Usually it is hard to get a link from an authority site. But the growing popularity of blogs has opened a new door for us to acquire such links with just a little effort. Did I forget to mention that these links can be absolutely free?

Many schools and government agencies are trying to incorporate blogs and discussion boards into their websites. These blogs quite often are the same WordPress and other popular blogging platforms that we see on regular sites – the blogs with comments and mild or even no moderation. If only one can allocate such blogs with posts that are somewhat related to one’s website subject, the rest becomes as simple as leaving a decent comment that will be approved by administrators.

So, how do we go about finding authority websites that allow commenting? Let’s turn to Google for answers. You need to know how to create somewhat advanced searches with the help of search directives or operators that we, bloggers and SEO peeps, should definitely know about.

site: – if you precede your search with this operator followed by a domain name or partial domain name, your results will contain all the pages from the given domain name

inurl: – including this operator followed by a word or phrase included in quotes, will give you indexed URLs that contain such a word or phrase

” “ (quotes) – including a search phrase in quotes will give you an exact match for the phrase

AND, OR – if you have a few phrases that you want to search for simultaneously, you may use these operators accordingly

- (exclude) – using dash (or the minus sign) followed with a search term will allow you to exclude pages that contain this term

So, what do we do with these operators? We know that WordPress themes quite often use same wording for particular elements. Just to name a few of the often repeated phrases: “post a comment”, “leave a comment”, etc. If you were to look for a website that is in .gov domain sector and has a WordPress installed within its domain, you could try searching Google for something like this:

site:.gov inurl:blog “post a comment” OR “leave a comment”

[Interpretation: find a page located on a website from the .gov sector that contain the word "blog" in the url and one of the following phrases "post a comment" or "leave a comment" within the page content]

You may also want to search for .edu, .org, .com websites by replacing .gov accordingly. If you want to search for the posts that are related to the subject of your site or a single page, add your keyword or “keyphrase” to your search string.

Some of the keywords/phrases that will help you to locate what you are looking for:

“powered by wordpress”, “leave reply”, -”comments closed”, -”you must be logged in”

Also try:
“powered by expressionengine”
“powered by blogengine”

Good Luck!

You can reinstate images with code:

With the usage of CSS3, the common web designing tools such as round corners, gradients, transparency and shadows that will be given by the respective browser. This will help you reduce the huge number of surplus files that requires being loaded to make the maintenance of the site better and simpler by stuffing more information into a single place. The fewer the number of files, the site speed will remain faster, improve the experience of the user and also boost the search engine ranking. Fewer images will ensure more content in HTML and this feature will make it more search engine optimized.

Use dynamic styles in your website:

Dynamic styles may be added to your website by implementing CSS3 and this will allow animation effects and also help you create an alternative to Flash and JavaScript. Website designing experts have recently mentioned that using Flash will not always be the most SEO-friendly technique. You’ll be able to do more with CSS and can easily minimize the conflict between SEO and designing. CSS3 can help you add transitions to your website and allow some added changes that occur on your website page. This will enable the web page to flow less abruptly and gradually.

Reduce codes and make designs more code-efficient:

If you’re currently making some designs using the complex methods in CSS2, you can use CSS3 to create the same designs with fewer number of lines and making it more code-efficient. The files can be made smaller to facilitate the speed of the site and also reduce the code-to-content ratio. Search engines will find it easier to crawl if your website has all these features. You can even add multiple images to the same element by using CSS3.

Therefore, don’t sweat the small stuff and get yourself worried about website designing solutions. Use CSS3, the most stylized version of Cascading Stylized Sheets to enhance the search engine optimization techniques of your website and boost your page rank among the most famous search engine results.

Content Contributor: Erica Smith of onediy.com

Spread the word among your colleagues and friends, who might be interested in learning more about SEO or those, who may take the side of consultants and help other guys to solve their SEO problems. If you become a fan of our SEO Questions and Answers group, you will be getting regular updates on the latest SEO and internet marketing strategies right on your FB wall. So, if you don’t have any questions now you may still benefit from staying updated on topics that may help you get atop of your competition.

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What-s and Why-s of Image Search

First of all, one should understand that indexed images will not only be viewed by people, who use Image Search directly, but also throughout Google properties. Images get mixed in within results of Universal search, as well as on Maps. So, if you post images of Chicago, its attractions and important destinations, a searcher may find your images by running a relevant query anywhere in Google.

The other thing we should understand that Google Image Search is not for people who try to reap off your work. A lot of people use IS when they are shopping or researching for school. Some also use it for inspiration or even to kill time. And yet some even use it to study foreign languages by looking up visual “explanations” rather than digging through boring dictionary definitions. In other words, if your blog/site provides rich visual content, especially if it is subject or market specific and will set you aside from other similar sites, make sure it gets indexed by Google Image Search. And with Image Search you do not have to fight for the domination on the first result page, since those who use this service will go deep into results to find what they want.

Getting Indexed by Google Image Search

As with most of Google’s tools, Image Search is all about satisfying its users. Therefore you should always keep your focus on … Whom? … That is absolutely right – Users! Make sure you use high quality images. This will make viewers pick your image among many others. Place them within related contents and provide descriptive titles. Keep your images above the fold and avoid duplicates.

Watch this video to get a better understanding of nofollow links and the way they are treated by Google. Why some (not most) websites choose to implement nofollow links. Concerns of online publishers and possible workarounds for the issue.