And as any good experience does, I’ve been taught a lesson or two along the way and since my blog is mostly about things WordPress bloggers might like to know, I’ve been asked many questions over the years.

After thinking about it for awhile and also digging into my email / blog comment archives, I’ve noticed a few questions asked more than once by different bloggers, mostly newbies.

So I’d like to take a moment and do a Q&A session in hopes this article might help newer bloggers skip ahead in their learning curve so they can quickly forge ahead in their blogging endeavors. Realize, however, that every blog is different and what works for one person doesn’t always work for the next.

6 Blogger Questions and Answers

1. Should I go with a free blog or hosted blog?

This is probably one of the first questions bloggers are faced with when deciding to start a blog.

“Why pay money when I can get one for free?”

It makes me think of that song with the lyric, “The best things in life are free… (that’s, what I want)”.

However, as a blogger that’s not what you always want.

I wrote an article awhile back, called Start a Blog: Free or Paid? WordPress or Blogger?, where I talk about this question. If you really want a more in-depth look into this issue, check out that article.

The general answer, though, is to ask yourself “What is it I really want to do with my blog?”

Free blogs are good if you only care about your content and not much else. You could also toss in there that they’re good for those who are completely computer illiterate. But if you know even a little on how to get around on your computer and the Internet, that might not be a factor.

Hosted (paid) blogs are good if you’re looking to do more than just write articles online for the purpose of conversation. In my opinion, if you’re looking to make money from blogging and have total control over your blog’s design and options, then this is the option for you.

If you’re still unsure which to go with, I’d choose the hosted option if for no other reason than the fact that if you start with a free one and then one day realize you need a hosted blog (graduate up), you’re going to find yourself with a BIG mess in trying to figure out how to move your blog without losing search engine traction and blog subscribers.

Plus, web hosting for your blog is dirt cheap. If you can’t afford $6.95/mo. for something you’re going to spend many upon many hours working on, you need to rethink where you’re putting your money.

2. What’s the best way to secure my blog?

Buy WordPress Defender of course.

It’s impossible for me to tell someone with just one email how to secure their WordPress blog from attack. There’s more to it than simply installing plugins and keeping a strong password.

The best way to secure your blog is to first understand that you are a target–no matter what you blog about, and then take a little time and invest in learning what you need to do.

That is the best way to secure your blog… education and implementation!

3. Why is duplicate content such a big issue?

This might seem a bit complicated to understand at first, but I think with a simple analogy it will become crystal clear.

Let’s say you wrote an article called, “How I Met an Alien from Zibwaggy”.

You’d expect that Google would index your article in its search engine and most likely since there are literally NO other articles on the Web about this topic, you would be listed at the top of the search engine results.

But before you published your article, you had sent it to someone for a review and they liked it so much, they decided to steal your content and publish the article, word-for-word, on the their blog at the exact same time you published yours.

Who’s article should Google give original credit to?

Who’s should be listed first?

See the dilemma?

If you have duplicate content laying around all over the Web, it’s difficult for search engines to sift through it all and determine which article should be returned for that search. After all, who would use Google if for every search returned were duplicate copies of the same article.

You could have duplicate articles like this:

http://yourblog.com/how-i-met-an-alien

http://yourblog.com/archives/09/how-i-met-an-alien

http://yourblog.com/tags/space/how-i-met-an-alien

Google would not want to return all three of these to their users, just one. But which one is the right one to return?

The only way to be sure Google knows is if you tell it where to look and where not to look.

4. I want to start a blog to make money. What should I do first?

In this case, before you even start your blog you really need to take a close look at yourself.

Do you have that needed entrepreneurial spirit? Or are you just looking to make a little money without working too hard?

To make money online, you need to become a business minded person to some extent: study data, learn where to put money, how and where to advertise, etc. Trust me, it’s not easy at first (but it does get easier). Surround yourself in the beginning around people smarter than you and try to soak up everything they are doing and learn from them.

Above all, be humble. Realize that you don’t know everything, but then again, neither does anyone else. You rarely will make mistakes, instead you’ll simply be making progress.

Find your passion, discover the message you want to tell people, create a good story around it, and push yourself. And don’t forget that a good entrepreneur must first truly discover who they are.

5. Should I incorporate my blogging business?

If you sell something, I always advise to form either a LLC or corporation.

If you make money by selling other people’s stuff, I always advise forming a LLC or corporation.

So in general, if you do business online, I suggest forming a business structure. You’ve got to protect yourself and your assets. I don’t know about you, but I don’t keep up with every small change that happens in what’s lawful and what’s not; what’s going to get you in trouble with the FTC and what doesn’t.

If you’re going to make money from other people, form a business structure.

6. What are 3 important SEO considerations I should make when first starting my blog?

Okay, I did reword this question and narrow it down to 3 comments because, well, if I didn’t then we could be here a long time talking about SEO considerations.

The first is platform. I’d recommend a self hosted WordPress blog for that.

Next is crawlability. You want clean URLs (no parameters like ? or = in it), no flash on your site, and limited amounts of scripting, like Javascript.

Then it is all about how you focus your blog. You want to focus the site on just a few key areas of your business. In other words, focus your blog on a specific topic so it gets ranked well for that specific topic.

I must admit, I’ve have fallen short on item number three in the list.

My blog is about things WordPress bloggers might like to know (in general). But back in the early days of my blogging career, I didn’t know a whole lot about WordPress; so my blog was about things I did know, like real estate investing and being an entrepreneur.

As a result, I’ve noticed Google is a little confused on what my blog is about. I’m still working on splitting up parts of my blog into other mini sites… it’s on the list!

To be completely honest, the best SEO strategy for my blog and WP Blog Host would be if my blog was all about web hosting. But who writes a blog for SEO purposes only? Not me!

So there you go, six questions bloggers ask me from time-to-time.

What kinds of questions have people asked you about starting a blog and what is your response?

Related posts:

1. Start A Blog: Free or Paid? WordPress or Blogger?
2. A-List Bloggers & Everyday Bloggers, They Do Things Differently
3. 6 Things I Tell People Who Are Looking To Start A Blog

Personally, I like the idea of going back and editing / updating my older posts so that they reflect my experience up-to-date as well as any changes that have happened online or in the business world.

As an example, take a look at my Top Content area Google Analytics shows me:

The most traffic my blog receives is to a blog article I wrote a while back called, The Different Types of Corporations, LLCs, Partnerships, & More. Just about all of the traffic comes from Google Search. These people are looking for information on how to structure their business and protect their assets.

But things change… laws, new structures, etc. and if I never update the post people could be getting the wrong information.

So I’m curious. What’s your take?

Do you prefer to leave older articles as they are and just provide an “Update” note or link, or are you ok with going back and editing the older articles.

On a side note…

I plan to split off some of these older entrepreneurial articles which receive decent traffic and create their own mini sites, but more on that later.

No related posts.

• made money
• lost money
• broke even
• posted articles regularly / not-so-regularly
• changed my blog design
• changed my blog’s web address

… you get the idea (been there done that).

Aside from being obnoxious and rude to people, here are my top 5 blogging mistakes new bloggers might make which can slow the growth of their blog and pocketbooks.

1. Domains and Hosting

After deciding you want to start a blog and choosing your topic, your next step is setting up your blog. Question is, do you go with a free blog, self hosted blog, get your own domain name, etc.?

There are a couple of ways to look at it, but for the most part a self hosted blog is your best bet. Here’s my criteria for whether or not you should go with a free blog.

A free blog is ok if: All you care about is your content. Free blogs are good if you want someone else to take care of all the security issues, upgrades, etc. If your only goal is to write and you don’t care much about making money and turning your blog into a business, a free blog is fine.

A free blog is not ok if: You want to turn your blog into a business; want full control of the design of your blog; your mind is telling you that you’ll upgrade to a self hosted blog one day down the road; etc.

Let’s face it, hosting and domain names are cheap. So don’t let me hear anyone say they don’t have the money right now.

The reason why I typically advise new bloggers to choose a self hosted blog and purchase their own domain name is because you never know where your blog will take you in the future and having to stop, bundle it all up, and transfer your blog to a new web host (and possibly a new domain name) will KILL your blog.

2. Insufficient Research

This could range from a wide array of topics which might include:

• Failure to do proper market research (is there anyone looking for what you have to offer?)
• Understanding the consequences I outlined in #1 above
• Research experts and their price point which could help boost your blog’s success
• Failure to watch, analyze, and understand what your statistics are telling you

Those are some of the basics. As with any venture, online or off, if you wish to be successful at what you do, you need to spend a little time researching. By researching, you can point your boat in the right direction.

3. Truly Understanding Niche Marketing

Understanding the ins and outs of niche marketing is an entire course all on its own. Something I’ve seen over the years as an entrepreneur, however, is that newbies to niche marketing think niche marketing mostly entails finding a small crowd or group from within a topic and sell their products / services to them.

The more focused your niche is and better your product or service can solve for them is what they’re told niche marketing is.

While that is true, most newbies don’t realize that it’s not just about finding a focused group to sell to, niche marketing is about positioning and perception.

If you’re new to blogging, finding a niche is great, but if you fail to position yourself as an expert or “go-to person” in your niche, you’ll fail.

Even if you’re not the real go-to person, make sure you are perceived that way. The power of perception is kind of like “the force” in Star Wars.

4. Improper Use or Lack of Scheduling

Ask any seasoned blogger about time management and you’re sure to get an earful. Unless their educated in time management, new bloggers I’ve talked to fail to realize just how much time and organization blogging requires.

Writing an ebook? Posting 3-5 times a week? Need to spend time with the kids? Gotta cook dinner? Want to read and comment on other blogs? Need to figure out how to get more clicks on that banner? Want to write a series of guest posts? Looking to start a newsletter?

… the list goes on and on.

In the beginning you might not think you need a time management schedule because you’re not doing all that yet, but you’re wrong. Time management is key to growing your blog, making more money, and generating traffic to your site.

Simply writing down goals with no mechanism or direction to get you there ain’t going to cut it!

Want a time scheduling outline for bloggers? Alex Fayle has a really cool time management sheet he uses to keep himself on track (I use it, too).

5. Blog Security

I suppose blog security may or may not keep you poor, depending on if you get hacked or not. Nevertheless, it’s so important I feel it deserves to be on this list.

Let’s face it, when you’re new to blogging, you’ve got a lot to think about and a lot to set up. The problem is, since you’re new you don’t even know which questions to ask yet.

Blog security seems to always take a back seat. New bloggers don’t realize though just how important this is. It’s kind of like that movie where you see someone gets sent to jail for the first time and doesn’t yet have the experience to know how to protect themselves or just how bad it is to bend over to pick up that soap.

Newbie bloggers in a similar way are prey.

They set up their blog and start thinking about making money and writing articles, not the fact that their blog is or very soon can become easily hackable, removed from Google, and worst of all… destroyed.

If you’re new to blogging, blog security should most definitely be high on your priority list. And if you’re not sure how to better secure your blog, just hire me and I’ll get you hooked up.

Bonus Tip For New Bloggers

Blog your passion and be real. Don’t try to make money from your blog, but rather let your blog make money for you.

Be yourself, find your own voice, and don’t force it. In time, you’ll find that’s a much better route to take.

There are of course a ton more tips I could hand out to help start your blog off on the right foot, but I’ll leave that for my upcoming newsletter. Be sure to subscribe to my blog so you can be notified when my newsletter with tips like these is released.

In the meantime, here are a few other “blogging mistakes / tips” articles you might want to read (links open in a new tab):

• 5 Blogging Mistakes Beginners Make
• 7 Blogging Beginner Mistakes And How to Avoid Them
• Top 7 blog mistakes to avoid
• Beginner Basics for Making Money Online Using Blogs
• The Winnie the Pooh Guide to Blogging

Question: If you could go back to when you first started a blog and change something to help boost how long it took to get you to where you are today, what would you tell yourself?

Related posts:

1. The Top 7 Mistakes eBook Authors Make!
2. Aside From A Blogger, What Are You Really?
3. Where's John Been?

I was visiting the Problogger forum the other day and came across a new blogger who had a question about how they should set up their website.

The scenario: Bill is starting a website which will consist of two parts:

1. A main site area where he will advertise his products and services
2. A blog… which he’ll use to generate traffic and brand awareness

Bill’s dilemma: Should he create his site as part static (html only) for his products and services and part WordPress for his blog – or – simply create the entire site as a WordPress site and simply place his blog in the /blog path?

Bill’s question sparked a number of replies, some for an all WordPress site and some for splitting it up as part static and part WordPress. Here’s my take…

If html and a little css doesn’t scare you, you might want to consider splitting things up; however, if you have no idea how to code in html and at the very least, toy with css, a full WordPress site might be the better option.

Personally, I like splitting up the two. I can sum it all up in two words: Upgrades and Security.

Consideration #1: Upgrades

Ask anyone who is a WordPress blogger about “upgrades” and you’ll hear it… upgrades are a pain in the butt. It seems every month there is a new release of WordPress and you are advised to upgrade immediately. The problem here is that many times after we upgrade WordPress, weird things can happen:

• Database errors
• Theme not displaying right
• Some plugins might no longer be compatible with your new version of WordPress

The list goes on and on and because of this, we are told to make sure and fully backup our sites before we attempt upgrades.

Now imaging for a moment if your entire site was made up by a WordPress installation and after you hit that “upgrade” button your ducks are no longer all lined up… that means “Database Error” to you and me.

Crap, now what? Your site is disabled and everyone who comes to your site to purchase your “super mommy night time slippers” get to see a big fat “Database Error” instead of your product. On the other hand, if your site was split up between a static site and WordPress blog, only your blog would be disabled and your visitors could still visit your site and make a purchase.

Consideration #2: Security Issues

WordPress sites are a little less secure because they require a database to run and also require PHP code to execute processes. Static sites, on the other hand, are a little more secure because there’s not much to exploit (i.e. crack into).

For the most part, to hack a static site a malicious hacker would need to obtain some information from you, such as your FTP login information. Another way might include them breaking into your web hosting server or possibly even breaking into someone else’s website which is hosted on the same server as yours.

However, for the most part WordPress is pretty well secure as long as you keep up with the upgrades. To that end, if you’re not comfortable with html and css, a full WordPress site might be the way to go because you can update your site very easily without the need to hire a professional.

The choice is yours and not one I can make for you. All I can do is give advice and help you to make an informed decision.

So what do you think? Do you have an all WordPress site but wish it were split up? What’s your opinion here?

Related posts:

1. SEO Q&A: Does It Matter Where My Website's Server Is Located?
2. 20.4 Ways People Scan Your Website
3. Is Your Website Web 2.0 or Corporate?

• Keywords for search engine optimization
• Running ads on your site to generate some income
• Analyzing your blog’s statistics
• Submitting your blog to the Google Search Engine
• Getting a snapshot of how Google is sees and crawls your blog
• If your site gets hacked and removed from Google’s Search, a place to go to tell Google you’ve fixed things

Blogs don’t maintain themselves. At times they need a screw tightened here, ad posted there, and a little investigative work done to see why that thing that’s suppose to be working is not working.

I like to think my blogging tools and bookmarks are like a construction worker’s tool belt. Have you ever met a construction worker who did not have a tape measure strapped to their side?

If you’re a blogger, your tool box is your favorite search engine (and maybe some contacts you have made) and your bookmarks are the tool belts you keep.

I’ve listed what bookmarks and tools I have here and here, but in this article, I’d like to introduce you to the swiss army knife you might like to have in your tool belt.

The Google Keyword Tool Box:

When you have time, it might be good to dig through the Google Keyword Tool Box and discover what all it can do for your blog. As a blogger myself, I know your time is very limited, but realize that blogging is much more than simply writing articles and visiting other blogs.

You need to invest a little time each week in your most important asset: you.

Do you have a blogging resource you’d like to share?

On a side note, I’m heading out on a business trip for a few days and may be slow to responding to emails and comments.

Related posts:

1. 30.1 Web Tools For Online Success And To Make Your Life Easier At The Same Time
2. Is A Google XML Sitemap Necessary?
3. The 1st SEO Decision You Should Make To Rank Well In Google

That is after all why many of us start a blog, isn’t it? To make money or drive traffic to our business website?

Today I want to talk about professionalism and production quality when it comes to designing your blog. Its already been said online and by various gurus that your site visitors will ask themselves these questions immediately when they land on your site, especially if you’re trying to sell something:

• What’s Here?
• Why Here?
• Why You?
• Why Now?
• Why This?
• So What?

If you’re a blogger, I’m sure you’ve also heard that content is king. There are tons of blogs out there dedicated solely to this topic alone. They show you how to create creative and compelling content which ultimately gets your visitor to stick around or purchase something (i.e. convert).

But if you only have 5 seconds or so to convince a new visitor to stay on your site and have a look around, obviously your content won’t play a big role here. Instead, the visitor will scan your site in an instant and come to a conclusion: “Should I stay or should I go?”

Hey . . . isn’t that a song?

Let’s take a look at some things you can do so that you can communicate in 5 seconds what you’re all about and hopefully convince your site visitor to stick around and take notice. Remember this: Attention is like trust, you have to earn it.

Things you can do to capture attention and convey a message quickly

The first thing a new site visitor will notice is, well, your site. How does it look? What colors are being used? Am I being yelled at (bright colors, lots of capital letters, etc.)? Does it look like “my kind of site?” What’s that tagline say?

You’ll notice one of the questions I highlighted above is, “Is this my kind of site?” What I’m referring to here is in reference to your target customers. For example, if your target customers are computer/Internet techs, your site might be better designed to look high tech and possibly a little corporate; however, if your target customer base are low key and non-techie, then a more relaxed and calming site design might be more suitable.

Colors

For corporate colors, go with colors like:

• dark blue
• gray
• black and white
• dark red, etc.

For a more relaxed setting, try shades of:

• green
• soft yellows and oranges
• earth tones (brown, cream, etc.)

Image Quality & Message

Visitors will also notice immediately the quality of your images. Is that tagline in your header blurry? Make sure if you have text in an image, it comes out clearly and in a font that’s not hard to read.

Also, if you’re running banner ads in your sidebar, it would be nice if they had something to do with your niche. Site visitors who are not bloggers might not quickly realize those are advertisements. Instead, those banners convey a quick message to them. If you sell tax auditing services and in your sidebar there are 3 banner ads showcasing images and sites not related to your niche, that subconsciously tells your visitor a message, and it’s probably not related to finding tax services on your site.

Don’t confuse your site visitor with mix matches of messages in your images, because as I always say, a confused mind always says, no.

Font style and link color

For a while I was a big advocate for changing your link color to something that “pops”. I’m sure you have visited a ton of websites in the past, what color did 90% of those sites use for their link color? Blue, right. I experimented with different link colors and for a while favored red because it really popped out and was not what everyone did.

However, I must admit that time and experience has changed my mind on this. After reviewing my statistics, I found that the different link color really didn’t matter much. In fact, traditionally red has always been associated with danger or “Red Alert”. Therefore, my pick for link color is to simply stick with blue.

For font style, you can never go wrong with Arial, however other styles which seem to be easy on the eyes are Verdana and Tahoma.

As for font size, 12 is pretty standard. I’d say start there and see how it looks and if it makes sense to go a little bigger, try it. Whatever you do, don’t make your visitors have to squint to see your text. Black text over a white background is always preferable. If you experiment with anything other than that, be sure to get feedback from your regular site visitors, their input will help you iron out all the small details. Remember, not everyone uses the same screen size and monitor as you.

Convey quick messages with bullet points

Nothing works as quick and easy as bullet points. Knowing that 98% of new visitors to your site are going to first quickly scan your blog, you can use that information to your advantage. While scanning, they want the bullet points of what your site is all about, so give them bullet points.

Bullet points work really well in header images.

For example, our company which provides Blog Hosting could add 3 quick bullet points in our header image which quickly tells visitors what they need to know:

• Starting a blog made easy
• Get tons of help
• Learn the basics of blogging

For my tagline, also included in the header, I could use something like: “You blog. We’re here to help. It’s THAT simple.” Speaking of taglines, they traditionally go below your logo.

So in my header image now, I’d have the name of my company, a quick tagline, and 3 bullet points highlighting what my blog or website is all about.

Oh wait! Did we just quickly answer the What’s Here?, Why You?, and Why This? questions I highlighted at the beginning of this article?

In our example header image, we quickly sent our site visitor a message which told them:

• You can start a blog here.
• Starting a blog will be easy.
• With our company you will get tons of help.

A final tip: Start at the end and work backwards

Often times thinking in reverse works very well in most things relating to business. The same holds true for designing your blog. Start with then end in mind (i.e. what you want your visitors to do) and then build a site around THAT notion.

Everything else you add to your blog which doesn’t lead the visitor to do what it is you want them to do is just distraction and noise (and less money in your pocket).

Summary (for those of you that skimmed)

It’s ok, I do my fair share of skimming, too

• Look at your logo, tagline, font, colors, and quality of images. People look from the upper left down to lower right of your blog when scanning. Typically logo goes above the tagline.
• Focus your tagline for your audience. If they are newbies, make it sound friendly.
• Use quick bullet points to convey a message quickly. 3 to 4 are good, no more than 6. They would be well placed in your header image, if possible.
• Be careful sending mixed messages with images on your site. Your banner ads could tell a person scanning your blog a message which has no relation to what you’re all about.
• General site colors: Blue and gray (techie) are good for corporate looking websites, so is red and black and white and black. For a more laid back and non corporate look, try earth tones – browns, soft yellows, greens, soft oranges, etc.
• For link color, blue probably works best. Red means danger, error message, etc.
• When first designing your blog, think in reverse. What is the end result you want from a visitor? Design your site around that notion, everything else is just noise.

Food For Thought

What is the purpose of your blog?

If you’ve been blogging for awhile, has your blog become cluttered with a bunch of items in your sidebar which you really don’t need and does nothing for the purpose of your blog?

I know mine has, and I’m doing something about it as we speak.

Related posts:

1. Intro To Creating A Supermodel Blog Design Series
2. Landing Page Optimization: Lesson Learned by Watching Jesse James is a Dead Man
3. 20.4 Ways People Scan Your Website

Have you ever wondered why some people make more money from their blog than others do?

You might even ask yourself, “What the heck? It’s impossible to put more hours into blogging than I do; I sit at my computer all day. What is it she’s doing that I’m not?”

The first thing you need to understand is the fact that blogs suck at making money. Blogs don’t make money, people and their creative minds do. In other words, it’s what you do with your blog that makes the money.

People will tell you content is king, and if that’s true, then blog design is the engineer that builds the glorious kingdom. Without a kingdom, what would come of a king?

So how do we create a blog design in a way that gets people to click where you want them to click and their eyes to look where you want their eyes to look? That’s question that cannot be answered in just one blog article. People have written entire books on the subject.

Over the next several weeks, we’ll discuss some major points I think are mission critical to building a better blog design which will answer the question above. For now, let’s take a quick look at how I compare building a better blog design with how designers build a supermodel.

A Supermodel Analogy

Let’s compare building a blog with building a supermodel (and yes, they build them). Please excuse my very poor excuse for a flowchart.

As you can see, there is a certain process to building both a supermodel and building a better blog design. Let’s take a look at my top 6 better blog design bullet points you can use to build a supermodel blog.

Topics will include (but are not limited to):

1. Professionalism and production quality
2. Page layout and the use of screen real estate
3. Navigational architecture
4. Trust and credibility
5. The main content area
6. Calls to action

One thing you should come to understand, however, is the fact that we are all too close to our own work. Because we understand our products and offers so well, sometimes it is difficult for us to design our blogs and websites in such a way our target customers will react positively to. So the first thing we should try doing is taking a good look at ourselves and realize what we’re assuming about our site visitors is probably wrong.

Once you understand that fact, then you can go about designing an effective blog design which your site visitors will react in ways you want them to.

The questions then are: Have you taken a good look at your blog or website lately through the eyes of your target audience? Do you understand that what you’re assuming about them is probably wrong? What is it you want them to do? Have you made it easy for them to quickly find what they’re looking for?

For WP Blog Host, we’ve been testing design changes and you’ll probably be seeing a new design here soon. Our target customers for web hosting are bloggers; so shouldn’t our site reflect blogging?

I think so, and I’ve convinced others.

Related posts:

1. Creating A Blog Supermodel: Professionalism & Production Quality
2. Landing Page Optimization: Lesson Learned by Watching Jesse James is a Dead Man
3. 20.4 Ways People Scan Your Website

A couple years ago when my blog was new, I watched an episode of Kitchen Nightmares (Chef Gordon Ramsay) which inspired me to write a post entitled, A Lesson Learned by Watching Kitchen Nightmares. While watching the show I observed how all though Chef Ramsay is a Chef, he’s also an entrepreneur, and that particular episode inspired an entrepreneurial post out of me.

Two years later and I’ve done it again.

Landing page optimization has been on my mind a lot lately because I know parts of our site are in need of some tlc.

Back to the topic of this article, this time I was watching an episode of Jesse James is a Dead Man and what he did to train for the Baja 500 (an off road race). I immediately made a connection in my head with his training exercise and what you don’t want your blog visitors to do when they come to your site.

To train for the Baja 500, Jesse drove a truck through minefield with a computer attached to his head which monitored and tracked his eye movements during the drive.

What? You haven’t done this before?

After his first run through, the computer showed that Jesse’s eye movements were somewhat erratic and his eyes jumped from one area of the minefield to another. This told Jesse that he wasn’t sure where exactly he wanted to go.

After reviewing the footage, Jesse tried the obstacle course again but this time he made sure to focus his eyes on where he wanted to go.

As a result of being more focused on his destination and where he wanted to go (i.e. less erratic eye movements), Jesse ran the obstacle course far better than his first attempt.

You can watch the full episode right here. If you want to see the part I was talking about, skip ahead to about 8:30 in the video.

How this relates to landing page optimization

In case you haven’t made the connection already, the way this all fits in together with optimizing a blog’s landing or sales page is focus and direction.

What you don’t want is your site visitor’s eyes jumping all over the place. You want to guide them and tell them where to look.

By default, blogs suck at converting traffic into sales. There’s just too much to look at and their eyes will jump all over. Some of those eye-jumping areas include:

• Your header image
• Blog’s title and tagline
• Horizontal menu
• Big or blinking graphics (no blinking, please)
• Lots of links in your sidebar

The Takeaway

If part of your goal in blogging is to sell products and/or services, you need to direct your visitors where to go. Remember, the first thing a visitor will do when they arrive on your site is ask themselves, “What does this person want me to do?”

If your visitor is a blogger, there’s going to be a lot of assuming going on in their heads. They’re going to assume what you want them to do is read your blog article and are probably going to skip everything on your site and go straight to your content.

If your visitor is not a blogger, they’re probably going to see something on your site that “pops”, like a nice big pretty image. Simply writing a blog article about your product and then linking to the article isn’t going to do it. You need to link to a product sales page with very little, if none, distractions.

You probably don’t even want a menu system. In this way, their eyes won’t jump all around with many things to see and wonder about. They’ll only have one place to look, where your product and description is.

In fact, make them have to click the back button to get off your page while you’re at it.

Related posts:

1. A Lesson Learned by Watching "Kitchen Nightmares"
2. Creating A Blog Supermodel: Professionalism & Production Quality
3. Intro To Creating A Supermodel Blog Design Series

When I see old news reprinted I try to understand, after all we are taught that we should write for our audience, right? And if our audience are newbies, what are you going to do.

Anyway, back to our topic of SEO. I’d say the more common SEO topics have been covered pretty well, however, rarely do I see the following topics discussed as much as the more common SEO topics. They can all play an important role when it comes to getting and keeping your blog visible in search engines. They are:

1. Blog security
2. Your site’s TLD
3. Web server location

1. SEO and Blog Security

At first it might not seem like there’s much of a connection between search engine optimization and securing your blog, but the connection is real.

Like I mentioned in my article, WordPress Security: The First Thing You Should Understand, a simple Google search for “My Blog Was Hacked” will (now) return 716,000 results. Many hackers who crack into your website aren’t really there to simply crash your site, instead, they want to use it. Many times they’ll steal bandwidth and use your site to create dozens of spam backlinks to various sites.

What this has to do with SEO

If someone hacks your blog and uses it to create tons of spam links and Google finds out, you run a high risk of receiving one of those heart-stopping emails from Google informing you that your site has been removed from their search engine because it appears to violate their terms of use. So by securing your blog and thwarting possible hacks to your site, you can increase your chances your blog stays in the serps – which is the biggest SEO concern of all!

Still doesn’t seem like a big deal? Read this case study by Robin Harris, one of the bloggers over at ZDNet.

Don’t wait until it’s too late. I can’t stress enough the importance of securing your blog. If you need help with it, let me know.

2. SEO and your TLD

Wikipedia describes TLD as A top-level domain or domain name (TLD), is the last part of an Internet domain name, that is, the group of letters that follow the final dot of a fully qualified domain name. For example, in the domain name www.example.com, the top-level domain is com“.

What this has to do with SEO

You want to show up in the search engine results where your target market is, right? Your TLD selection is probably one of, if not the most, important decision SEO-wise you are going to make.

Country-code TLDs (ccTLDs) are for websites and registrants of a particular geographic location. For example: .bz (Belize), .ca (Canada), .dk (Denmark), .ec (Ecuador), ie (Republic of Ireland), .uk (United Kingdom), .us (United States), .zw (Zimbabwe), etc.

.com is definitely the most widely used and is international. If your target market is either worldwide or in the United States, I’d say stick with .com.

As an example, if your target market / website visitors uses the Canadian version of Google, the Canadian version of Google is going to consider .ca websites highly important to this user.

3. SEO and Your Website’s Server Location

Here’s a big one not many people know about. The physical location of your website’s server is relevant in Google’s eyes.

I’ve already written on this topic, SEO Q&A: Does It Matter Where My Website’s Server Is Located? so I won’t regurgitate it all again.

Yes, I said regurgitate. I like it and think it’s funny, so it stays.

What this has to do with SEO

Long story short, Google wants its search engine to be the best search engine out there. To do that, they have to need to give you, the Googler, the most likely websites that matter to you and will solve your problem. One of the things it will note is your computer’s IP address (that is, it will take note where in the world you live).

Once Google knows where you live, it quickly looks at web servers in your general location and tries to find if any websites are hosted on them which are relevant to your search query. Therefore, if your target market lives in Arizona, it might be wise to try and find a web host which owns servers located in Arizona. Just don’t go choosing your hosting company on that criteria alone.

How I know this is true?

First, I own a few websites and through my site statistics (mainly when the sites were new and had less backlinks to them) I noticed people who Googled my targeted search terms were arriving on my sites. The server was located in Fremont, California – and guess where the vast majority of my early site visitors lived (as noted by their IP address).

Second, instead of showing you a bunch of screenshots from my previous statement, why not take the word of two Google software engineers (Greg Grothaus and Shashi Thakur):

Does location of server matter? I use a .com domain but my content is for customers in the UK.

In our understanding of web content, Google considers both the IP address and the top-level domain (e.g. .com, .co.uk). Because we attempt to serve geographically relevant content, we factor domains that have a regional significance. For example, “.co.uk ” domains are likely very relevant for user queries originating from the UK. In the absence of a significant top-level domain, we often use the web server’s IP address as an added hint in our understanding of content.

Source: Google Webmaster Central Blog

As a side note, while I was drafting up this post one of our blog security upgrades customers emailed me showing me how someone tried to crack into his blog today. He was notified of the attempt via email and the intruder was locked out. You have to ask yourself, is adding security to your blog a priority for you?

Related posts:

1. SEO Q&A: Does It Matter Where My Website's Server Is Located?
2. 20.4 Ways People Scan Your Website
3. The 1st SEO Decision You Should Make To Rank Well In Google

Problem is, it’s so damn difficult to try and figure out when you’re just starting out because there’s SO much you can do with it. One of my first frustrations with it was the fact that I couldn’t determine which clicks and visits were my own?

Obviously, you’re more interested in who is visiting your site, where they came from, and what they did to find you. You’re not interested in how you found your own website.

So here’s a little video I put together which hopefully you’ll find useful. It will show you how to set up a filter on Google Analytics so you don’t track your own movements and visits to your own website.

If you haven’t already set up Google Analytics to run on your blog, here’s how: How To Install Google Analytics On A WordPress Blog Without Using A Plugin

How To Set Up A Google Analytics Filter

Related posts:

1. How To Install Google Analytics On A WordPress Blog Without Using A Plugin
2. Google Keyword Tool + Top 50 Google Tools Bloggers Can Use
3. Videos To Help Craft A Better Website & Attract Attention