I have a little question. I love to write long posts (about 1500 words) and i use a lot the Heading tags, but only the h2 tag (h1 is for the title of the post) for each paragraph.
Do you think that is better if i use also the h3 and h4 tag? Or you think that it should be an exaggeration?

Sorry for my bad english but i am italian, i hope you could answer to my question.

i want to make my blogger attractive. so help me create gud blog .

Best of luck with the site.

Rgds
Richard

Awesome post, i’ve just started out with the learning process for the shed site we’re starting up and we wanted to put a blog about garden sheds on the back and i had been going to just host it on blogspot but now i’ve learnt that i should definately put it on our domain.

Thanks a million

Cheers, ToNy!

Eh, I’m a bit embarrassed because it all probably seems obvious to you, but this piece of code, NOFOLLOW – how do you put it there?

The supplemental index is Google’s secondary index where they put all the content that they don’t think is very important. Basically you don’t want to be there if possible. If I remember correctly you have qute a good amount of links pointing at your site, so I’m not 100% sure why you’re there. NOFOLLOW is a small piece of code you can add to your links that basically tells Google (and other SEs) not to pay too much attention to those links – this helps keep your ‘site power’ rather than giving it to others.

@El Blogador – You’re very welcome. I’m sorry if some of this flies over your head. Obviously that’s one of the beauties of Blogspot – simple to use. But in the long run you should really try to find (corner) some techie and get them to help you take the next step and take control. Once you’re set up it’s just as simple as Blogger (even more so with all the great plugins you can get for WordPress).

@Gavin – did you see the WMW stats on the number of splogs hosted on Blogger? I think they reckon it’s up to 75% of all Blogspot blogs… And the figures for some of the smaller hosted blog platforms… 100%

Rgds to all
Richard

On the topic of blogger. Was looking the stats for my blogspot and noticed I have been out ranking authority & Gov sites for a specific company name. The only use of SEO was proper use of keywords and internal linking, the only link building is from irishblogs.ie

Would be interesting to see what numbers people are seeing from search engine traffic to their blogspot.

I posted about fixing the canonical URL thing in Apache recently:
http://www.mneylon.com/blog/archives/2007/03/04/mod_rewrite-tricks/

You can do it using a .htaccess or directly within the Apache config if you have access to it.

HTH

Michele

Do you know any site where all these terms are explained in idiot-language that even the likes of me might understand?

One question though – if, for example, someone follows a Google search to the blogspot blog for a particular post will the redirect not just send them directly to the index page of the new blog?

The redirect is pretty trivial Twenty. If you’re stuck I’m sure Frank will help you out. You can give me a call either and I’ll get it sorted. It’s a 3 minute job.

Setting up the redirect from Blogspot – when I said pray, I was referring to whether it would work or not. In your case you’ll know instantly. The only thing you need to find out is whether this affects the Blogspot blog – i.e. will you lose any of the data held by Blogger? My understanding is that this won’t have any impact on the Blogger data. It simply redirects the visitors(and the search engines) with the correct header – a 301. Sorry I cant be more definitive. I’ve never really used Blogger.

Rgds
Richard

Let me know if the post is understandable!

It is Apache. Don’t know how to do the redirect though.

I would also look at redirecting the old site over to gain all the link love from the Blogspot blog – you had some serious link power which would be a shame to lose.

I read the comment on the Bubble Bros post where you said at the end ‘then pray’. That kind of put me off.

Google sees them as different sites. That might sound hard to believe, but I can guarantee that if you redirect one onto the other it will help with rankings. All backlinks will then benefit one version of your site rather than be split (e.g. some people will link to www, others to non-www).

You achieve the redirect with .htaccess if your hosted on an Apache server.

I would also look at redirecting the old site over to gain all the link love from the Blogspot blog – you had some serious link power which would be a shame to lose.

Rgds
Richard

I’ll try to put up a post about image search over the weekend (busy week). If I don’t get the time to do a post I’ll email you some details and ideas.

Best rgds
R

I’m just sorry I’m not offering more. You know that I reckon you can probably get a domain and hosting for about 50 quid, so if you can find the funds I would seriously consider moving of Blogspot.

Are they original images? If so I might try to give you some help with image search – that can be a nice way to get some traffic.

Rgds
Richard

I don’t suppose you know of any decent tutorials for migrating from Blogspot to a standalone WP install?

Good news though, anything that helps people break free from Blogger has to be appreciated.

From my understanding it is possible to migrate from the new blogger to WP. It’s just not trivial. Previously WordPress had a nice import utility that took care of it for you, but since Blogger updated this apparently no longer works. The workaround is linked in my post above.

You should take a look at my Bubble Brothers post – I wrote quite extensively on the ability to move from Blogspot to your own hosted blog.

Blogger also offer a Custom Domain facility. Your Blogger account basically ‘appears’ on your own domain. The downside to this is that you’re pretty much still stuck with the Blogger platform. But you would then have your blog appearing on your own domain. Your links *should* also remain in tact and be properly redirected from Blogger. This actually might be a neat solution for you. However, in the long run if you are serious about blogging I suggest you start thinking about how to break free from Blogger.

Rgds
Richard

URLs will probably change unless you do significant hacking of the permalinks although I could be wrong because I haven’t really used the new Blogger system yet.

Thanks for all the hard work. I also hate that C word. Commitment.

I read your comments very carefully and I’m proud to say I understood about half of it. Unfortunately, a lot of the terminology is a bit esoteric for the likes of myself.

Just to clarify: are you saying that in fact it’s impossible to migrate your blogspot posts to WordPress if you’re using the new Blogger? For me, that would be a good reason to stay with Blogger, because of all the cross-linking I’ve done. I wouldn’t like to lose the references, and although I know it would still be possible to link back to Blogger from new posts on WordPress, the look and feel of the pages would be different and very jarring for the reader.

Some people, like myself, have their own domain name redirected to blogspot. Isn’t it possible to go a step further with that so the blogspot address is completely hidden? I don’t know if there are any downsides to doing that, like losing links on other people’s sites.

Rgds
R

Your offer was extremely generous, and whenever you get around to it is fine…

I’m keeping an eye on the advice you give to others too and seeing what I might be forgetting myself, so it’s all useful!

The biggest issue I foresee on BifSniff is the current lack of focus – it’s currently a creative & fun outlet for me, but as a result I blog about whatever I have in my head at the time.

Those who are blogging for business, or even just blogging in a niche which would be easier to gain ground in should probably get priority in your list.

Plus, I’ll be very interested in your advice (being a fan of your approach) but I do have experience in SEO myself (wearing my other hat – Aonach.com) and those that don’t will probably benefit even more from your views.

I’ve still got about half of the blogs yet to be analysed and discussed, one of which is bifsniff.com.

It might be interesting to see what you came up with yourself and what I can notice. From the sounds of things you’re doing some work on the site so it will be more interesting for me to look at it now.

This week is crazy, but I hope to get a few more blogs cleared by early next week.

Rgds
Richard

I’ll second the canonical URL issue – I had been meaning to fix it on BifSniff for a long time, but only got around to it the other day.

As part of fixing it I had a look at how much of an issue it might have been and I discovered that it should have been a top priority – but as BifSniff is not an earner it can be hard to find the time to fix things up!

So I highly recommend anyone with a hosted solution who hasn’t sorted it out – do so!

If you’re on WordPress, my experience in implementing the htaccess stuff might be handy.

I only use Yahoo! to check backlinks. I never actually use it for search, although I’ve been hearing that their results are getting much better recently.

Porno sites on Yahoo! – can you post the search query pls? Might be related to Blogspot (which is full of spam).

Rgds
Richard

Thanks again.

I suppose it all depends on your audience. I’m a bit surprised because I’m not usually reading blogs with high fevered profanities left, right and center. All the SEO and marketing stuff tends to be more corporate-type blogs so those writers rarely let go. Personally I’d rather read something that’s just plain funny than profane.

Changing over. Out of curiosity do the WordPress crew put a lot of thought into crawlability and general site architecture? I’ve only looked at the few Blogspot blogs, but I have this sneaky feeling that the way they archive the pages, combines with the navigation architecture, results in indexing issues on Google. That might seem odd given that Blogspot are owned by Google, but I’ve learnt that disparate parts of Google very often push and pull in very different directions and I reckon hat the only thing Search thinks about when it come to Blogger is how to mitigate all the spam.

Rgds
Richard

Take a look at US photographer Chris Weeks – he’s a talented photographer but like Gavin I have to resist the urge to link to him sometimes because of his language. Any Irish blog I frequent is tame by comparision! To be honest, cursing makes a post more colourful and entertaining but it brings the tone down and it’s not something I’d do. Maybe if I did I’d get more feedback!

Oh, thanks for the SEO series, I must blog the photoblog one and add a few of my own tips!

Gavin – I’ve been asked by Irish girls not to use the C word, it’s not just Americans. Rarely use it these days.

Yeah with blogger being free who could resist? Totally agree that Google should step away from CMS, I don’t like their set-up nor do I think it can do anything special and plus its a haven for so much spam.

Couldn’t agree more about the Irish bloggers using the C word. For the most part I cant even link to some of the great posts out there as my blog is targeting the Irish American audience and I pride myself that its family friendly. The Americans get very offended on the c word, even though it seems to be part of everyone’s vocabulary over here.

I couldn’t never understand why they do get offended by the word and you wouldn’t believe how many times I was told to stop using it by my American friends.

So you something going on blogger as well? I really think Google should stick to search. They seem to arse up content management systems IMO (think Groups, think Blogger).

The only thing about cursing is the C word. Goes down like a lead balloon for US visitors. F word isn’t too bad, but the C one, well I wouldn’t publish it.

Now I just hope that the bloggers in question will see this. Quite a few have no contact details on their blogs. Suppose I’ll have to leave a few comments for bread crumbs.

Rgds
Richard

Performing SEO on blogspot is very restricted and to be honest its something I don’t even look at with my own blogger account. What I have noticed though that proper use of post titles and linking back to older posts has helped my own blogspot rank high, on Google that is.

I think I’ll be trying out some of your tips and see if I can rank even higher. Although my blogspot isn’t a serious project its good to play around with.

Oh and I agree, Irish bloggers do curse a lot on their posts but there again it gives their blogs more character (I think).