education & tech

This is the second part of a Spanish post we published here. The authorship correspond to John Metzler, head of Fresh Promo; which we reproduced, because TonNet considers many bloggers are still in the first steps to build up credibility and authority with their blogs.

The post in reference can be traslated in the same other Spanish page and it was referred to: How to create Search Engine-Friendly Content and Choosing Your Keywords Wisely.

Get Others to Link to Your Blog

In theory there are countless ways, some traditional and some quite innovative, to get other web sites to link to yours. In practice, it can be easier said than done. Google defines a link as it pertains to rankings and SEO as a "vote" from one site to another. The more quality votes your site receives, the greater chance you have of ranking well. If a well established site links to yours, that link carries more weight than one would from a mom & pop shop or less reputable page.

If your blog has useful content and is doing something unique, you're already ahead of much of the competition. People need a reason to link to your blog, as very few will do it out of the goodness of their heart. Trading links can work, but link exchange networks have decreased in value and won't be of much use in competitive fields. Buying links, if you haven't heard, is a big Google no-no. While entire articles could be written on this topic, here are a few popular methods of acquiring incoming links:

>Issuing special event releases with a link back to your site.
>Submitting to reputable business directories such as Yahoo! and Business.com
>Be active on related blogs by commenting and exchanging ideas.
>If you have friends with blog sites, ask if they would mind adding your link in a "visible" section
>Participate in relevant forums and discussion boards with a link in your signature.
>Write and submit original articles to web publications in your field with a link in your bio (Guest posting).
>Get involved and active in social media and bookmarking.

Don't Fall Behind to the Social Media Revolution

The collaboration between Internet users and the development of online communities is at an all-time high. Social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Furl, Reddit, and Technorati offer users a way to store their favorite pages and media online, and share it with others. These services also provide a way to promote your own blog or create a buzz over a event or service. Creating a Myspace page or Squidoo "lens" is also a way to network and share information.

The key to using social media and bookmarking sites to your advantage is to not be shy. Network with other users, bookmark and share useful content, create eye-catching titles for your entries, and tell your friends and co-workers to vote on content you have on these sites.

These points are a general guideline to follow for SEO. If you want to perform a profesional search engine optimization, experts are a good outsourcing option in competitive blogosphere, while the DIY attitude can yield great results for blog owners with small income budgets. So, if you're in the latter group, hopefully this post will help you to get started.

Tags: SEO, blogging, 101

This is our gratitude for the person who's made this blog not only look nice but very professional (not money down). eBlogTemplates is holding a contest from now until March 16th, 2008. As the post says, all bloggers are in call just make sure your Wordpress selection are under Open Source and it is a in a blog-style format.

After finding what you think is the winning template, paste the template name and url where it can be demoed and downloaded from in the comments box below. Make sure there’s not already the same template suggested otherwise the person who first submitted it will only be considered. If you’ve designed your own template feel free to suggest it as well. Just make sure it’s really cool and high quality otherwise it might be removed from the list

So, join in David W Cowhill and help him help others to get a nice Wordpress theme converted into Blogger code. We have plenty of time to participate and choose among those thousands of nice looking Wordpress designs.

Technorati: wordpress, themes, blogger, blogspot, blogger+templates

It may sound hilarious but it's truth. We are open for feed exchange, just leave a note or email us your interest. I've found quite interesting what Kumowai has posted today and I think you might be interested in some exchange, as far as your content is good, related, and traffic are alike ours. Why not give it a try.

If you re-post it, please mention the name of the blog where you've found it. Let's make it viral. Yes, I know, nothing to be with education and technology but what about if we don't have readers? We don't collect money, our only single satisfactions id to be read or to be seen. Don't you?

Here, the transcription of Toast & Egg & Me:

Would you like to exchange feed?
Exchange feed please.
Do you want to exchange feed?
Come and exchange feed.
You subscribe my feed, I subscribe your feed.
Please exchange feed with me.
I hope to exchange feed with you.
Can you please subscribe to my feed?
Feel free to subscribe to my feed.
Subscribe to my feed if you like the post.
Let us exchange feed.

Small bloggers can also have a descent readership!! Don't just pile feeds as you can see in the right corner of this post. Share it, spread it, enjoy it.

After tracing back the visit of Louis Gray, I encountered he was introducing a new feeds aggregator. It's the ReadBurner created by Alexander Marktl in his free time as himself pointed out in the About page of ReadBurner.

ReadBurner Revamps writes Luois after he acknowledges his page hitting the 92 score on TechMeme LeaderBoard. What still don't understand though is, how come his page is only PR4 with all the important content he publish and all updates he offers.

Let's go back to ReadBurner. If you visit the page you're going to meet very visible bloggers over there, counting that the Google Reader aggregator is only two weeks old! Now, Marktl tell us how it works:

...Works by constantly updating RSS feeds of currently several hundred linkblogs. In order to filter out the best stuff ReadBurner counts, whenever an item is shared by multiple persons.

It's time to subscribe to GoogleReader, make share some of your links and go and burn your link blog in this very useful new aggregator.

Does anybody in Google realize that? Well, let's see what they come up with.

And we should add, Google is not the Internet or a browser (although many still use it as such), nor the only search engine, etc., etc..

I've reading a post related to RSS optimization written by Joost de Valk and himself already has created a scrapper for WP blogs. I don't know yet about this plug in for Blogspot hosted blogs but I obviously think will be great to have it.

Patrick Altoft, explains what are the problems with scrappers and why we should have one in our blogs in order to make sure search engines know the source of the post and guide your readers to find an extra place to click to visit your site.

...Having internal links within the post as well as maybe a link to your homepage in your feed footer isn’t going to be the best solution. What you really need is a link to your blog post from within the feed content. Obviously your feed will already have a link to your post anyway but most scrapers tend to remove those links and just keep the title and the content.

Is anyone from Blogger Draft reading our blog?

I am really inspired by what geeks did this weekend in the San Francisco Foodbank and brought my attention specially what Scoble ended up writing in the bottom of his post:"it’s the kind of testimony that reminds us that some people don’t just have jobs, they have callings."

Based on this concept and being a reader of Joost's SEO Blog. I want to support his job in The Best Search Blogs of 2007. I am not a Wordpress user yet but I really enjoy reading the advice Joost had offered in his blog during these two last years. He's a young and talented Dutch SEO and a Webdeveloper. He wrote a Meta Meta Worpress plugin during this year and now he's being nominated as The Best SEO plugin for WordPress.

So, if you still have questions about the SEO concepts and want to keep Joost de Valk working for his field and our interest, please head up to Search Engine Journal and follow the instruction to vote for our dear blogger.

Go straight to the votes page and look out for the category No. 4 (Best SEO Plugin for Wordpress : Run a Wordpress Blog? Which of these plugins do you feel is the most important for SEO purposes?) and pinch the number 5 in front the top first nominee: Vote Now!

Hope great results and the best for our fellow Dutch blogger: Joost de Valk

Cheers in the 2008! Welcome Gen Y.

A report from Nielsen Online shows the following results for social networking sites and blogs among which Facebook, LinkedIn and Club Penguin are with the most significant growing. Between 2006 and 2007, Facebook jumped from 8,682 to 19,519 users; LinkedIn went from 1,705 to 4,919 both with an average of 157% of increase.

Why Am I pointing this out? Because the number of online users who are looking to engage in social networks are on the move. Despite the numbers of blogger that are using Blogger as hosting for their free blogs, the company with the best results has been Wordpress.com, they were from 2,10 to 411,440 which represents the 444% of incorparated new users.

In this frame Ecuador after a few hours will start testing the output of its new Citizen Journalism oriented newspaper: Ultimas Noticias. This new project, according to Christian Espinosa, one of the most read online jornalists, is owned by the El Comercio Group. Let's keep track of this launching by 9:00 PM (Eastern Time), follow the links trend using the Microsoft Link Command, +linkdomain:http://www.ultimasnoticias.ec/.

Even tough, citizen journalism is not a new concept, it is for Ecuador. A good example is being set by Global Voices Online. They're at the same time looking for a correspondent in this country. Cobertura Digital brings the note, as well.

Have you all a great weekend and I hope you read this post with the great Firefox, latest version.

Looking forward to know what it will be the trend results for the next year!

We don't see so far any changes in our PR4 but blogs and media are saying theirs had changed today because an updated in the way Google is valuating PR now. All those sites promoting paid links are being punished. Fairly or not, SEOmoz has a great thread we all should be following.

Until now, afternoon, there is nothing to conform in Google's blog.

haven't time to write much these days but while browsing my Google Reader Subscription I've came across something you all bloggers might be interested, the problem of duplicate content when in search the results come from your feeds. Joost de Valk has being following the trend in Europe and gives some recommendations of how to avoid this problem with your blog articles:

...In my opinion they do lead to duplicate content problems too, so there’s really only one thing you can do, and that’s block ‘em. But I’d like to block those feeds without loosing the nice side effect of their links going into my posts

Now, the duplicate content can be also caused by spam and specially if you're not paying hosting as is the case with Blog spot blogs. In order to understand better the situation I would like to suggest check out the PhD Thesis from Pram Kolari who has plenty of information about this matter.

This post stroked me hard. The problem is that everyone agrees Technorati is on the chopping block but people that were on Technorati’s Top list are not precisely on the Techmeme Leaderboard and now word of mouth is saying that Techmeme threatens Technorati. What do you think? My own experience, I don't like the positioning of my blog from Technorati!

Maybe you didn't come for this library stuff. However, being and educated person as I am thinking you are you cannot walk away without reading what's going on with this new tip, the wikipedia's growing pain.

Finally, this is out of context definitively. This is a blog anyway. Shame on AT&T, I am a subscriber but not for Internet service. What the hell is wrong with these guys. Do they forgot they're making businesses in America? Free speech, duh!

When I say 'even myself' that's what I really mean it. Easy explanation of what you should be doing in order to rank high for the crawling search robots. Talk of Search Engines Optimization is not easy at least you're an experienced web developer as our dear Techzilo for example, but the article I am about to quote is easy to understand and I am paying attention what's Joe Hayes is saying:

"...any search engines goal is to return the most relevant results for the user’s query. Your site must be more relevant for that particular search than any of your competition. Once your site is crawlable or otherwise search engine friendly, it pretty much comes down to backlinks. All things being equal, the site with the most (relevant, powerful, and in quantity) backlinks will win. Things like the age of the backlinks, sudden surges in recent backlinks, relevancy (have I mentioned relevancy?), and strength of the backlinks among the things that play a part in how your website ranks today. Once you get top 10 exposure, writing the best content should get you to the top eventually.

Can you please add any other factor I should be considering to rank high?

We've never really looked for any form of recognition over this blog other than share and publish interesting stuff to a mixed and varied edtech and want to be edtech audience. Over the course of this weekend I had the chance to publish the logo Rose DesRochers awarded this blog, I actually wanted to say thank you to the readers who have helped get the blog to this point!

Personally I'm quite surprised that she even noticed us. I guess the reach of Education & Tech is starting to make it's mark across the globe rather than just on the US side of things. It's always lovely to read the comments from our readers and even lovelier to be thanked for it. I, me and myself are honoured that someone thinks we are worth being noticed. Kinda luv your Blog Award !

Technorati picked up a new site linking to our one. It happened to be Knit 1 Blog Too. It appears that they have been on the search for new up and coming blogs and they like our Blogger Betta Resources one!

Kudos for Jaloe who also picked our Blogger Templates and believed it's worth it to have it in his top left header.

Thanks to all!

I am not making money out of this blog (I would like to) but certainly we all need to have someone sneaking around even to tell you something like your blog sucks! For quite a long time I've noticing our rank in Technorati had come down from 300 position to 221 right now. Our Alexa and Google PR couldn't be improved more than 4 and this page has a long time since we started to blog and write about anything and everything. As far as I m concerned, the popularity is something that makes no money for me but how do I get all information and why every blogger even the new kid from the corner should be watching the thread such as DesRochers points out.

I haven't being writing much lately and I've fall behind in our posts to Global Voices Online. It has a reason, my feeds keep piling up and important commentaries are left behind, we are in the process of switch job and you all know the time it requires and the negotiations you need to deal with. Fortunately, we all blogger have a newspaper only for fellows, TheIssue.Com where you can spare some time and grow your socialnetwork.

Don't go away. If you are interested in monitoring your audience please visit and take a good look of what Andy Beal is saying about the free tools for buzz monitoring.

Sometimes I feel tented to publish whatever I want. Excuse these posts that have nothing to do with Education or Technology. I remember a friend of mine telling me, hey, I was reading your blog and I couldn't find what is the field you write about. I went like, what? Don't you see what I do every day? But after a while I do consider sometimes I just publish about everything, mea culpa. Still recall the old days in College when you had to write about a particular topic just because you needed a grade!

When Technorati is down we need to find other procedures to keep track of who's linking to us and I am pretty sure you already know many systems, but if this post [Rose DesRochers] is missing something or there are some other system you are using please drop us a line in the comment section.

There is always a good way to attract readers to our blogs, doing nothing illegal against googlebot or any other robot tracker.

Now that we all educators can benefit from Creative Commons for opening not only mistakes as those in Britannica but learn about our conductual changes when we publish or write a blog in terms of Socratic Methods, be good teaching science, how to strive while facilitating the math core, looking for a better educational research, developing a sine qua non skillful teaching or simply find new and better educational blogs not only for reading but most importantly feeding our teachers! We all know then, Education really matters, indeed.

This roundup wouldn't be written if we were not clear that linking and attracting readers is a priority when you blog. As we move up to the evolutive internet triangle we come to conclude that relationship isn't everything when we blog. But it is not about content only. It goes beyond that. Its about attracting readers and more importantly -- keeping those readers as our fellow BlogBloke declares. So, who cares about PR if you don't have enough readers, people who are interested in what you have to say, internauts who happened to cross by your blog and suddenly stop by to read something that caught their eyes (eye candy content should we say?)and then bookmark your page, subscribe to your blog and when you don't even realize they come back to see what news you have written!

Hope you are getting as much visitors (readers) as we have, if not please follow the expert advise and keep working hard not only to play Google PR but publish important information and overall keep and attract readership.

I know many of you will be thinking why this blog goes into this game. Well, please allow me to say that something everyone loves is to be in head of everything that is good and even when I do accept that this is a bad idea, getting links is fine, just don’t plot to get them. Try to link naturally, not forced. Why is everyone always convinced that gaming the system is the key to success? I don't want to answer but maybe Google will do it for me. (Follow the Q & A section)

Here, two ways to built your very own back links game:

Here are the rules for FIRST TRY:

1. Copy this post from the point where it says “Start Copy Here” to the point where it says “End Copy Here”
2. Add yourself and 5 of your favorite bloggers to the end of the list.
3. Post this on your blog.

The Prize Blog | Enkay Blog | Ms. Danielle | Cash For Comments | BetShopBoy | JohnCow | Mr. Gary Lee | Jon Lee | Dosh Dosh | Some Make Money | The King Kong Blog | RomanDock | Michael Kwan | Ed Lau | Jane May | Sam Breadstone | Samanathon | Egg Donation | Free Blog Reviews | Rugjeff | 5 Star Affiliate Blog | Garry Conn | Nusuni | Adsense Goal | TonNet | Your Name Here.

Probably you're not happy with this first approach, then try this second one:

SAY NO TO PAGERANK, YES TO LIFE WEBMASTERS LIST***

All you have to do is copy the info below, and put it into your site/blog. Then email me at : contact@deanhunt.com and I will update the list with your website/blog link.

As this spreads your site will be mentioned on hundreds, perhaps even thousands of sites.

Step 1: Highlight the links below, right click, then click “View selection source”
Step 2: Paste the “Say No To Pagerank” list into your blog or site
Step 3: email me at: contact@deanhunt.com
Step 4: Get a mention and link here at DeanHunt.com and every other site that plays the game
Step 5: Update your list daily to reflect the new websites and blogs that join in

Buzz Marketing Blog
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Gadget, Computer, and Electronic Blog
General Health Topics
MommyZabs.com
Life on the road
Paul Bradish
Skimbaco - The Lifestyle
4 fab moms
UC Web Host

I've always believed that a product gets better sold if it is very well known or advertised. But this is the market and real products. What happened when you have to sell content, knowledge, information?

The market, by 2011 will grow to a whopping $4.3B, Steve Rubel quotes but, it will be very hard competition to grab a penny of that market. There is when the socialnetwork comes just in hand. If I have a circle of friends who happen to visit this blog at least one hundred times a day, that means something for a advertiser or any maketing expert. I do belong to many social networks and the intention is precisely grow the circle of people who can at least see our blog, read our content and eventually buy something from this blog.

Is socialnetworking a waste of time? Please, think twice and let us know we all are not wrong about the buzz.

As you all know, Feedburner now is owned by Google. This made happy all Blogspot/Blogger users. Why? very simple:If you want detailed stats on who is reading your Blogger blog, it’s now easy to do. The integration also works with blogger blogs not hosted on the Blogspot domain. (Sumesh, still waiting for the script!)

Now that everyone is trying to make money throughout Social Networks, such integration came just handy.

Feedburner’s instructions: "log into your Blogger account, select Settings | Site Feed, enter your FeedBurner feed address and click 'Save Settings'."

I haven't enough time to post these days and this blog hasn't being updated I it should. However, today while I was tracking our inbound links I've found two interesting topics that I would like to share with you. RugJeff has named this blog a great one! I am not sure what a great one is this but surely we are pleased to be selected at that level, specially when it comes from fellow bloggers who know how hard is to keep a blog with fresh content. Thanks RugJeff!

Another big surprise is the link that Repta gave us in his Internet y Noticias [ES]. Sometimes it pays to be bilingual and be able to follow what other fellow bloggers have to say in a different language than English. See a good example here.