Web Development

I've talked in another article about the importance of anchor text in backlinks, actually looking at that article from early 2008 I'm feeling a little awkward even admitting I wrote it, but in the world of SEO a lot of things change, and so have I.

Yup, in two years I've gone from mega SEO fanboy, to really not caring a heck of a lot, let me tell you why. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is more about common sense than anything, and you can optimize the crap out of your pages, but in the end if the other site has more backlinks than you, they're going to beat you in the SERPs.

Sure there are other factors at play like authority, age etc, but in the cold hard light of reality, he who has more and better backlinks wins. This is why it is so important to get those backlinks, and why it is so important to make sure they are phrased in a way that appeals to search engines - coincidentally, this also helps human readers so it's a win/win for everyone. We call that crafting your anchor text. Read More

A lot of people get really hung up on getting traffic to their websites or blogs, so they use a variety of different methods to attract traffic, from StumbleUpon, to Digg, Facebook, Twitter, [insert name of favorite social networking site]. But these don't work if earnings are your goal, let me tell you why.

Most desperate webmasters, and lets face it we know who they are, these are the people who have this sudden idea of making millions of dollars online and becoming rich with very little effort. Or, they're from some Asian nation and have a very low standard of living in their home country and are desperate to start earning online.

I don't have a problem with desperate IMers, but I know a lot of the information they read just isn't correct so they do a lot of stupid things. Namely, chasing social media traffic in the hope their visitors will buy something or click an ad.

Now this is where the difference between traffic and backlinks becomes critical. In the past I've talked about getting keyword rich anchor text in your backlinks, now I'm telling you why getting backlinks is more important than traffic. Read More

A lot of people laugh when I tell them that Blogspot is a fantastic platform for hosting your niche websites, they tell me you don't really own the website, that Blogspot isn't as functional as Wordpress, or that Blogger doesn't look appealing.

I disagree, for me Blogspot (or Blogger if you call it that) is a great platform, and it's just got better with the addition of pages, which I think are still in beta.

In the past if you wanted to give the illusion of pages on your Blogspot blot you'd create a new blog post then backdate it so it was so far back in your blog timeline that very few people would find it. The new beta pages alows you to create a page just like in Wordpress, and then select where in the template you want the menu displayed.

Currently Blogspot offers menu placement under the header or in the sidebar, and you can choose to enable a link back to the homepage as well. I have to say I'm impressed with this, it is several years late, but a lot of small business people start with Blogspot for their company website, and a lot of newbie bloggers do too.

What this means now is that it's possible for niche website creators to use Blogspot more effectively by putting their about, contact, and privacy policy into a page, and leave the articles for the blog posts, thus splitting things up just the way you like.

Whether you use AdSense or affiliate programs, Google's Blogspot is a great hosting platform because it's fast and reliable, and you can add your own domain to the site if you want. Sure you can't sell a Blogspot account, but you can sell the domain if you've bought one for your Blogspot, and if the site is a niche site, then you can also sell the content.

All in all, I think pages has given Blogspot a new lease of life and I think this quiet revolution is going to transform Blogspot, and make it impossible for people to continue to ignore the service.