From time to time I post Frequently Asked Questions (Faq’s) from my website in case the basics of Internet Marketing get missed by some, so here is one I still get asked often, surprisingly!
What is search engine optimization(SEO)?
SEO is the process of editing and organizing the content of a website so it scores high in the ranking algorithms of common search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN/Bing). A high scoring website will appear at or near the top of searches. The algorithms used by search engines are quite sophisticated and continuously evolving. Many web site designers are very adept at communicating the marketing messages “within” the site, but professional SEO firms ensure that the content of the site is properly structured so it ranks high with the search engines. A strong web site on it’s own, is only useful if people already know it exist. A strong ranking in the search engines drives people to your site that may not have known about your company and your products or services.

Spider Choice Inc.
Web Marketing Solutions
SEO – PPC – Internet Marketing
Toronto & Port Dover, Canada

I have been asked this questions several times so I hope this helps!

Importing from an RSS feed
2.0.x
2.0 introduced this as an option in the Admin menu under “Import”.

First, save the RSS feed you wish to import someplace on your local machine. This would be the source and would come from the site that has the content you wish to import into your WP blog. A simple way to get the feed into a text file is to find the RSS link for that site, click it and view it in your browser, then copy/paste that to a text file. Or, of course, use your preferred tools.

Click the “Browse” button and navigate to the file containing the feed you wish to import and click “Import” to let it run.

Note: Depending on the feed and format, you may not get the entire thing loaded on the first attempt. One option is to determine how much got imported (Manage -> Posts) and remove those sections from your saved RSS file and then re-import. Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary.

Note that newlines will be converted to
. Therefore be sure there is no newlines between any

..

s.

Pre 2.x
WordPress also has a generic RSS importer, which you can find in your WordPress source at wp-admin/import-rss.php. If your current blogging system can export in a valid RSS format, you can import that into WordPress.

Importing the RSS data is done by running the import-rss.php script from the server. For security reasons you have to edit the script to point to the file where the RSS data is stored.

If you have your blog at http://example.com, you can place your file, for example oldblog.xml, in the wp-admin directory on your site.

Edit import-rss.php by changing the value of RSSFILE in the beginning of the script. After you have changed this, run the script by accessing the script with your browser, in this case you’ll go to http://example.com/wp-admin/import-rss.php.

If the script finds your file, a link marked Begin RSS Import occur, and by pressing this link the import will start.

The RSS data are now imported, and you can remove the RSS file and restore the script.

Importing from HTML
Using trial and error one can make an e.g., perl script to concatenate HTML files as RSS s, saving into a single file.xml, then import that as RSS. Note however to first remove any newlines between

..

s, as mentioned above.

The format allowed is quite simple in fact. Just make each HTML file into an as below and concatenate them together:

Wed, 30 Jan 2009 12:00:00 +0000 Kites
Taiwan
Fun times

What great times we had…

And then Bob…

…
Just be sure the line is a single long line with no newlines embedded.

If your HTML is well-formed, you can try using the Import HTML plugin.

Google Blog Converters
In case the above methods don’t work, you can try Google Blog Converters.

This tool can convert Blogger export into WordPress format. It also supports conversion from Movable Type & LiveJournal to Blogger format. You can take the Blogger format then convert it again into WordPress format.

For more information or if you have any comments about how to import or export of RSS feeds please feel free to contact us at www.spiderchoice.com

Spider Choice Inc.
Web Marketing Solutions
SEO – PPC – Internet Marketing
Toronto & Port Dover, Canada

PageRank (PR) is a numerical value Google assigns to a site as a measure of “authority.” A marketing coach will emphasize that building PR is one of the most affordable SEO methods. Understanding PR and using it to craft a link-building campaign is a first step toward higher search engine results.

Marketing Coaching: Understanding the Basics of Page Rank

Copyright (c) 2010 Paul Marshall

You’ve just built your website and you want to show up on the search engines. You start reading about SEO and one of the first things that jumps out at you is something called “Google PageRank.” You know about the big dog of the search engines, but what is PageRank and why is it important in what you’re trying to do?

Any good marketing coach can explain that easily. If your site is placing high in free (organic) search results, you’re getting free advertising. Notice the word “free.” That’s always a good thing. Building a strong PageRank (PR) by getting good quality links coming in to your site takes time, but it isn’t going to eat a hole in your pocketbook.

You want to work on raising your site’s PR to get “authority” with the search engines. A site with “authority” gets better visibility in search results. Really understanding the algorithm behind your site’s PR will likely have you reaching for a bottle of aspirin. In the beginning, just concentrate on understanding the basics and how they relate to your efforts to promote your site.

How Is PR Defined?

Google says PR is all about the “uniquely democratic nature of the web” and “using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value.” Basically, a link from one page to another is a vote for that page. However, not all votes in this democracy are equal. Some votes come from higher-quality pages and are weighed more heavily. (Other factors in determining PR include the relevance of search phrases on a page and actual traffic to the page.)

How Is PageRank Expressed?

PR values are expressed on a scale of 0 to 10. Sites from 0 to 2 are probably pretty new to the Web and have few incoming links. Sites that have made it to PR3 to PR5 are fairly well established; PR6 and above are really popular and have a lot of high-quality links. There are very few sites that make it to the PR7 to PR10 range.

The ones that are ranked that high are usually owned by big corporations or major media outlets like the Wall Street Journal (PR8). Improving your site’s PR by getting relevant, high-quality, incoming links is one of the most affordable SEO methods at your disposal. Rather than trying to get to a specific number, just concentrate on improving your number.

Is My Site’s Index The Only Page With PR?

No, each page in your site will be assigned a PR, something that is emphasized in marketing coaching as a valuable tool. You can use relevant interlinking to distribute PR throughout all your pages.

Huh? Well, just hang on to that thought for a minute. For right now, just understand the concept that some pages in your site may earn a higher PR than others, and that you can use that to your advantage.

PageRank Passes From One Page To Another

Here’s how it works. A page with a high PR passes some of its value to a low PR page over a link. You can use this to promote your site in a couple of ways. When your site’s pages are interlinked in a relevant way, PR gets distributed more evenly throughout the site. Also, you can “court” relevant sites that belong to other people through your link-building campaign. This is really how your site starts to gain “authority.”

Start By Building Your Index Page’s PR

Generally, marketing coaches will tell you to begin by working on your home page’s PR. This can be time-consuming, and not just because you’ll be building relationships with other site owners. You have to do your time in what’s popularly called the Google “sandbox.” This just means that new sites like yours probably won’t get any PR at all for the first few months you’re on the Web.

How Do I Check My PR?

There are a number of free, online tools for checking PR including PRChecker and SearchStatus. At PRChecker you type in a page’s URL to see its PR. SearchStatus is a FireFox extension that show a site’s PR at the bottom of your browser. (It also shows your site’s Alexa rating, another method to measure online “importance.”) You an also install the Google Toolbar for Firefox or Internet Explorer and enable the PageRank function.

Is Building My PR All I Need To Do?

A marketing coach will tell you that having a strong PR is only one part of your SEO campaign. For instance, say you’re looking around for a site to link to yours. You find one with a high PR, but it’s a site that sells links. Move on. Their high PR number doesn’t do you any good because a link from that site to yours will have a lower quality and will pass less authority to you.

Understanding the basics of PageRank is essential in putting together a high-quality link-building campaign for your site, but don’t get fixated on the PR number and ignore other important facts. Just gain a basic understanding of what PR is and how it functions and use that to your advantage in building a reputation of authority for your site.

About The Author:
Marketing online since 2004, Paul Marshall can help you market on a realistic budget. He’s a Marketing Coach offering professional marketing services (and d-i-y Coaching). He also offers Paul Marshall

For more information about Search Engine Optimization and Google services visit us at info@spiderchoice.com

Spider Choice Inc.
Web Marketing Solutions
SEO – PPC – Internet Marketing
Toronto & Port Dover, Canada

Well I’m sure this will stir up some debate but I still have to post my feelings about Social Network Marketing as it seems that many people have abandoned conventional SEM as it is more work and costly compared to spending all day on social network sites making contacts or increasing the number of “followers” they have.

Getting quality leads from Twitter traffic is like having thousands of people drive past your Billboard on the highway and hoping someone notices what you have to sell. It takes a lot of traffic on a great corner to get much out of it. Being an SEO guy who still believes in letting Google bring me the most highly targeted traffic available I don’t like to spend much of my time on social network marketing but I don’t ignore it because it all helps.

Google Analytics stats show that visitors from Twitter spend less time on a website than conventional search engine traffic as they are not actually looking for your product or service but probably only curious, so judge your marketing time wisely!

Spider Choice Inc.
Web Marketing Solutions
SEO – PPC – Internet Marketing
Toronto & Port Dover, Canada