Optimizing your Blog for Google Search

In addition to participating in the AdSense network, you may also be
interested in having your site ranked in organic Google search. In this post,
I'll highlight some important points for search optimization. While there's no a
magic formula to make your site show up first on a search results page, there
are some good practices when it comes to links, design, content, and the
structure of your site.

First of all, as a reminder, Google organic search and AdSense are independent
of each other. Displaying AdSense ads on a site won't change the ranking of the
site in Google search in any way. So it follows that sites containing AdSense
ads don't receive special treatment in Google search.

Ranking in Google search is based on many different algorithms, and optimization
for search is a long, continuous process. For these reasons, and because the
techniques might

violate our guidelines, we recommend avoiding any techniques that claim to
optimize your ranking very quickly or radically. If you have concerns or
questions, you can consult other webmasters on a number of forums, including
Google's official
forum for webmaster-related issues.

We encourage you to monitor the quality of your site's backlinks -- links from
any site directing to your site. To increase your site's popularity, check if
other sites that discuss similar topics or have a similar reader base are aware
your site exists.

Outgoing links are also important and should comply with our

guidelines. When you create a link to another site, we recommend first
asking yourself: "Is this link going to be useful for my visitors?" or
"Is this link likely to be clicked by my visitors?". Don't participate in
link schemes or buy/sell links that pass PageRank, as it is against our
guidelines and may hurt your site's performance in our search results.

Here are some tips for structuring your site:

• Your pages should have a clear hierarchy and relevant internal links. We
  also recommend
  
  creating a Sitemap and using
  Google's
  Webmaster Tools. These tools are useful, user-friendly and will provide
  information such as where your backlinks come from or which queries visitors
  used to reach your site.


• tags that are explicit and useful for the user. For example, avoid a
  title like "Homepage" or "Welcome to my site".Use


• For images, use ALT attributes to describe appropriately what the image
  is about. We've recently created a quick and useful
  YouTube video on
  this topic.
  

Also, adding original and compelling content on a regular basis may help Google
crawl your pages regularly. It can have the added benefit of attracting links to
your pages too. Finally, design your site with your users in mind, and be
patient and consistent in your efforts. To attract quality backlinks and develop
your optimization strategy, it's important to keep a clear structure for your
pages and regularly add organic content. The above
content has been written by "Ambroise Fensterbank - Search Quality Evaluator" at
Google Adsense Official Blog
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Google Analytics - Your Blog Analyzed

While your current website host probably already provides some basic information, here are just a few of the reports that Google Analytics has to offer:

• New Visitors vs Returning Visitors


• Absolute Unique Visitors


• Average Pageviews per Visitor


• Average Time spent on Site


• Traffic Sources (Referring Sites)


• Visitors Geographic Location


• Keywords used to find Your Site


• Most Popular Pages


• Top Exit Pages


• Track Your AdWords Campaigns

First you will need a Gmail account if you don't already have one. Then you will
need create a Google Analytics Account. Installing Google Analytics does not
require knowledge of HTML, but there is a piece of HTML that must be copied onto
every page you wish to track.

• In the lower left hand side of the screen, Click on: Add Website Profile


• In the box, enter your URL. (For example: www.yourwebsite.com or
  yourblog.blogspt.com.)


• Set your Country and Time zone, and hit Continue.


• Your Tracking code will then be displayed in a large box:


• Highlight the code and Copy.

If you have a web designer maintaining your site, you can copy the tracking code
into an email and have them copy the code into a header or footer include file.
This will make sure the code is automatically loaded onto each page.

For Blogs:

If you are using Blogger, copy and paste the HTML 'snippet' of Code just before
the body tag at the end of your template. The code only has to be copied once to
track all of your posts.

• Sign into Blogger


• Click on the Layout Tab


• Click on Edit HTML

It's always a good idea to back up your template before you make any changes.

• Click on Download Full Template to back up onto your computer.


• Scroll down to the bottom and paste the tracking code just before the
  body tag.


• Click on Save Template at the bottom of the screen.

Back in Google Analytics you will see: Tracking code not detected under the
status column.

Click on Check status or Verify Tracking Code under the Status column. (Don't
worry about Conversion Goals (0) right now.) Once your tracking code has been
verified, the status will change to: Receiving Data.

It will take about 24 hours before you start seeing any data.

Check back the next day and familiarize yourself will all the reports. The
longer you have have Google Analytics installed, the more interesting and
valuable the data will be.


The above information was taken in from

Ezine Articles.


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