hiding amidst the grass
purple hints on the edges
the glories of spring
Daisy in the Grass
Blog
WordPress Tip: Comment Moderation
A blogger I follow is being harassed on her site. She’s done a key thing: blocking the email addresses from setting up new accounts and providing more abusive comments. One thing that people can do in addition: set comments for manual approval. Though it doesn’t prevent someone from sending you abusive comments, it does prevent them from being seen on YOUR site. It’s a simple process to set up.
First, head to your dashboard. Scroll down the left-hand side until you see “settings”. Click on that, the look for the link to “Discussion” (the image directly below is from the WordPress.com dashboard, linked via JetPack. If you’re in your site’s dashboard, you’ll see “Discussion” open up below…that’s the third image below). The last part is simply checking “Comment must be manually approved” then clicking “Save Settings”. Now, any time someone posts a comment, you’ll get a message asking if you want to approve it. It provides some sense of security via control.
Here’s where to find it on your self-hosted WordPress Dashboard.
Spring’s Sunlight
within spring’s sunlight
trees moving so gracefully
songbirds uncaring
SEO: Link Building and Establishing Authority
Authority is a key part of evaluating the quality of a site. And inbound links, aka “backlinks” are key parts of how Search engines develop ascertain that authority. Additionally, Google has confirmed that links are one of the three main elements for determining a site’s ranking. So, earning quality backlinks is extremely valuable in pushing your site up a search engine results page. Search engines evaluate the quality of the referring site as well. One good referral is worth far more than dozens of weak ones. With that, we want to focus on links from sites that will direct high-quality traffic to our site. I think it’s best to find sites that will send users that are highly interested in whatever your site features. If you focus on providing good and interesting content, you will naturally attract good links.
Below are some key best practices, and a few things to avoid.
Let’s start with a list of tactics to avoid:
- Purchased links
- Link exchanges or reciprocal linking
- Google’s specific guidance is to avoid “excessive” link exchange.
- Low-quality directory links
To end on a positive note, here are some recommended tactics:
- Earn your links! Good, useful content that adds value
- Seek to gain links from pages with high-authority
- You want to increase your backlinks over time
- They should come from topically relevant sources
- Make sure you use natural anchor text
- Publish a blog
- Create “resource” pages
Sunlight On Spring
sunlight in spring
cherry blossoms slowly grow
robins chattering
Blessings of Springtime
glorious sunlight
with the blessings of springtime
life upon the shore
I took this photo while walking along the shore near my home. It is one of my favorite places. I hope you got to enjoy your day.
Edits made with Adobe Spark. Photo take with my Samsung S9.
Sunlight through the rain
breaking through the rain
sunlight’s grace moves through the trees
birds dance on the wind
Early Spring
springtime is nearing
flowers eating the sunshine
blown by the cool breeze
Moz Chapter 3 KEYWORD RESEARCH
Another post based on this past quarter’s research on SEO via Moz
There are many key tools for determining a good keyword strategy. The first, and most important one, is the act of questioning. Starting with core questions is critical to developing the right focus on for the other research tools. Who are our customers? What are their goals? What do they want? How do they search? Once you have answers for these, you can explore several other tools like:
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- Google Keywords Planner
- Google Trends
- Moz Keyword Explorer
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Google’s tools are perhaps the most important, as the vast majority of US based search is done via Google. Google Keywords gives you the ability to explore which keywords are relevant, which have high competition, and which have low competition. The “finding new keywords” tool looks particularly powerful. Google Trends is another tool that is worthy of adding to your toolbox. With it you can see what the world is searching for, both at the broadest levels as well as refined to the local or even hyper-local. Besides being able to search for specific keywords, you can also looking at macro trends across the internet. Moz, one of the leaders in digital marketing has their own Keyword Research tool. In many respects, it’s more powerful than Google’s. Especially for the Pro version. But even the free version has great details on their research dashboard, including keyword suggestions and SERP analysis.
With this type of work, you can determine the value of any keyword and build strategies around them.
Cherry Blossoms
all the beauty of springtime
encapsulated
I try to walk every day. During those walks, I seek out signs of the seasons, of change, of life’s patterns. Lately, I’ve searched for signs of spring. Crocuses, daffodils, lilies, and now cherry blossoms.