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Challenge: Keeping Up with New Search Options
Blog-specific search works differ-
ently from standard search. Instead of going out and wandering through the zillions of
web pages on the Internet every day, blog search engines sit back and watch for
changes that come in through the “wires.” This means that you’ll need to do things a
little differently to get your site included in these engines. In Part III, we’ll walk you
through the “need to feed” that will get your blog or podcast listed.
Until the summer of 2005, everybody was asking, “Who is going to be the Google of
blogs?” Now it looks like it’s quite possible that
Google
will be the Google of blogs,
with its long-awaited blog search. Other major search engines were not far behind, and
as of this writing, Yahoo! and AOL are chomping at the bit with blog search engines.
Despite the flood of “mainstream” search engines getting in on the blog search action,
bloggers still need to be very aware of smaller, blog-specific search sites. You can find links
to current biggies and up-and-comers on the companion website at
www.yourseoplan.com
.
Advantage: A Link-Friendly Culture
Showing up on the blog-specific search engines isn’t
going to get you very far on its own. Blogs are part of a very special subculture on the
Internet, usually called the
Blogosphere
, and you need to tap into that subculture to gain
visibility. Blogs need incoming and outgoing links—lots and lots of them—to succeed.
But, lucky for you, no other sector of today’s Web is as link-happy as the Blogosphere.
The Blogosphere is a very social place. Even if you usually cross to the other side of the
street to avoid chatting with a neighbor in the “real world,” you need to force yourself
to be a much more gregarious animal online. Time-consuming as it may be, reading
other blogs is one of the best ways to connect yourself to a community, and ultimately
build links and visibility for your own blog. But be careful: one thing you must
never
do when visiting other blogs is leave a
spam comment
, saying nothing more than “Visit
my blog!” Bloggers are merciless in their punishment of etiquette-breaking behavior
such as this.
Challenge: Optimizing Every Post
Since your site probably doesn’t have a traditional
site map, with sections, subsections, and conversion pages, you won’t have traditional
landing pages to focus your SEO attentions on. Instead, you will have to put your time
into making
every post
a better place for searchers to land. All of the SEO rules we lay
out in this book for landing pages—rules like including keywords throughout text,
writing great titles, and using search engine-readable HTML text—should become part
of your every post.
Does it go without saying that you are going to need to update your blog very, very
frequently? We sure hope so. Since your whole existence as a blogger is about writing
excellent content, you’re already well on your way to search-friendly site optimization.
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