Importance of Allowing Commenting and Linking on Your Blog

Open Blog Comment Format

All too often these days I will read a nice blog post on someone’s site and go to comment on it and see that “comments have been closed”. This is a big SEO mistake. Interactive web-pages are worth more than non. If a person or company’s reason is that they don’t want to take the time to approve the comments or sift through spam I have only this to say: It’d be the best 15 minutes you spent on your site every month.

“Your post’s comments are also calculated as a part of your post’s content! The number of high quality comments your post receives will also improve the overall ranking of your content.” – Private Links Network

This takes me to my second point. The type of comment area really doesn’t matter. There are Disqus comment plug ins, Facebook comment plug ins.. etc. But having the open comment where a person can leave their name (or keyword) and a link to their website is actually good for your site.

This is because you can approve their comment, go to their page and comment back and expect to be approved. There is a little link swapping there and the fact that both sites have content that are usually related is even better.

This doesn’t mean that you have to approve every comment or every piece of spam that ends up in your Que. Take the time to sift through and find the comments made by a genuine reader. Delete the ones with canned formats. ex “I really liked your blog. Now check out my blog at yada yada yada. ”

In conclusion, think as your page as a relationship with the reader and Google as the ultimate judge. You want to establish report and maybe even a conversation. You don’t want to simply dictate things to the masses. Nobody likes a dictator.

How Much Should I Spend on SEO?

First, let me clarify what SEO is for those who don’t know. Search Engine Optimization is an effort to modify a website so that the search engines will display it more often or in a higher position.

Many companies go about SEO efforts themselves and as long as the have someone on board with experience or training in the field, they can do fairly well. Other companies hire an SEO expert. They pay a person (or company) to make changes and updates to their website which will make a search engine more likely to display their website in a higher search position. Continue reading →

When I Share a Link on Facebook I Get No Preview Image

Facebook is a lot of things. It is probably the best pure social media platform there is in regards to connecting with friends old and new. It helps small businesses grow by connecting them with their customer base. For all of its advantages it does suffer some imperfections and some of them are down right annoying.

One thing that tends to happen to a company as large as Facebook is they create a product so large that it gets beyond their full control. They make changes and just keep rolling forward. Something that may have worked perfectly fine for years, does not work any longer. And with Facebook, there is no real support staff. Their logic is that “hey, its free, why should we care what you think?” Have you ever tried to contact Facebook directly? It is laughable. Continue reading →

Test Your Contact Forms Often

This week I was looking for a new landscaping company to cut and trim my grass. I went to a couple of their websites and filled out the contact form then clicked “send”. What happened next is why I am writing this blog.

The forms (on two different sites) returned an error page which meant that they was broken. It made me think, “how long have these forms been broken and how much business have these companies lost because of this?”. Personally, I try to test the contact forms a few times a month for each one of my clients. But, if you are a business owner, you should test it weekly. Think about if you never got that big client that you currently have. That would be infuriating. Continue reading →

Using Content to Improve Ranking

The basic theory to using content for search engine optimization is that while writing unique and relevant articles for your blog or back pages, you not only provide information to inquisitive readers, but you also give search engines more of your keywords to latch onto.

Writing informative content about your subject matter will automatically fill your site with your coveted keywords for a search engine to gobble up. If you sell fidget spinners for instance, you will be including the word fidget spinner in your content repeatedly whether you want to or not. It is impossible to write an article about your product and not include the main focus word. But you will also be including qualifying words, ie, words that usually go hand in hand with your product. Continue reading →

How to Fix This Message in WordPress: Fatal error: Out of memory

This is the dreaded message many WordPress website owners have received over the last few years. But, for those who have seen it before and have dealt with it, it is no big deal. It is just more of an annoying hassle than anything else.

For whatever reason the default memory limit for WordPress is just 32MB. If you build out your site in any substantial way you will exceed this. So, you actually have to hack your own website to increase this limit to allow your site to continue functioning. The reason I say hack your own site is because many times the WordPress functionality is totally incapacitated because of the error. Continue reading →

History of Pay Per Click Fraud

Back when I first started in this business in the very early 2000’s pay-per-click advertising was in its infancy. The sector was overrun with wanna be search engines, fly by night search engines and very few reputable search engines. Search engine optimization was not really an actual thing yet so paying per click was the most viable option. But you had to beware of where you spent your money.

Back then many search engines would claim they supplied search results for Google, MSN and Yahoo but there was no proof that they actually did. The big search companies like those I have just mentioned often times farmed out their paid clicks and split the revenue with the supplier. Continue reading →

Inbound Linking Dos and Don’ts

(Before I even get started, if you are wondering about the grammatical correctness of the title, then this link is for you.)

Having links to your website is good for search ranking. The links are especially valuable when they are coming from sites with relevant content. The idea Google had when adding this to the algorithms all those years ago, is that whenever sites link to you it shows that there is something valuable on your site. It is looked at as a reference or source.

If you are a small business, it is hard to get sites to link to you in this way and some sites will even charge you for linking (even though Google discourages this). One way to build inbound linking is to go to blogs of similar companies and leave a comment. This part can get a little tricky however. When you enter your name as “valued keyword” and link to your site, many blog managers will see that as a spam comment and delete you, even if you leave good relevant comments. Some will approve your comment and you are good to go. But, it is estimated that only 1 out of 5 of these comments gets approved. Continue reading →

SSL Certificate is a Must for Your Site Immediately

With 90% of all internet searches done using Google and 50-60% of all internet users using Google Chrome as their browser of choice, it is imperative to optimize your site to their specifications. Google is always tweaking and changing their search algorithms to better improve the user’s experience. Most recently, Google has made it clear they want all websites to have an SSL certificate.

This certificate is a virtual certification that is installed on the server by the host that shows that the site is secure. In reality, it is just one small piece of security that may add to the visitor’s web safety (or at least feeling of safety). A secure website has less chance of being hacked through contact forms and other scripts running on the site. Continue reading →

Website Ranking and WordPress Plug-Ins

In the late two thousand teens the complexity of what actually composes a website has grown. Now, websites are made up of several key ingredients, all put together and served to the viewer. Google is aware of the way WordPress (or any other CMS for that matter) works and have changed their algorithms over time to adjust to them. The main factors that Google cares about when it comes to WordPress sites are site speed and site security.

Speed

If a website is loaded down with plug-ins and advertisements and takes over 5 seconds to fully load, you can bet that Google will punish it. Continue reading →

Olympus Web SEO Blog

Search Optimization and Web Design Company