SEO Update

Introduction

Much has happened in the world of Local Search since last year’s edition of the Local Search Ranking Factors was published. We’ve seen a major quantitative study of Google Maps, detailed interviews with the heads of both Google Maps and Yahoo Local, the launch of a number of new portals, and just in the last few weeks, Google’s introduction of the Local 10-pack for generic keywords.

It is my hope that this study will help small business owners confused by Local Search, or those strapped for time, to prioritize their marketing efforts.

With that in mind, I felt that it was time to survey the experts once more to gauge the factors most helpful for ranking well in the Google and Yahoo Local algorithms, as well as techniques to be avoided. This year’s edition of the LSRF contains responses from 27 prominent bloggers and practitioners.

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Top 5 Ranking Factors

1. Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links
73% very high importance

2. External Link Popularity (quantity/quality of external links)
71% very high importance

3. Diversity of Link Sources (links from many unique root domains)
67% very high importance

4. Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag
66% very high importance

5. Trustworthiness of the Domain Based on Link Distance from Trusted Domains (e.g. TrustRank, Domain mozTrust, etc.)
66% very high importance

via Search Engine Ranking Factors | SEOmoz.

PalettePress is happy to announce the release of Portico a new Google AdSense ready WordPress theme available for free download.

Portico: Free WordPress AdSense Ready Theme

Portico is a simple, elegant and easy to customize Googel AdSense ready WordPress theme with a two-column fixed-width design. The free Portico WordPress theme has a widget-ready sidebar and also has built-in space for advertising, which can support a variety advertising including, but not limited to, Google AdSense.

Here’s a list of the free Portico WordPress Theme features:

• Simple two-column design
• Elegant style and color scheme
• Built-in space for advertising including, but not limited to, Google AdSense
• Supports both WordPress 2.7.x and 2.8.x
• Supports widgets
• Support for gravatars

via Free Portico Google AdSense Ready WordPress Theme is now available! – PalettePress.

Built-in Conditionals

In this version, you can freely mix and match these predefined rules which gives you control of where the widget should be displayed:

• Everywhere on your site (new)
• The front page
• All posts
• All author pages
• All or selected pages and subpages
• Pages or posts with comments enabled
• Pages or posts belongs to selected categories
• Pages or posts with selected tags
• All (new) or selected category archive pages
• All (new) or selected tags archive pages
• All date-based archive pages
• Search results page (new)
• “404″ not found page (new)

Please note:
JavaScript is required for the widget interface to display correctly.
This plugin will only run on Wordpress 2.8+.

via WordPress › Section Widget « WordPress Plugins.

Get Rid Of HTML Links In Comments

The problem.
Bloggers are always looking to promote their blogs, and spammers are everywhere. One thing that totally annoys me on my blogs is the incredible amount of links left in comments, which are usually irrelevant. By default, WordPress transforms URLs in comments to links. Thankfully, if you’re as tired of comment links as I am, this can be overwritten.

The solution.
Simply open your function.php file and paste in this code:

function plc_comment_post( $incoming_comment ) {
	$incoming_comment['comment_content'] = htmlspecialchars($incoming_comment['comment_content']);
	$incoming_comment['comment_content'] = str_replace( "'", ''', $incoming_comment['comment_content'] );
	return( $incoming_comment );
}
 
function plc_comment_display( $comment_to_display ) {
	$comment_to_display = str_replace( ''', "'", $comment_to_display );
	return $comment_to_display;
}
 
add_filter('preprocess_comment', 'plc_comment_post', '', 1);
add_filter('comment_text', 'plc_comment_display', '', 1);
add_filter('comment_text_rss', 'plc_comment_display', '', 1);
add_filter('comment_excerpt', 'plc_comment_display', '', 1);

function plc_comment_post( $incoming_comment ) {
	$incoming_comment['comment_content'] = htmlspecialchars($incoming_comment['comment_content']);
	$incoming_comment['comment_content'] = str_replace( "'", ''', $incoming_comment['comment_content'] );
	return( $incoming_comment );
}

function plc_comment_display( $comment_to_display ) {
	$comment_to_display = str_replace( ''', "'", $comment_to_display );
	return $comment_to_display;
}

add_filter('preprocess_comment', 'plc_comment_post', '', 1);
add_filter('comment_text', 'plc_comment_display', '', 1);
add_filter('comment_text_rss', 'plc_comment_display', '', 1);
add_filter('comment_excerpt', 'plc_comment_display', '', 1);

Once you have saved the file, say goodbye to links and other undesirable HTML in your comments.

Code explanation.
The first thing we did was create two functions that replace HTML characters with HTML entities. Then, using the powerful add_filter() WordPress function, we hooked the standard WordPress comments processing functions to the two functions we just created. This makes sure that any comments added will have their HTML filtered out.

Navigational Queries:

Opportunities – Pull searcher away from destination; get ancillary or investigatory traffic
Average Value - Generally Low

Informational Queries:

Opportunities - Brand searchers with positive impression of your site, information, company, etc; Attract inbound links; Receive attention from journalists/researchers; Potentially convert to sign-up or purchase
Average Value - Middling

Commercial Investigation Queries:

Opportunities – Convert to member/sign-up; Sway purchase decision; Collect email; Get user feedback/participation
Average Value - High

Transactional Queries:

Opportunities - Achieve transaction (financial or other)
Average Value – Very High

#1 – Relative Search Volume from 3 Sources

There are three sources on the web that I’ve found to work best for comparative numbers research. These are:

1. Google Adwords: Keyword Tool – enter any term or phrase and get back data about both the average search volume and the volume from the previous month.

2. MSN AdCenter: Research Keywords Tool – you need to be logged in to use this, but the data is solid and shows actual counts.

3. Wordtracker: Keyword Tool – although the numbers Wordtracker shows are frequently less accurate than the two above, they are reasonably decent for estimating comparative search volume. Unfortunately, due to the declining share of Wordtracker’s data sources (the Infospace owned search engines – Metacrawler, Dogpile, DoGreatGood, etc.), niche and long tail term volume estimates can be way off.

via SEOmoz | 10 Steps to Advanced Keyword Research.

5 Useful And Creative Ways To Use WordPress Widgets

If you’ve been reading some of the previous WordPress-related articles here on Smashing Magazine, you’ll know that WordPress is much more than a blogging platform. It can be used as a CMS, too. And WordPress widgets are a powerful tool in your WordPress development arsenal.

When you think of WordPress widgets, you may think they’re just a way to rearrange various items in your blog’s sidebar without touching any code. Sure, that’s nice and all, but that’s really just the tip of the iceberg of all the things WordPress widgets can do.

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