The first week of 2008 has gone in a blur. It took all my will power to not spend too much time this week reviewing the many eye-popping 2007 stats posts. After all, I know that the key to John Chow’s 2007 success has been action, not daydreaming about somebody else’s fortune. Here are some of the articles that I found incredibly useful in taking direct action to hit my own blogging goals.
First, I spent time analyzing where I can improve using basic SEO strategies. I started with keywords. My goal is to maintain a #1 rank for anyone who searches for Bob Angus, but I need to improve significantly across several other sets of keywords. SEO Design Solutions offered a good guide with SEO fundamentals called How to Extend your Keyword Empire in 3 Simple Steps.
Updated: Terry at SuperAff.com posted a good tip on Tracking Hot Keywords For New Blog Subscriptions.
Next, I am addressing link building. I refuse to take the shortcut, blackhat route or just buy links. One should build links that are sustainable, valuable, and trustworthy. One starting point is to analyze the competition and develop an external relevance profile for them. Hamlet Batista unleashed something that you will not find in any ebook with Revealing your Competitor’s FULL External Relevance Profile. Also, Earner’s Blog continues his series on link building with a good reminder to think outside the box in Link Building Guide Part 3 – Aboutus.org
Finally, I am quickly coming to a realization that I need to change my blog design. Skellie of Skelliewag.org delivered a great guest post on Blog Perfume called 8 Clever Ways to Lower the Bounce-Rate on Your Blog. The tips are design-oriented more than content-oriented, but they address a critical issue for low traffic blogs like bobangus.com. Each visitor who ‘bounces’ out of your site is a lost opportunity to gain a loyal reader or new subscriber. It is time to change my WordPress theme.
Image of the Week
Rue Pachinko by Renaud Bec is amazing concept art for the Red Steel video game by Ubisoft. For more incredible video game concept art, see the annual collections from IntoThePixel.com.
Check out other pictures and images on my Flickr photos.
