Now the reason why the Mayor of Eu, Marie-Françoise Gaouyer, wants to change the name isn’t that she simply wants to rank well but that they’re small town is missing out on the tourist boom in northern Normandy. This is a result of the tourists visiting the region mostly depends on the internet to find more information and perform bookings. What’s worse is that the website of France’s national railway, SNCF, doesn’t even list the town! I guess a small town called Eu can easily get lost in a country where “eu” is defined as the past particple of the verb avoir.

Currently some of the names being considered include “Mairie de la Ville d’Eu”, “Eu-le-Château” and “Eu-en-Normandie”. Whatever name they end up with in the meantime they’ll need to drum up some PR the old-fashioned way since it will take about 4 years before the name can be changed.

So what is link baiting, really? I like how Darren Rowse explains it:

The term linkbaiting is a one that seems to have surfaced over the past 12 or so months and that is used by webmasters to describe a variety of practices – all of which seek to generate incoming links to a website or blog from other sites.

It is actually a difficult term to be definitive about as it covers a lot of different practices ranging from running awards or competitions, through to writing attacking posts on high profile bloggers in the hope of them biting back and linking to you, through to providing other bloggers or site owners with tools (with embedded links back to your own site) that they can put on their blogs…

In short, anything that you do to attract inbound links to your blog (or web site) can actually be considered link baiting, right? Let us take a closer look at some specific things that you can do to attract those links to your blog.

Attack, attack, and attack some more.
Now, I have to tell you that this method of link baiting is one of the most effective. However, I also have to tell you that this method is NOT for the weak of heart. When you attack, you make yourself vulnerable to attacks on your person as well. Not physically, maybe, but verbally. You may believe that “sticks and stones break your bones but words will never hurt” but trust me, if you decide to attack a high profile blogger or celebrity, you might change your mind.

Just a few pointers if you do decide to attack, make sure that your points are valid. Make sure that you can back them up rationally. The better you do this, the more people will link back to your blog.

Humor
If you have a sense of humor and you can translate that into your writing, then make the best out of it. There is nothing like funny things – even stupidly funny things – to get people to notice your blog. Even if you have a niche blog, you can always find funny things to incorporate in your posts. Just make sure that they are related to your niche.

One, by blogging about the news. There is a reason newspapers –both online and offline – get a lot of readers. What they offer is fresh and relevant. One way to attract links would be to ride the wave of the hottest piece of news. Write about that item and throw in some of your own ideas as well. One important thing to remember would be to use keywords that are very specific to that news item. So, for example, these days, Obama, McCain, and Palin are very high profile. You can choose to blog about them. Another recent hot item was the melamine contamination of milk from China. If you blogged about that topic at the height of the scare, you might have seen a lot more hits.

Two, by blogging about a topic AND contradicting what experts (or the general public) say. This could be a controversial way of getting links but hey, if you really do take the opposite stand, then why not? Do not be afraid to contradict other people, especially if you have a strong argument going for you. You never know, there just might be more people out there who think the same way as you do.

More of these ways in the next post.

Have you ever come across web sites which are basically article repositories? An example would be Ezine Articles. This web site provides a lot of articles on various topics – basically anything under the sun. What happens is that you write articles for them – something that is under your expertise – and at the end of the articles, you can put your blog and link.

The good thing about this method is that you actually get to write something that you really are knowledgeable about. So for example, your blog is all about video games, the PlayStation in particular. All you need to do is write articles about that topic and submit the articles to a particular article submission web site. The important thing to remember here is that you should write high quality articles. If you are an expert on this topic, then you do not really have to work hard at it. You just have to be your natural self and write what you know best.

A word of warning – make sure that you really do write articles that provide good information to the readers. This way, you can establish yourself as an authority in your field and you can create a readership base.

adwords Google Pay Per Click contextual advertisement program, very common way of basic website advertisement.

affiliate An affiliate site markets products or services that are actually sold by another website or business in exchange for fees or commissions.

alt text A description of a graphic, which usually isn’t displayed to the end user, unless the graphic is undeliverable, or a browser is used that doesn’t display graphics. Alt text is important because search engines can’t tell one picture from another. Alt text is the one place where it is acceptable for the spider to get different content than the human user, but only because the alt text is accessible to the user, and when properly used is an accurate description of the associated picture. Special web browsers for visually challenged people rely on the alt text to make the content of graphics accessible to the users.

anchor text The user visible text of a link. Search engines use anchor text to indicate the relevancy of the referring site and of the link to the content on the landing page. Ideally all three will share some keywords in common.

black hat Search engine optimization tactics that are counter to best practices such as the Google Webmaster Guidelines.

bounce rate The percentage of users who enter a site and then leave it without viewing any other pages.

More terms to come next time.

Go back to the first moment that you thought about starting a blog. Why did you want to have a blog? Why did you want to write? The chances are that you wanted to reach out to people from all over the world. You wanted these people to discover your blog and read what you had to say. More so, the chances are that you still have these ideas in mind.

Now, if you write with search engines primarily in mind, you might overlook the fact that your readers need and want something specific from your posts. You might fall into the temptation of stuffing your posts with keywords and not placing enough attention on the readability of your posts. If you have not fallen prey to this tendency, then good for you. However, you still might want to take a step back and examine who is on your mind when you write.

I suggest that you zone in on the people that you want to read your blogs. Think about the people that you want to keep coming back for more AND then write in such a way that would engage them and keep them hooked. How does that sound?

Definitely not.

There are so many aspects to SEO for blogs. Just because you have taken one step does not mean that you do not have to do anything else. The fact is that SEO is a continuous process. You have to check the different aspects and continue to work on them in order to achieve your goal.

One thing that you have to put on the top of your priority list is your blog content. At the very beginning of your endeavors with your blog, you should have made it clear in your mind what you want to write about, what you want to offer your readers. Still, it doesn’t stop there. You have to continue paying attention to the kind of content that you are going to place in your blog.

Think about it. You have the freedom to write practically anything in your blog. But if your aim is to attract readers and to keep them coming back, you have to continue to present new content that would be of interest for them. Otherwise, your best efforts in SEO will not really mean much. Without great content, people might visit your blog once, even twice, but never come back.

sear.ch
b.uy
tel.ly
beach.es
justcurio.us
designm.ag
podca.st
foot.ie

Why not challenge yourself to see if you can come up with a suitable domain name?

Another way by which you can come up with a creative domain name is using a slogan. Some experts do not suggest using this method unless your slogan is already well known. Think Adidas – impossibleisnothing.com. Then there is justdoit.com for Nike. Obviously, this method works perfectly if your slogan is catchy.

Now how about making up your own word? This is where creativity really comes into play. Anyone can make up a word or a phrase. Making that word or phrase stick in the minds of people is another thing. It works, though. Think Flickr and Digg. Even if these words do not mean anything, the sites have become as big as can be.

The bottom line is this: creativity is very powerful in coming up with domain names that people will remember. That is only one part, though. Even if you have the most creative domain name in the world, it will not mean anything if you do not have great content to offer and if you do not practice other SEO techniques. Still, with a great domain name, you are one step ahead!