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Blogging SEO Tips from Google

Matt Cutts the engineer from Google who speaks to the webmaster community has posted slides of tips for SEO blogging. When Google talks I listen!

Here’s a link to the blog post. When he posts a video on the topic I’ll embed it in another post so keep an eye out for it.

Matt likes WordPress for his own blogging and so do I. Although in the slides it is hard to understand his input, the video will clearly be more exciting. In the slides and video he will talk about how PageRank is calculated and information on inbound links and their importance for organic placement for blogs. The slides are a teaser, but the real meat will be the video.

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TweetLater the Auto Responder for Twitter

I have long wondered just how some people that I follow remember to send me a welcome message. Are they hanging out by their computer pasting in a message to every follower?

Whatever they are doing, I want to do it too! I think it is cool to have a welcome message. So I searched for applications and found a good free one called TweetLater.  I set up a free account, did an auto responder for my own followers and liked the program so much I have even become an affiliate. Hey if you click my link above and sign up for a premium account, TweetLater will buy me lunch at McDonalds.

But you don’t have to pay to use many of the features including the auto responder feature. I have set up an instant message sent to new followers and have even enabled to follow them all automatically. When a new follower unfollows me, I automatically unfollow them. All without any action on my part.

Wow, is all I can say, what a great tool! TweetLater also allows even the free account to scheduled tweets, automatically will space tweets out throughout the day, and even records the results of all of its actions.

So if you want to move your Twitter account to the next level like the top Twitter uses, get your free account at TweetLater. If you follow me @mccordweb, you’ll be able to see the auto responder in action.

See you on Twitter!

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How to Make Your Own Background for Twitter

Take a look at my new Twitter background, pretty cool? Want one too? Here’s how you make your own.

  1. In Photoshop set your canvas to 1920 by 1000 set your resolution to 72 dpi.
  2. Pull over guides from the ruler for vertical guides and place them at 25 pixels from the left, then 185 then 200.
  3. Pull down guides from the ruler for horizontal guides and place them at 65, 565, and 705 pixels.
  4. Color your background and add interest with color or brushes as desired.
  5. Add text in the spot that you have created with the guides that looks like a side bar.
  6. Make sure your image is under 80 KB.
  7. Load your new background to Twitter. For me, it took clicking browse and save several times for my image to appear.
  8. Style your font and sidebar by moving Twitter’s color sliders around until you like the effect.

Have fun and make sure to follow me @mccordweb, I’ll make sure to follow you back. See you on Twitter.

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Are You Using Affiliate Programs?

If you are not using Affiliate Programs, you should. What I am specifically speaking about is talking about other products and services and then linking to the site. If the client buys the service by clicking your links, you get a commission. I don’t make a huge amount of money doing this, but I do make some. In all cases if I am making a commission from a link click, I will state it to a customer either in writing or when I point them to the link.

For me, the link click is about equal to getting lunch from McDonalds paid by the sponsor, not a big deal, but can add up over time. I only recommend sites that I know are great resources for my clients. If I have not tried out your product, I will not write about it or recommend it.

When I like a product I will actively look on their website to see if they have an affiliate program that I can participate in. I really don’t like when a sponsor hooks up with Commission Junction. My reason is that if you do not generate monthly and quarterly commissions, Commission Junction chops your account which is very annoying. My affiliate business ebbs and flows and I don’t always have months where income is generated.

So if you have a website and you promote products and services, make sure to check to see if you should be getting a free lunch from your sponsor too. It just makes good business sense.