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Simple SEO: WordPress

Properly configured, WordPress can be an extremely effective way of designing, maintaining and managing your site. Not only that, but sites using WordPress tend to rank well organically within the top search engines, once properly configured. However, neglecting some critical configurations can cause pages and posts that make up your site to not even be indexed by the major search engines.
Because WordPress is open-source, thousands of developers are constantly releasing updates and plugins to enhance the functionality of the platform — many of which are free. And some of these plugins are essential to properly optimize sites for top organic results in the most popular search engines. My two personal favorites are Headspace2 and Google XML Sitemaps.
To prevent pages of your blog from appearing to be duplicates of other pages, it’s essential that each page and post have a unique meta title and meta description. Otherwise, only one page or post with the same meta title and meta description will make the cut. Headspace2 adds a widget inside the WordPress edit page/post screen where you can easily fill-out a unique meta title and meta description on a per-page or per-post basis.
The most recent release of Headspace2 has even more essential SEO features, such as the ability to no-index pages that you don’t want to be included in search results — a contact form or privacy policy, for example. More information about the Headspace2 plugin can be found at the WordPress.org plugin directory or at UrbanGiraffe.com.
Google XML Sitemaps will generate an XML-compliant sitemap of your site each time you add a new page and/or post. It also pings Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.com whenever your sitemap has been updated so they can index the latest version. Although this hasn’t been proven to affect organic rankings, it can certainly speed up the time it takes for search engines to index your new information. More information about the Google XML SiteMaps plugin can be found at ArneBrachhold.de.
Of course, neither of these two plugins alone will cause your content to soar to the top of Google. There are literally hundreds of other on-page and off-page factors that go into determining how your pages rank. However, these plugins will help, and they are very easy to install.
WordPress.org or Your Own Domain?
People often wonder whether it’s better to host a WordPress site on WordPress.org or install and host WordPress on their own domain. Aside from the benefit of not having any out-of-pocket expenses to start, there’s really no other reason to use WordPress.org. If this blog is going to become a source of income, not having full control over the future of it is a big mistake.
For example, suppose the people responsible for running WordPress.org decide to terminate your account for some type of inadvertent violation? Or if the taxonomy of your URLs changes because of a major restructuring that the developers decide to take? Countless hours of your time would be wasted as all of the other external SEO factors such as article backlinks, press releases, social bookmarking, and comment links would no longer point to valid URLs.
Hosting WordPress on your own domain gives you much more control and isn’t that expensive. You can easily register a domain with any one of several registrars for under $10 (search online for coupon codes) and many of these registrars will offer low hosting fees as well. Some will even offer free add-ons and most will have a control panel that includes an easy way to install WordPress.

News
Possible photo tagging plugin update
Have you tried to download any of the community tagging plugins with no prevail?
I recently posted a comment in response to a post on Justin Tadlock’s WordPress site about custom taxonomies. Then was asked by a reader how I integrated my custom taxonomies with one of Matt Mullenwegs “tagging” plugin.
Anyway, I tried to install and use both plugins before with no luck. But decided to download Community Tags and try my luck again. With some hacking, I got it working. For a demo you can check out and tag (someone you know or recognize only, please) a picture over at my photography site, http://thefrosty.com.
Anyway, before I get carried away, I had a reader email me and ask how I integrated the plugin. And I thought I would ask you if you would be interedted in a re-re-release of the plugin.
At present time I do have some array
errors, but everything works just fine as is.
Your comment feedback would be great! Thanks!

When creating content that is going to be valuable in attracting a defined audience it is important to remember four key areas, all of which WPcult can assist you with. Your content should try and combine all of the following:
- Educate
Educational content conveys knowledge to the user. Insightful videos that answer a question can leave a lasting impression. This includes videos such as ‘how to’ tutorials across a spectrum of areas: how to tie a tie, how to start a business, how to draw, or even how to be a ninja. Educational content satisfies the consumer’s thirst for knowledge or answers a defined question. This will be content worth viewing and sharing with selective audiences.
WPcult can research what people are searching for around your brand and what consumers want to find out. This in turn will drive traffic to your content.
- Inform
Whereas educational content answers people’s questions, informational content can keep people up-to-date with news and events, as opposed to responding to questions they may have. Social media is now the go-to platform for the collection and distribution of this content, as opposed to old media channels. The challenge with this form of content is its time-limited nature with content becoming irrelevant when lacking context.
- Entertain
Telling stories is as old as the human condition itself. Evoking emotion through entertainment is a great trap for viewers. Video is the ideal tool for evoking empathy or extreme emotion, whether this is through humor or sadness. As one statistic claims that video is worth 1.8 million words, this is the optimum medium to showcase the marketing power of entertainment. Humour also works with text-based advertising and memes, but the humor in video-form is likely to achieve more views and shares than anything else.
- Inspire
One often overlooked goal in content strategy is to provide inspiration to viewers and consumers. Inspiring content can be anything that encourages people to try something new, challenge themselves, or push their limits. Showing the achievements of others, those who have overcome adversity or other challenges will often inspire people to do something featured in the video or to buy a product to help them do that. This can be particularly beneficial in charity campaigns.
Top 28 social marketing resources
Not on this list but we will go over at a later date are
Findable, Readable, Understandable, Actionable, Brandable, and last but not least Shareable. Also Essential are Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Decision, and how you get there Research, Planning, and Ideas, Execution/Creation, Optimization, Distribution and Analysis of the data, Retweak until you have the best results.
News
Think outside the box
Start to think outside the box. UnBox is a new WordPress theme for the willing. Using jQuery in fluidity.
Officially released today, this theme is a custom WordPress theme for those who want something different.
Built with loads a jQuery tricks and features. This theme is available for purchase. And dhould be up on ThemeForest as soon as they process the files.
For now, you can check out the working demo, and if you like the theme, use this link to [wp_eStore_buy_now:product_id:2:end].
[wp_eStore:product_id:2:end].
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