April showering of SEO in 2013: tags

With April showers misting outside it is time to revisit the SEO advantage of metatags in your blogging. Sort of a strange name and WordPress has shortened it to “Tags.” All the bloggers here at the cyber wigwam have moved their Tags sidebar box up under the Publish box to be a little more prominent. Tags are one of the most important elements of getting SEO* advantage from your blog posts. It is like hanging tags on your blog post that say “Find Me!” We’ve had cases at Council Blogs where one blog post with very unique tags can be found on the first page of Google. The really neat thing that our bloggers find is that they can attach their blog posts to their other social media accounts like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Maybe someday, even YouTube. At lept Like A Blog we call this the Social Media Marketing Framework.

*SEO – What the heck is that? Search Engine Optimization.

St. Patrick’s Day — Time for getting those blog posts out in 2013

Like the 3 elements of the shamrock there are 3 good reasons to adding blogging to your web presence. Of course, that’s assuming you have a web presence. If you don’t then adding a blog is an efficient way to develop a web presence too. Here at the Cyber wigwam the bloggers realize that having good content is what readers are attracted to.

1. “Content is King”

The more you have something genuine to say the more people will be interested to read. It doesn’t necessarily have to be profound. Just like the old adage, “be yourself.”

2. Keeping Fresh

With unique content comes great responsibility to keep it up. Consistently providing your readers with news is almost as important as the news itself. People will be attracted to your ability to keep them informed when you set a pace and stick to it. We find at Council Blogs that once a week is a good pace. You don’t kill yourself but if published regularly, your readers are kept informed.

3. News is attractive to Search Engines

Search engines like finding new stuff. What’s newer than your post with unique content? We find at the cyber wigwam that the more natural, “organic” methods for SEO incorporate consistency and good tagging. There is no better way to keep your readers satisfied and at the same time increase your “findability” than publishing your blog posts. Well, YouTube videos can be as powerful but require a little more energy to produce. Actually, some bloggers at the cyber wigwam are repurposing their blog posts into YouTube videos. That works really well too! You can find training and courses in both at lept Like A Blog.

Special Guests on Social Media – the power of YouTube responses

Have you ever seen a video response to a YouTube video? Having a response video on your YouTube video adds more depth to an already robust marketing tool. With Google owning YouTube,, a video can improve your search rankings tremendously. Add a response video and your ranking have an extra boost. The poeple at Google figure if someone went to the bother to do a response video it must be extra interesting. What a great way to embellish your unique content. Here at the cyber wigwam we have we have classes in YouTube. You can read about them at the lept like a blog site. If you have any experience with YouTube vidoes or repsonse videos, we would love to hear your story. Feel free to comment below.

Freedom of speech in the blogosphere – the role of RSS

Real Simple Syndication (RSS) is what drives the blogosphere. It is what enables bloggers to be both the reporter and the publisher. It provides a mechanism for the bloggers at Council Blogs to have an avenue for publishing, a way to broadcast to the world. It also gives us bloggers a mechanism for readers to subscribe to our pearls of wisdom. From my speaking engagements I find RSS the least understood aspect of social media. The underlying programming techniques of RSS paved the way for interactivity, which in turn paved the way for social media applications to spawn and grow. With RSS, now instead of one AP wire, we have a million AP wires. With so much information at our fingertips, the challenge for future generations will be how to discern credible sources. As small business owners we should be happy that with the internet and social media we have the freedom to interact closely with our customers. We have a generally untapped resource at our disposal. During your Fourth of July holiday you may want to consider how the freely flowing information could impact a stronger relationship with your customers. At the cyber wigwam we would like to hear about your successes in using social media for your business. Feel free to comment below.

Remember to tag your posts in 2012- The Year of Findability

At Council Blogs we consider 2012 the year of Findability. Every week we highlight advances in SEO as part of our blogging club meeting. What can you do to make your site findable when people are looking for your talents or services? It’s easy for us bloggers - TAGS!! Here at the cyber wigwam the bloggers have all moved their Tags widget on the WordPress editing page up under the Publish widget so we don’t forget. Our three item list that Gayle has engrained:

1. Unique Content free of Bad Stuff
2. Images
3. Tags

Think of tags as aids to search engines during classifying your blog post. Tom Johnson has a wonderful and extensive, 51 part series on Findability on his site, click here. Tags are equally important in your YouTube video. As bloggers, content is king, but tags are the scouts that bring in the visitors in the first place. So, don’t forget to include your tags. Remember: Content is King, Tags are IT when it comes to SEO!

We always love to hear from the blogosphere. Feel free to comment and interact with our club below.

Blogging for out of the Box SEO in 2012

Ever wonder what that funny little orange symbol is? Many people recognize it as RSS, a few people even know it stands for Real SImple Syndication, even fewer people realize what that means. The good news is we really don’t have to understand it to take advantage of it. RSS is at the root of our blogging platforms. It is the technology that allows bloggers to be both the reporter and the publisher. RSS allows a means for us to publish to the world and then have a simple method for people to subscribe to our “feed.” Here at the Cyber WIgwam few people care about that but we are excited that the nature of RSS has an impact on our SEO or Search Engine Optimization. The bloggers at Council Blogs know that effectively choosing tags for their posts can have an organic impact on their Findability. Why? Currently, the search engines like to parse the RSS feeds because it is easy to find where the new information is coming from. Rather than send web-crawlers out to find new aspects of a site, it is easier to monitor the RSS feeds to see what is new. If our blog posts are appropriately tagged the search result impact is astounding. In SEO tests conducted at the Cyber Wigwam we have posted in the morning at 10:00 and received Google Alerts for those posts with the target tags by 2:00 that same afternoon. Our bloggers have found that we can focus on telling the story of our business and let the tags and RSS handle the SEO.

2012: Year of Findability – SEO like the Pros

Here at Council Blogs we named 2012 the Year of Findability. Our bloggers have found new and creative ways to develop their Search Engine Optimization or SEO. We find the term ‘Findability’ is more descriptive and palatable for novices. But, novice aside you can enjoy SEO like a pro. Here at the cyber wigwam we have explored techniques for increasing findability in our all our social media tools like LinkedIn and YouTube as well as Google. And of course, the battle cry for all bloggers in 2012: “Don’t forget your tags!”

Don’t forget Tags when posting in 2012

Tags are your best friend when it comes to SEO. What the heck is SEO? SEO is Search Engine Optimization. This is a fancy term for “findability” or in other words how do you develop a pathway for someone to find you when they are searching for your product or service on a search engine like Google or Yahoo. Tags or “post tags” are the words that accompany your post when it is published. Tags then are used by the search engines to classify the topic of your post. When developing the content of your tags you want to keep in mind what people are going to be searching for when you want them to find you. Feel free to comment with your tag success stories. We would love to hear about them.