Comments on: Target and Focus Your Local Content

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 03:02:16 +0000

Great Post. With so much competition its better to secure smaller cities and niche words.

By: Scott Ficek

Scott Ficek — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 03:35:25 +0000

Dave-
I took your advice and searched for others using my theme (YourBlog 2.0). I came across a programmer that fixes SEO problems in common themes (for fun I guess!). Check it out: http://courtneytuttle.com/search-engine-optimized-wordpress-themes/

By: Dave Smith

Dave Smith — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:07:39 +0000

The main theme I use now and in the future is greenflower, same author as mistylook.

I found a couple of blogs with PR5 and lots of pages indexed.

Check PR
Run a site command

Search on the theme name for other sites using the same theme.

That’s my process. You can’t go wrong with the author of greenflower. I have had to tweek that theme a lot for the eye candy but it and all of this authors themes seem rock solid under the hood, with a couple of exceptions, on trackbacks and feeds at the bottom of each post which I removed from the code.

By: Scott Ficek

Scott Ficek — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 14:02:47 +0000

Interesting, but here is the million dollar question: “How do I know if the Wordpress Theme that I installed (because it looks nice), has good SEO qualities?”

The theme I installed was called YourBlog2.0. Found it on the Wordpress site. The designer appears to only have ever created this one, but he is in the web design/consulting business.

I also installed “All in One SEO Pack” and try to hit keywords often. It appears to be working, but I want to get all the Google juice I can!

By: Dave Smith

Dave Smith — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 04:33:09 +0000

Scott,

Yes, Themes as in Wordpress themes, the items mentioned in your comment don’t. But those are the things seen on the outside of the car, what isn’t often seen is the underlying code which is significant.

I once found a theme I like, easy to modify and do what I wanted, but after two weeks not a single page or post was indexed. I changed the theme to one I knew was “good under the hood” In less than 5 days the site was showing up in the search engines.

It is very important how the theme in constructed in coded for good SEO and code structure. Just making a site look a certain way is “eye candy”. Making the site solid is the skeletal structure which puts it all together and give you a place to hand the eye candy.

By: Scott Ficek

Scott Ficek — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 03:46:24 +0000

Dave-
Question….You mentioned that many bloggers tear out their Themes often. Are you refering to “themes” in the same definition as WordPress would define it? How do the fonts, colors, and layout of your blog affect and/or kill your SEO and your traffic?

By: John Lockwood

John Lockwood — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 04:20:34 +0000

Why thanks, Dave. Cheers.

By: Dave Smith

Dave Smith — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 21:36:01 +0000

Teresa,

Before you hit that delete button, you should publish it. I think this might just be the softening the beaches post. Your’s might actually do some good and take root.

Let’s hope the message starts getting out there. If it doesn’t change the whole RE blogosphere will . . .

By: Teresa Boardman

Teresa Boardman — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 21:32:29 +0000

Just wrote a post that is not all that different from this one. Going to delete it right now. bye

By: rudy

rudy — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 19:29:14 +0000

we’re on the same page dave!

plumb, level and square…..build the foundation, set up the framework and then decorate the house.

you are so right about the theme. not only is it your visual brand, but there are so many seo aspects that are incorporated within the theme itself. once you switch, you may have to re-build lot’s of little do-dads…..not too much fun.

my advice for a new blogger:

find someone who is knowledgeable about setting up a blog, have them do it, then write till your hearts content. that’s it, write, write, write…..