Blogging is a complex business. It’s not just a matter of throwing your words up on a web page and you’re done. Not by a long shot. You have to learn how to make your blog interesting and get noticed by the search engines. To make it even more complex, the SEO that you’d use for a regular website, while not totally irrelevant, has to be modified a bit for blogs, especially if they’re hosted on one of the major platforms like WordPress or TypePad. Just so you know, I use hosted WordPress, which means I use WordPress software hosted with my own personal webhosting provider, and using my own domain name.
A few days ago I came across this interesting website where the owner, Frank Carr was generously offering to do a blog review upon request. So I submitted my request and forgot all about it. Imagine my surprise this morning when I was checking my standing with Technorati (every blogger should have an account at Technorati–it’s a prerequisite), when I discovered that the review was already posted.
I feverishly clicked through to see what the verdict was. Click through to Optempo and you can read it too.
I’ve already implemented most of Frank’s suggestions, but I have yet to upload an RSS icon that would meet with his approval, and I’m wondering about removing the ‘more’ feature from my posts. I only recently started using this because I discovered that it can help you avoid duplicate content issues with the SEs. Now I’m stumped. I don’t know what to do. It’s true that they don’t use ‘more’ over at SEOmoz, but they probably don’t care about impressing the search engines as much as I do. If you have an opinion on whether or not it’s best to use the ‘more’ feature, do leave a comment and let’s all discuss it. You can do this without registering now, as I removed that requirement as per Frank’s suggestions.
Also, my choice of theme did not pass muster with Frank. I’m standing by that one Frank, I happen to like pink!
I also think that visual diversity is essential on the Internet. Again, whaddya think?
I’m leaving off the ‘more’ feature now until I can nail down a decision one way or the other.
Thanks so much Frank, I really appreciate you taking the time to write the review for me. Best of luck to you!
3 Responses for "OK, I admit I fluffed it…"
Hi Patricia,
The icon is kind of minor but I thought 10×10 was kind of small, particularly at higher screen resolutions.
On the -more- thing, you can get a plugin that will allow you to do a full RSS feed. That’s the key part of it, IMO. I don’t think you would risk a duplicate content penalty if you had at least 3 full posts on your front page.
The pink theme is fine. I would tone down the WidgetBucks a few shades though
They’ve got a recent improvement where you have more color selections available so a more pastel-ish pink might fit in better.
Anyway, thank you for allowing me to review your blog. It’s always good to get different perspectives, both as the reviewer and the reviewee, and that’s one of my reasons for doing them.
Frank C’s last blog post..Standard Oil and Google
Frank I really appreciate you taking the time for the review. I found your comments truly helpful, and I think a lot of readers will too–that’s why I decided to make it public lol.
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article - SEO Blog - Marketmou, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
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