One blogging platform that has come to be used by many people is the one from Wordpress. It is also known to be the easier to do the optimization of a Wordpress blog, and be assured of getting more traffic. The following are 10 major ways of optimizing the Wordpress blog for the top search engine – Google:

1. Check the title that you will give your pages
The search engines will be guided by the page titles in your site. The title should make a person want to read more. It should be original and unique, and not outdated.

2. Use key words appropriately
The keywords should be used in your post title, and within the content of that post. Your first paragraph should have the keywords. It will also be prudent to use the variations of the main keyword.

3. Check the permalink structure
Since the search spiders are basically slow in discovering the spider content that is normally hidden deeper in the directories, it will be quite in order to ensure that your blog is set in the root directory. Best not to arrange the permalinks by the date.

4. Check the header tags
Within a post, you will be required to write title using header tags. There is always a kind of numerical value, and attached importance that you will find associated with the title tags. Your keywords have to be reflected in the header tags.

5. Refer visitors to related posts
You will basically wish to have your visitors staying long in your site. Just make sure that you have related posts plugin that will be able to maintain them there. Have a link like ‘Click to read related posts here’ and also link between posts having same topic.

6. Use All In One SEO pack
The All In One SEO pack is a plugin I highly recommend all WordPress users install on their blog. It allows you to optimize each individual post by adding titles, description and keywords etc.

7. Use sitemaps
Google likes pages that are indexed, and hence you will need to consider that to bring traffic to your site. It will be quite prudent to ensure that you have Google sitemaps plug-in installed in order to submit a sitemap to tell Google about pages on your site.

8. Use Ping Services
Ping services help you automatically notify most available blog search engines and directories that your blog has been updated. Here is a great list of ping services you may use.

9. Let your content be up to date
Ensure that you have content in your blog that is fresh. Googlebot will be interested in fresh content. You can set the topics of the posts that you will do in the future so that people can keep to date with you using the Upcoming plugin.

10. Have unique posts
Do not go for duplicate content as that will be highly penalized. You should try to make the content as unique as possible. Avoid copying and pasting other peoples’ content.

11. Let your blog interact
It will be quite in order to ensure that you have your blog link with social networking and bookmarking sites. Trying linking up with Twitter, Digg, Bebo, MySpace, Facebook, Del.icio.us and such likes. You will benefit greatly by installing a sociable plug-in.

12. Value backlinks
It will be in order to start by posting content to blog directories as well. These will be good backlinks. You should value backlinks as that is a sure way of getting more and more traffic. Also comment on the other blogs as a way of getting backlinks, of course quality and valuable comments.

Tell me in the comment if you have any other tips.

[Image credit: Greywolfonline]

Recently, I am busy doing assignment and preparing for my coming final exam. That’s why I have no time to update my blog. You must be curious why I try to take out some time to write this post. Because I don’t want you to lose something great .

This morning I opened my Inbox and received a newsletter from Darren Rowse. I think most of bloggers you know him, that he is the guy behind these famous blogs – ProBlogger, Digital Photography School and TwiTip. I am a big fan of Darren and also bought his ProBlogger Book (picture here) when I get started on blogging.

Great Offer Today

Well, what’s so special today? Darren has just decided to run a snap 50% discount sale of the 31 Days to Build A Better Blog Workbook to celebrate the 5th birthday of ProBlogger (which was yesterday). Awwwesome! The normal price is $19.95, but now it’s ONLY $9.97!

Guys, I’d like to say that I’m very lucky. You know why? I was actually waiting to buy the 31DBBB Workbook (hardcover) at local Kinokuniya Book Store. Few weeks ago I went to Kinokuniya to get the book, but the employee told me that the book is only available as an Ebook (no hardcover) . No choice, I got to purchase the Ebook version. Fortunately, Darren is giving a 50% discount for the next 24 hours and so today is the day to get the 31DBBB Workbook!

Why You Should Get The 31DBBB WorkBook?

Have a quick glance here.

Don’t you want to build a better blog?

So what are you waiting for?

Get a copy of 31 Days to Build A Better Blog Workbook now!

To get the discount you need to use this coupon code – ‘probloggeris5′ in the coupon code during checkout.

But hurry, the sale ends at 8pm MST (US Mountain Time) on 24th September.

UPDATED: The coupon code has expired.

Surfing the internet guarantees that you will see plenty of affiliate links, which are created to promote products. They turn up alongside search results, or even on social networking sites. But do people actually buy products from others affiliate links?

The simple answer to that would be that they do indeed buy products this way. Many products are being sold because of effective advertising on sites. An affiliate link, once clicked on, takes the viewer to a page that promotes the product, and this is where the buyer is convinced to buy the product.

If the product is promoted by someone who is speaking with authority on the product, the chances are the product will get sold. For example, people are more likely to buy golf equipment from an affiliate link where the promoter is a semi-professional golfer who has competed in tournaments rather than from someone who says he is simply passionate about golf.

Another important factor that convinces people to buy from others affiliate links is the content of the website. Reviews of the product are always helpful, and providing useful information and tips about the product for the target market will no doubt keep people buying from affiliate links. Hereby, my review of Thesis theme is an example.

However, you should aware that some are reluctant to buy products from affiliate links. Yes, I mean “some”. These people are probably bloggers, webmasters or internet marketers. Well, this is just like most bloggers won’t click on your ads . Tell me what you think. Do you buy products using others affiliate links?

AdWords is an advertising project from Google and is the main way in which Google earns money.

The basic idea is that advertisers pick key words that, when typed into Google search, will cause their advertisement to show up. For every ‘click’ that a particular ad receives, the advertiser pays Google a minimum amount. And so, this is known as the PayPerClick (PPC) advertising.

Many advertisers prefer using Google Adwords because it is extremely quick and flexible, applying any changes or request you want to make to your ads in simply minutes. The market quality is also wide-reaching and Google actually awards those whose ads perform well on their ‘Pay-Per-Click’ market.

To make your very own ad is very easy. You simply go to the Google Adwords home page and click ‘Start Now’. Then click on ‘Standard Edition’, if you want more control than you get in ‘Starter Edition’. Next you are asked to pick the language and the countries that you want your ad to appear in.

Now all that remains is for you to write your ad in a specified number of words. Before you know it, your sponsored link will be showing up above or to the right of main Google search results as Adwords.

Lastly, I have FREE Google ad credits worth RM150 (Ringgit Malaysia or equivalent in your local currency) to give away here.

Google AdWords Promotional Code is:

87YY-J5JL-KVJH-C8NZ-JK2

Please note that the promotional credit only applied to new AdWords account and will soon expired on September 7, 2009.

[Image Credit: Searchlinqs.com]

As you already know, I bought the Thesis theme and played with it for a few nights. I really like the theme and will consider to buy the developer’s license so I can use it on other blogs as well. However, I noticed that quite a number of bloggers don’t know what is Thesis from my previous poll. And I also received a few emails with questions about Thesis. I hope this post will answer your questions.

In short, Thesis is a SEO friendly Wordpress premium theme created by Chris Pearson (he designed Copyblogger). For bloggers who don’t understand a lot of PHP, HTML, and CSS, Thesis might be a solution. Thesis will give you a lot of functionality without having to alter any code. Also, you can easily make changes via the Thesis control panel.

I’ll highlight the special features in the following (Click to enlarge images):

Thesis Options

• Title Tag (Show site name, tagline etc.)
• Add Noindex to Archive Pages
• Feed Redirection
• Header/Footer Scripts (Add Google Analytics tracking code etc.)
• Navigation Control (Select and arrange pages to appear)

Design Options

• Fonts and Fonts Sizes
• Site Layout (Customize the number of columns , columns’ width, and column order.)
• Teasers Customization
• Feature Box
• Multimedia Box (Rotating images, video etc.)
• Framework Options

In-Post Options

• SEO Options (Custom title tag, meta description, meta keywords)
• Post Image & Tumbnail Options
• Multimedia Box Options

With all these incredible features above and Thesis Hooks, you can customize your blog with ease – yes, really. After you buy the theme, you will have complete access to the support forums and get support from Chris and Thesis community. Also, all future upgrades of the theme are FREE.

Okay, how much does Thesis cost? It’s $87. Let’s make a comparison here.

Look at the themes ($70 each $70 for 2) at WooThemes, no doubt they are all elegant. But ask yourself these questions — “How to change the number of columns and width?”, “Moving the navigation menu?”, or “Font and font size?”.

Erm….no idea? You’ll find that they are limited and difficult to be customized. This may not be a problem, if you’re very good in coding. Frankly, I’m no designer and so I bought Thesis.

Well, Thesis is not perfect anyway. But I’d say it is so far the best wordpress theme, and look forward to see more exciting features. This is an honest review from me (a real user). Let me know if you find this review useful, and you can use my affiliate link to get your Thesis.