What is Permalink?
Permalinks are the permanent URLs to your individual weblog posts, as well as categories and other lists of weblog postings. A permalink is what another weblogger will use to link to your article (or section), or how you might send a link to your story in an e-mail message. The URL to each post should be permanent, and never change — hence permalink. Read: WordPress.Org

Default Setting For Your WordPress
By default, your permalink will look someting like this:
http://example.com/?p=N

Looking the above, we can say that the link won’t be good for you if you looking to get better result in search engines, plus it look VERY UGLY indeed.

Custom Setting
What you need to do is to change the setting, so it look something like this:
http://example.com/Using_Permalinks, or
http://example.com/wordpress/Using_Permalinks

It is highly recommend that you use a custom permalink structure in order to maximize your search engine visibility. If you use one of the custom permalink structures above, your permalinks will be formed using the title of your blog post (which should contain keywords you want to rank for in the search engines.

This is a big deal because you simply CANNOT get the maximum search engine visibility you want using the default setting – See above. You should be using keywords and keyword phrases in the title of your blog posts. Using a custom permalink structure, your keywords and keyword phrases will appear in the permanent link to the blog post, giving your blog posts more search engine mojo.

To Change Your Setting:
1. Log-in To Your Dashboard
2. Click “Setting”
3. Click “Permalink”
4. Change Setting To “/%category%/%postname%” (Recommended)
5. Adjust your .htaccess file – make writeble. If you don’t have one, simple copy the sample given [See below] , copy to notepad and “Save As” all file. Name the file .htaccess file.
6. Upload to your root directory and you’re done.

Have a try and good luck!

- Custom Permalink Structure

Passionate About Blogging

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I agree with Case that successful website design will enable website visitors to focus on the most important part of your website, i.e the content. Whatever the content is, sales pages or valuable information, great website design makes your visitors feel comfortable taking notice of your content. Take note that the content that has to do the job, whether selling, generating leads, picking up subscribers or whatever it is that you want your visitors to do. That is your MWR, your Most Wanted Response!

Therefore, Case argues that the first and most important factor in website design is to get your content indexed and listed in the search engines. No listings means no free traffic. Although we can buy traffics these days, Case argues at what cost? For him, it is better to use search engine optimized website design.

So how to achive that? Thankfully, Case was generous enough to give away 10 useful tips for successful website design. See below:

1. Use Search Engine Optimized Templates. Using a great template makes your life easier because all your pages will have the same lay-out which makes adding and updating websites a breeze. Templates will save you tons of time maintaining your websites.

2. Use Meta Tags. Although the keyword meta tag isn’t that important any more, nevertheless the Title tag IS! In fact, according to Case, it’s the most important meta tag and many websites don’t use it. Search engines use the title tag to see what your page is all about and list it in their result pages. Also, they use your description tag as added information. It’s a great way to entice searchers to click on your webpage when they find it.

3. Delete All The Crap And Unneccesary Contents. Flash and (java) scripts are nice, but very often they don’t serve a purpose. Instead, they fill up your visitors’ computer memory and make them run slow. Dump it, throw it away. Using as little code as possible is the best way to guarantee good search engine positioning.

4. Use Simple And Clear Navigation. Use simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a young child or a granny will know how to use it. Stay away from complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. If your visitors don’t know how to navigate, they will probably leave your site.

5. Use Sitemap. Site maps are a great way to take search engine robots by the hand and show them all the pages of your site and also help them understand what each page is about, which means it makes your site more search-engine-friendly and helps get a higher ranking. If you don’t know how to create a sitemap visit XML Sitemaps Dot Com to create one FREE and easily.

6. Use CSS. With CSS, abreviation for Cascading Style Sheets, you can control the style and layout of multiple web pages all at once. In other words, your website layout and style design is defined in one place and one place only. Change your css file and your complete website will be updated.

7. Reduce The Number Of Images On Your Website. Yes, picture can say more than a thousand words, but many pictures don’t. They make your site load very slowly and more often than not they are very unnecessary. And, if you have an image that says more than a thousand words, make sure you optimize it to a minimum file size and offer a larger version as an option.

8. Write Crisp HTML That Will Validate. When they arrive at your site, search engine robots only see a bunch of HTML codes. No fancy images, no colored text, nothing of that kind. So to make search engines understand what your website is about and show them that it deserves to have a high ranking, you need to speak to them in their own language: crisp HTML coding that will validate! Don’t use deprecated HTML coding, make sure your website complies to w3 org web standards and make sure it is cross-browser compatible.

9. Write One Page For One Keyphrase And Use The Keyphrase As The Page Name. Divide your site into major blocks, ordered by themes, and start building new pages and subsections in those blocks. Without doubt you have researched the keywords and keyphrases you want to get listed for. Now, use them as the name of these blocks and individual pages at your website. Use synonyms inside the pages, so the search engines will get a good idea what your website is all about.

10. Keep Your Content Limited To 500 Pixels. For optimal reading convenience, a width of 500 pixels is recommended with a font size of 11 or 12 pixels. It’s the easiest way for our eyes to read the text. Use dark text on a light background.

- Passionate About Blogging

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Frankly, for the first few years I was online, the thought of doing my own SEO made my eyes cross, and I was overwhelmed at where to start. I even toyed with the idea of hiring a specialist to do this for me, but never got around to it. However, over time, I slowly began to see a pattern emerging, and started to optimize some of my sites accordingly. One of the best days of my business was when I recently ranked #1 for a particularly competitive search term.

I’m not a search engine optimization (SEO) specialist, nor do I play one on TV. However, even a new business owner who creates and updates her own websites can implement some very basic SEO strategies to make her website appear higher in the organic rankings on certain keyword searches.

Here are the 11 strategies that I regularly implement on my sites for better SEO positioning:
1. Page title tags: This is the page information that you see in the blue bar of your browser in the upper left-hand corner when you visit a website. For best SEO, use your top 2 keywords in your title tag. The best way to do that is separated with a bar, as illustrated in this example: Internet Marketing | Web Marketing.

2. Domain name: If at all possible, use one primary keyword in your domain name. You will have a slight edge over your competition by doing so. If you already have a domain that you have used for some time, include a keyword in the name of files for your website pages. Example: http://www.yoursite.com/internet-marketing.htm if your keyword is Internet marketing.

3. Meta tags: These are descriptions on a web page that are not seen by most visitors except when looking at the page source code in their browser. While the keyword and description metatags used to be the primary way that search engines indexed sites, that is no longer the case. However, you shouldn’t ignore them entirely, as it is still worthwhile to include them as a part of your page description. For optimal SEO, your meta description and keyword tags should be no more than 150 characters each.

4. Header tags: Header tags are the HTML code that indicate a headline, like H1, H2 and H3 and show up as bolded headlines in your page content. The first 3 header tags are the only ones you need to be concerned about, and the primary header tag, H1, is the most important. Use your primary keyword once in the H1 tag, 2-3 times in your H2 tags, and multiple times in your H3 tags.

5. Alt image tag: The alt tag typically describes an image in a floating text window when you put your mouse over the image if the image isn’t able to be displayed. The best use of any <ALT> tag is to use your keywords in your image descriptions.

6. Content formatting: Search engines pay attention to formatted content, as in when text is bolded, italicized, and underlined. Make sure that you are bolding your keywords in the content of your website.

7. Keyword density: Keyword density refers to the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears on a web page. Rather than trying to focus on the number of times a keyword appears in the content of your page, aim for a more natural density by keeping your keyword phrases in mind as you write the copy for your page. Optimally, keyword density should be between 2% – 7%. There are a number of keyword density checkers available online to assist you with determining the keyword density of a page.

8. Anchor text: Anchor text refer to links on a page that connect your visitor to other pages. So, rather than telling someone to “click here” in the content of your page, include a keyword in your anchor text, as in “click here for dog training tips.”

9. Inbound links: Reciprocal link exchange (you link to my site and I’ll link to yours) used to be a great way to attract the attention of search engines to your site. Now, search engines pay attention only to the quality and popularity of the site providing you with an inbound link that is not a reciprocal link. One of the best ways to get quality inbound links back to your site is to submít articles to high traffic article directoríes and submit press releases to paid press release services.

A second way to gain high quality inbound links is by listíng your site in search engine-friendly directoríes in which humans review the listings. Google and other search engines place more credibility in the directories in which the listings are reviewed by real people than they do other kinds of directories. Consequently, these links are weighted more heavily and favorably in the inbound link evaluation process.

10. New content: Content is still king, so one way to improve your page rank for a search term is to write high quality articles containing one or two of your keywords in the title and posting those regularly (weekly is best) to your site. Search engines are always seeking good, fresh, content, so your goal should be to make your site into an information-rich resource for your industry.

11. Site maps: There are sitemaps that help a visitor navigate a site, and sitemaps that are expressly designed for the search engines. The two are not the same. To enhance your site, submit an xml sitemap to Google Webmaster Central and Yahoo Site Explorer. I use XML Sitemaps to build search engine-friendly sitemaps on my sites.

Search engine optimization strategy is not as difficult as it appears. Take some time to do some keyword research for your site, and then spend another 15 minutes a day employing a few of these strategies until you have a well-optimized site. Why pay for visitors through pay-per-click advertising if you don’t have to?

By Donna Gunter (c) 2008

About The Author
Online Business Manager and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketíng Toolkit, visit her site at www.OnlineBizU.com . Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at www.AskDonnaGunter.com

- Passionate About Blogging

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I have been bloging for quite some time now. I consider myself quite ok when it comes to blog designing and I know a few simple SEO tricks. That’s all I can say about my blogging experience. Other than that I suck at this blogging stuff.

Recently I have been asked about Google Page Rank by a friend of mine. Actually, I don’t know what to answer, so I bluffed him a little bit. One question came to mind at that time is why I don’t bother about the GPR before? I’m sure I have read something about it in the past. So, I checked Wikipedia and found that “GPR is a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to each element of a hyperlinked set of documents, such as the World Wide Web, with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set“. Ok, I thought maybe one of the reasons I don’t bother is that I don’t understand all these computer jargons and think best to forget about it.

If we read further on Wikipedia, it says:
Google describes PageRank. “PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important”.” In other words, a PageRank results from a “ballot” among all the other pages on the World Wide Web about how important a page is“

Now let us check my blogs GPR – www.passionateaboutblogging.com/ and. Visit GRP checker. Click here. You’ll see that both blogs are rank 5 of 10 and 4 of 10 respectively. Now check high traffic blogs such as www.test.chedet.com/che_det/ and www.jebatmustdie.wordpress.com/. Both have the same GPR – 4 of 10. So what does this tell us? That my low traffic blog is more important than TDM and JMD? For the record, both my blogs are new. It was put up just a couple a months ago. So, the result seems to be quite confusing! Nevertheless, I’ll be happy to swap my GPR 5 to 1, if I can get traffic as many as TDM. [Sigh].

- Passionate About Blogging

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