Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to making your website easily accessible to search engines, and helping them understand and read the content so that they can rank it high up in their index.

SEO is a huge topic and I won’t go deep into it. This article is primarily targeted to people who own and operate a WordPress blog. Some of the tips mentioned are of course general SEO methods used on all kinds of sites. Other tips and tools focus on WordPress, which has become the preferred blogging tool in the past few years.

Let me know if I’ve missed something by adding your comments. These tips primarily focus on how to search engine optimize WordPress installations, as opposed to off-site SEO (getting and building backlinks).

SEO Factors

1. Title tag

Title tag or the article title is one of the most important SEO parameters. That is what appears as the title of the post in search engine result pages (SERPs) and hence you should make sure that it’s relevant, has keywords, is neither too long nor too short, and accurately conveys what the content is all about.

2. Meta description

The meta description for your blog or a blog post is a short description that appears below the content title in SERPs. If the description is precise and informative, a user is more likely to click on the post title and hence end up on your site.

3. Content

Content, obviously, is the heart and soul of SEO. Great content can attract attention and links, and hence search engines would prefer showcasing it too. Plus, it is what your readers would like to read, isn’t it?

4. Keywords

Having a general understanding of keywords (words, sentences, or phrases) relevant to the content on your site and how to use them properly always helps.

5. Web host

The web host is what your site calls home and where the Googlebot comes knocking on the door whenever you publish articles. Hence, be careful while choosing a host for your site.

6. Site loading speed

Site loading speed is something bloggers recently started focusing on when Google announced that it would be treated as one of the ranking factors. The faster your site loads, the better.

7. Robots.txt

Robots.txt is a text file on your server that tells search engine bots what to index and what to skip. It’s better to create one and place it in your root directory. Here’s a guide to create a simple robots.txt file.

8. Sitemaps

A sitemap is basically a list of pages or URLs that the search engine’s crawler can access. Ideally, you should have both XML and HTML sitemaps on your site. WordPress users can use Google XML Sitemaps plugin to create an XML one.

9. Permalinks

The default permalink structure in WordPress isn’t that good. You can customize permalinks according to your preferences and for better search engine optimization.

10. Headings and Post Slugs

Headings and sub-headings in an article are important for readers as well as for search engines. Use them wisely. Regarding post slugs, you should make them short and keyword-rich (don’t overdo it though).

How Much Should You Focus on Search Engine Optimizing?

If you are newbie when it comes to WordPress and SEO, you might find all this a bit overwhelming. Well, SEO is a time-consuming process so I won’t say that you could get it done quickly. But here’s the thing: Don’t consume your days tweaking your site just for the search engines. You should instead focus on producing great content and building relationships.

While SEO is important, it depends on the content and not vice-versa. If the content is good and you can promote it well, it will attract links automatically.

My Other articles on SEO:

1. http://arpitshah.com/top-5-seo-extensions-for-google-chrome/
2. http://arpitshah.com/buzzzy-com-search-engine-for-google-buzz/
3. http://arpitshah.com/all-in-one-seo-pack-vs-platinum-seo-pack-wordpress-plugins/

Read full article here.

For any entrepreneur, the challenge of taking an idea to launch can be a daunting and expensive journey. Fortunately, Adeo Ressi, founder of TheFunded and startup accelerator, Founder Institute, has a ten step plan.

While there is no foolproof recipe for every launch, Ressi says his template will help any tech entrepreneur get a business off the ground for less than $2,000. The program, which Ressi recently presented at the Founder Institute’s Boston location, is a bare bones guide to securing your startup’s online identity, enhancing your appearance of legitimacy (through low-cost but well designed logos and marketing materials), understanding your startup’s priorities and target consumer, and finally, getting it to the point of a rough web launch.

Given that the presentation occasionally offers very specific advice (for example, step 3 centers on the use of 99designs for your logo), the ten step plan will hardly work for everyone. However, I imagine many young entrepreneurs can mine this tip sheet for some valuable advice on how to save a few extra pennies here and there on the road to launch — pennies that can later mean the difference between success and failure.

Below is a bullet point summary of Ressi’s ten steps to launch. The video above significantly elaborates on these points.

1. Get your domain and e-mail working: “When you register your name, you should register the misspellings as a .com, you should register the primary and the .net or .org or it will be sold back to you for thousands of dollars later…”
Approximate cost: $160

2. Produce some mock-ups: “You want to show the key functionality that you’re trying to bring to the marketplace…You just need three sort of pivotal experience screens that will demonstrate your core idea or three…mock-ups of the physical product…you’re trying to capture how it will be done.”
Approximate cost: Free

3. Logo and materials: “Get a good looking logo so at least you look legitimate…” says Ressi who recommends 99designs. After you pick the winning design, “you contact him [the designer] offline, you say I want you to do my business cards, I want you to do my Power Point backup and I want you to do my mock-ups. Now for not so much money you’re getting everything you need to appear somewhat legitimate to the world.”
Approximate cost: $750

4. Pitch deck: “You always want to have a pitch deck, even if it’s bad…you need something to start with to go on that refining path.”
Approximate cost: Free

5. Create a landing page: Ressi recommends Unbounce.com, which is a drag and drop landing page.
Approximate cost: $60/year after free trial

6. Create a company blog: “I recommend doing blog.yourcompany.com…it keeps it in a consistent place as your company scales…You want to be posting on your blog, at this phase, one or two times a week.”
Approximate cost: Free

7. Test marketing: “First thing I strongly recommend is immediately test marketing using Facebook and Google ads. Not so much for the value of driving people to your bullsh*t website, but to understand what messages resonate with your target audience and then so you can then refine your marketing messages.”
Approximate cost: $250

8. Survey customers: “So now you’ve got these leads coming in, survey them… you want to understand, the demographics, who are they. You want to clarify what the pain points, like why did they sign up, were they just stupid and duped into it or did they really feel that something was valuable and what was it that they find most valuable.”
Approximate cost: $200

9. Create a sticky note roadmap: Write all of your company’s features on separate sticky notes and then group them in logical buckets. “What I do, is I put on the left side I put the most important group and then at the top, the most important features. So on the top left is the most important thing I have to do…When you have that roadmap in front of you, you can sort of visualize the one thing that flows through everything and usually there’s an unknown around that.”
Approximate cost: $100

10. Ghetto launch. Test the unknown. “Whatever you can find that can test out your core stuff that’s free…Identify the metrics, collect the data and validate…”
Approximate cost: $250

Read detailed story on TechCrunch.

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[Update]: LOST finale is over with so many questions unanswered. Who will solve Island’s mystery?

“LOST” – Final Finale – Final Season 6, Final Date Today..

Its over.. Now what?? Who will solve Island’s mystery?

Watch the Lost Season 6 Final Show Finale Online. Lost Final Season 6 is about to end and you can watch the season finale of the show online.

If you haven’t heard about the series “Lost” yet, you might probably be lost in an island yourself. However, the Lost Season 6 which is also the final season of the American drama television series will be aired on Sunday 23rd May, 2010 on ABC.

Finale Trailer:

The season Finale for Lost will air on 23rd May and will be 2 and a half hours long and is bound to attract a record number of viewers. The story of lost is based on a fictional airplane crash in 2004 on a mysterious island with survivors must deal with a nuclear bomb.

The series has become very popular not only in the US, but also all over the world. The season finale would definitely be viewed by millions of users, who will also be heartbroken that at the end of the show there will be no more “Lost” anymore.

If you are a “Lost” fan and are waiting to watch the season finale, you can do so by visiting the official site at http://abc.go.com/shows/lost. If you are in the United States or Canada, you can also watch the season finale of Lost at Hulu by visiting http://www.hulu.com/lost.

Please note, the finale episode of Lost 6 will only be available for viewing after May 23rd 2010.