including everything there that’s going to help reinforce your brand and (if it’s a personal blog) establish your authority and expertise.

2. Develop a list of non-content tweaks to improve your blog. Chances are, you’ve got a widget or a plug-in you’ve been meaning to add to your blog, or a design tweak that you haven’t gotten around to. If you’re not going to create new content (the most important thing you can do), then figure out what else you could do to improve your blog.

3. Make one (or more) of your list of non-content improvements. If you already have a list of potential blog improvements, or you’ve made one, now is the time to start implementing those. Decide which is most important, and implement that.

4. Add more social media sites to your Ping.fm account. Ping.fm is a cool service that allows you to send updates to all sorts of social media, chat and social bookmarking sites at once. That makes it easy, when you publish a new post, to spread it to all sorts of networks. You still have to sign up for individual accounts at these sites, but Ping.fm automates the process of posting to some or all of them at once. Hint: You can also tie Ping.fm into your Hootsuite account, so Hootsuite updates it — if that makes sense for you.

5. Create a notebook with all the important records related to your blog. If you’re not keeping track of all your passwords, business records and other information related to your blogging and social media activity, it’s easy to find yourself hitting that “I’ve forgotten my password” link too often. I use 3×5 cards in a little plastic box (about $2 from an office supply store) to keep track of this information.

6. Brainstorm ideas for the next time you do blog. Sometimes taking the pressure off yourself of actually writing a full blog post can be freeing, and you may find new ideas flowing.

7. Leave smart, relevant comments on other blog posts. If you’re like me, you’re already blogging, keeping up with social media networks and digesting a torrent of incoming email, RSS feeds, ebooks and paper books. Commenting is something you probably don’t do as often as you should. Blogs with CommentLuv installed or that use Do Follow links can be particularly helpful for SEO purposes.

8. Check out other blogs in your niche, and figure out how to get a guest post on one of them. Guest posting can boost your search engine visibility, bring you new readers and give more credibility to your reputation and brand. Step one is to figure out where you’d like to guest post.

9. Look at your blog with a browser you don’t normally use and fix any design problems that show up. If you habitually use one browser (I recommend Firefox), you might be surprised what it looks like in Internet Explorer (various versions), Apple’s Safari, Google’s Chrome or the Opera browser (all of these, except Internet Explorer, come in versions for both Mac and Windows machines). You might also want to consider making your site better for mobile browsers. Here’s a set of WordPress plug-ins to help you do that.

10. Do something totally different to get inspired. Exercise, visit a museum, play with your children or read a thriller. Sometimes your brain needs a rest or a change of direction.

11. Proofread old posts. You’d be surprised at how many grammar and spelling errors could be hiding in old posts. Go read some of that older content and fix any mistakes. After the Deadline is a WordPress plugin (there’s also a Firefox add-on version) to help you find and correct those errors.

12. Blog anyway. If you’ve committed to posting regularly, don’t let your feelings (which are probably temporary) dictate your actions. If you’re feeling blocked, read my post on eight ways to overcome writer’s block.

What do you do when you just don’t feel like blogging? Leave your tips in the comments.

How and why you should get your own domain name

Mark Tosczak — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:09:00 +0000

I’m always surprised by the number of businesses, large organizations and professionals I see using someone else’s domain name for a blog. Often this takes the form of hosting a blog on one of the major hosting sites — wordpress.com or blogspot.com, for instance. I suspect this is because many people don’t understand how inexpensive and easy it use to use one of those services with a domain name of your choosing. Why bother at all?

1. Portability. Even if you’re using a hosting service such wordpress.com now, so long as you own your own domain it’s easy to transfer your blog to a self-hosted service down the road (more on this in another post). Once you have a domain name registered, you can “point” it to whatever hosting service you like.

2. It’s more professional. It just looks more professional, and thus is better marketing, to have your own domain name. It suggests to visitors that you have put more time and energy into the site, and that it’s more legitimate.

3. Your domain name will probably be shorter. When you’re putting that URL on business cards, in emails or giving it out to people over the phone or in person, shorter is better. Generally yourdomain.com will be shorter than yourdomain.somehostingservice.com. This also means there’s less chance people will make a mistake and fail to actually get to your site if they type the domain name into a web browser.

That said, choosing a domain name is something you should spend some time on. Here are some factors to consider:

1. If at all possible, choose a .com domain name. The .com extension is the one that people often assume a domain name has. Other extensions, such as .net or .biz, simply aren’t as intuitive for most web users.

2. Choose something that’s as short as possible and as easy to spell as possible. Although I own the domain name marktosczak.com, I don’t use it here because my last name is difficult to spell. Instead, I’ve chosen marktzk, which is easy to give out over the phone and easy to spell (and roughly, phonetically equivalent to my name).

3. For SEO, choose relevant keywords. If you’re a dentist, you might want to choose a domain name with the word ‘dentist’ or ‘dentistry’ or something similar in it. People may search for those terms, and you’ll have a better chance of coming up higher in the rankings if search terms are actually used in your URL. (In case you’re wondering why, it’s because links to your site are more likely to include that search term in the display text, which is one of the criteria Google uses in ranking web site search results.)

4. Pick a name that is relevant to your brand or what your web site will be about. If your web site is about you, or you want to brand based on your name or personal identity, then a name-based site is fine. If your web site is about fitness, then choose a domain name that somehow references that idea.

So, what are the mechanics of finding and buying a great domain name? Here’s a process that has worked for me over the years.

1. Brainstorm lots of domain name ideas. For each one, go to a domain name registrar and type it in to see if it is taken. If you’re hunting for .com domains, chances are many of your ideas will already be registered. But, if you keep at this long enough you’ll eventually find a list of domain names that you like reasonably well and that are available. Here’s a tip if you’re having trouble finding good names: Take your preferred terms (ex. “dentist” or “fitness”) and add a common word on to the end of it – “hq” or “book”, for example. So you might end up with a domain such as “fitnesshq.com.” (Though, that particular name is already taken.)

2. Go to the domain name registrar of your choice and register the name. You ought to be able to get a domain from a reliable registrar for about $10 a year, often less. I’m surprised that there are still people paying $35 a year, though for many businesses this is not a significant expense. I use Namecheap.com (affiliate link) for most of my domains. It’s inexpensive, reliable and has a range of free extras included.

If this is a personal domain, such as for a blog, I would recommend also getting a privacy guard feature installed. Namecheap uses a service called “WhoisGuard.” When you register a domain, you’re required to provide a valid mailing address and other information. This information is available publicly via searches. So if you give your home address, anybody who knows your domain name can find your home address. But privacy services insert a third-party company address into this record, hiding your personal information.

3. If you’re using a hosting service, such as wordpress.com (which I recommend if you are going to use such a service), enable “URL forwarding” on your domain. Your domain name registrar basically sets your domain information so that it points to your website, and when people enter your domain in a browser they are sent to whatever site you have it forwarded to.

That’s it. What other tips and resources do you have for choosing a domain name? Please share them in the comments below.

Four keys to improving any web site

Mark Tosczak — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 11:00:38 +0000

What have you done lately to improve your blog or web site? (Photo by ilco at stock.xchng - http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1198416)

When I look at this blog or almost any other web site, I always see things that could be done better. And I know that there are things that could be improved that I’m not seeing, because I’m simply not aware of all the shortcomings of a particular web site.

Since you can’t do everything at once, you might try tweaking and improving your web site one area at a time. Here are some ideas to help you do that:

1. Analytics.

Web analytics can help you understand who’s coming to your site, how often and how they’re using your site. Fortunately, this need not be expensive. Google Analytics is a powerful, robust tool that’s completely free. And it’s getting better all the time.

Analytics bonus tip: It’s not just what people are doing on your site, but what links they’re clicking on that take them off your site. Google Analytics can help you do that.

2. Conversion.

In case you’re not a marketer, conversion is basically what you want somebody to do on your site. In the context of your blog or another web site, conversion could mean buying something, but it could also be the number of people who sign up for your email newsletter, who subscribe to your RSS feed, who click to other pages on your site or who download a white paper. Figure out what conversion means to you, and then start tracking it. (And yes, once again Google Analytics can help and some of Big G’s other tools, such as Website Optimizer.

Conversion bonus tip: If you’re wondering why people aren’t clicking on your buttons or signingup for your newsletter, take a look at this cool tool from Google. Browser Size allows you to see how much content on your site readers see in their browser window. It may be that you’ve got a lot of readers who simple don’t see all your shiny buttons and enticing graphics at first glance.

3. Stickiness.

One of the things your analytics package (Google’s or something else) should be able to tell you is the bounce rate. That’s the percentage of visitors to your site who leave after viewing just one page. Generally the lower this number the better. Chances are that in order to engage people, and certainly in order to convert them, you need people to visit other pages on your site.

The more pages people typically visit on your site, than the “stickier” your web site is. How do you increase stickiness? One way is to make sure that links to your best content (your most popular blog posts, articles, photos or whatever) are clearly visible on every page of your site. That’s why I hae the “Popular Posts” navigation menu on the right hand side of this page. The WordPress plugin Yet Another Related Post Plugin, which I run here, gives you a list of other posts that should have be related in topic to this one.

To increase stickiness, make sure readers see your best stuff, no matter what page they’re on.

4. Speed.

The slower your web site, the more likely it is that people will get tired of waiting for it to finish loading and then leave (and your chances of achieving any conversion goals you might have will go to zero). So what do you do about it? Figure out how fast (or slow) your site is, diagnose the speed bottlenecks and then fix them. Here’s a couple tools that can help.

This free web site optimization tool allows you to plug in any site address and see how long the site will load at various speeds. It will also give you all sorts of tips on how on how to speed up your site.

Google also has a free browser plugin, Page Speed, that can help you diagnose and fix your web site speed problems.

Caution: Some of this information is technical, so if you’re not sure what a CSS file, you might be better off leaving this kind of optimization to a professional web developer.

Work on these four things and I can practically guarantee you will get more of the results you want out of your web site.

Do you have some tips on how to improve a web site? Please share them in the comments below.

Most useful online marketing posts of 2009

Mark Tosczak — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 11:54:16 +0000

I wish I could say I’d written a bunch of these, but I didn’t. Nonetheless, Who’s Blogging What, a newsletter that rounds up the best in online marketing, has a great list of online marketing posts. There are 25 posts in each of five categories – social media, search marketing, user experience, email marketing and web analytics.

Want “Tips to Get People to Join Your Facebook Fan Page?” It’s there.

How about “Nine Effective Tips for a Better Landing Page?” It’s there, too.

Or “15 Best Places for Designers to Get Free Stock Photos Online?” Yep, it’s there, also.

And much, much more. For what it’s worth, Who’s Blogging What counts as one of my best finds this year, even though it’s been around for years. It’s one of those ideas that makes me slap my forehead and say ‘why didn’t I think of that.’ I didn’t, but fortunately someone else did.

Check out the list of the most useful online marketing posts of 2009.

Thesis theme discounted for Black Friday – limited time

Mark Tosczak — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 11:14:58 +0000

If you’ve been thinking about getting the flexible, search-engine optimized Thesis theme, now is the time to do so. The creator, Chris Pearson, is holding a Black Friday sale that is limited to the first 150 people who enter the following code:

20D03977D0

Click on this link to get the theme, and enter the code above, and you will get 20% off the theme. If you currently have a personal licenses for the theme and want to upgrade to a developer’s license, the discount is good for that as well.

And while I’m at it — I wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving.

How and why you should get your own domain name

Tips for better blogging and buzz marketing

Mark Tosczak — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 12:03:32 +0000

Here’s a round-up of links that ought to be of use for anyone marketing online:

Please let me know if you find these links useful.

How to design better URLs

Mark Tosczak — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:27:40 +0000

SEO 2.0 has a list of the top 10 URL design mistakes. It turns out, there are some basic principles you should follow if want to create URLs that are friendlier both for search engines and human web searchers. I’d also note that these shorter, human-readable URLs are also far better when you’re pasting them into a tweet or a Facebook update.

Link.