#but the downside is that now the linking to my main url is more visible and thus more of a source of confusion | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

faterpresources · 3 years ago

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Anonymous:

Do you have any advice on how to start an rp blog? I feel like there's so much to do and so many specific things, it looks intimidating, but I really want to get into it (and your blog seems like a safe space to ask as a baby in the matter)

Hi! Thanks you for asking and for trusting. I do admit that rping on tumblr can look daunting and there is a series of things that are considered “etiquette” that might not be obvious for newcomers. And the only way to learn is to ask, right? As I’m not sure if you would like something more specific or a step-by-step, I’m going to go through the whole process.

note: this is a repost from an ask in a more reblog-friendly format

1. Setting up the blog

You might want to make a new e-mail account for each blog you want. I recommend making a gmail/google account, so you may be able to use other services and associate them with your blog. I’ll go into more details in a minute.

Some people would rather have a personal blog and then making the RP blog as a side-blog. Or a “hub” blog and many side-blogs so they have everything centralized. The downside is that you can’t follow people with side-blogs, only the main – and some rpers are a little suspicious of personal blogs, so if you intend to go this route it might be a good idea to state somewhere in your blog that you have a RP blog.

Tip : It isn’t said too often, but I recommend saving your blog’s e-mail and password somewhere, maybe a flashdrive or even google drive. This way, if something happens you will be able to retrieve your account.

When picking the URL, for a very long time tumblr had problems tagging URLs with a hyphen ( - ). I’m not sure if it has been fixed or if there are still some issues, so I recommend only using letters and maybe numbers. Other than that, pick anything that sounds nice to you!

Themes are nice, but not entirely necessary. Not everybody has photoshop skills and all that. Some people do have commissioned themes, but if you want to try your hand at it my first stop is usually @theme-hunter or @sheathemes . They reblog many themes from many creators, so there are always many options that might suit your needs. Some creators offer very newcomer-friendly themes that you can configure a lot of things without much hassle but some might require basic HTML knowledge – a few creators have guides on how to properly set up their themes and are willing to and answer questions, so don’t be afraid to contact them! You can also send me an ask, I’m not a specialist but I can certainly help walk you through the basics.

Tip: @glenthemes have very good themes and a basic installation guide here.

When fiddling with the options, try to pick colors that have nice contrast and are easy to read. If you are bad at picking colors or have problems in finding the code for them, I recommend trying this link. There is also this one that auto-generate palettes.

Tip : If you mess with your theme, remember there is the Theme Recovery.

Tip: If you use Chrome or Firefox you can set up different profiles and associate each with a different blog, so you don’t need to log out from any of your accounts.

There are two pages that I recommend having: one is an about your muse. If they are an OC, it is always a good idea to have at least some information out there to make things easier. If they are from a canon source, not everybody is familiar with the material so it might be a good idea to state. For example, if you are going to roleplay as Altria/Arturia, it is a good idea to have a “RP blog for Saber (Altria Pendragon) from FGO/FSN “ somewhere visible. The other page that is a good idea having is a rules/guidelines page. This one can be a little intimidating, but it is usually a way to communicate important things. For example: are you comfortable writing violence? Do you have any personal triggers? There is something you absolutely won’t write? There are things you may figure out along the way and it is absolutely ok to fine-tune this session every now and then. Some people also credit source for their icons and graphics in general in their rule/guideline page.

If you are using the tumblr default themes, when you create a new page you can turn on the option to show a link to the page. If you are using a custom theme, most of the time you will have to link it manually.

Oh, and if you are planning to do a multimuse, it might be a good idea to list which muses you have. The same goes for a hub blog; list the muses and link to the pages.

Icons aren’t necessary but are considered commonplace. You can find some icons I’ve done here but there are plenty of other sources. If you want to do your own icons, keep in mind to don’t make them too big, as a courtesy to your mutuals.

Tip: Anything larger than 300 pixels will be stretched to fit the post. As of today ( 4/29/2021 ) the posts are currently 540 pixels wide. This can be useful as making banners for your blog.

Tumblr allow users to “pin” posts. This mean that they will always visible if you access your blog, even on dash/mobile. You can use this to set up a post with basic links for mobile users or something else. For example, if you are out on vacations and won’t be able to do replies, you can pin a hiatus notice and then remove the pin once you are back.

2. Introducing yourself

Time to officially join the fun! (insert a “Hi, Zuko here” joke) Don’t worry if you don’t have a fancy promo graphic or anything, most people make their initial introduction with a simple post.

(as you can see, I’m not very good at saying ‘hi’)

Try to introduce yourself in a few lines, but make sure to state which muse you RP as. Some people also like adding their pen name/alias and establishing a brand. Follow as many people as you want that reblogged or liked your post, and tumblr is going to start recommending other blogs that are related to the tags you use normally or have any relation to the people you follow. You can put as many tags as you want, but tumblr will disregard more than 6 tags in their system. Try tags like “<fandom> rp” and “<fandom> roleplay” along with the media, such as “movie” “video game”, “anime” and so on.

It might also be a good idea to follow a few RP memes blogs. They often have options to break the ice, like one-liners that your mutual can send you.

Tip: Don’t forget to turn on the asks and the anon

3. Practical advice

Alright, now that you have a few mutuals, it is time to get to some general tips:

Tumblr can be a little “iffy”, and a great quality of life extension for RPers and navigation in general is installing the New Xkit extension. They offer a number of options to enhance your tumblr experience, but the ones I consider essential are the “editable reblogs”, “quick tags” and “blacklist”. Get it for Chrome or Firefox.

As a rule of thumb I recommend writing your RPs using Google Docs before posting or replying. By doing this you can do some spell check and if your browser crashes for any reason you can easily recover your work. You can also use Word, Open Office, or any text editor you feel like.

Because I’m a bit of a perfectionist, I also have Grammarly ( Chrome / Firefox ) installed for an extra layer of spell/grammar check. There is a subscription option, but the free one works perfectly fine.

To make things easier to locate, always tag the URL of your RP partner when doing a reply. There are other useful things you can tag, such as open starters, memes, and such.

Risking being obvious here, but when you are not interacting as your character it might be a good idea to tag as “ooc” or “out of character”.

Some people like making google docs with basic info and other useful stuff for easier access on mobile. It is a recent trend, it might be easier to edit as opposed to going through tumblr page editor and dealing with the HTML. You can find some templates here and here.

Tumblr’s activity can be unreliable, so don’t be afraid of contacting your partner to see if they have gotten your reply after a few weeks. However, some people also enjoy using the RP Thread Tracker in order to be on top of things. It might be a good idea to check it out.

Because of Tumblr shadowbanning and shenanigans, it isn’t unusual for people to have NSFW sideblogs (sometimes referred as ‘sin blogs’). If you want to write smut, it might be a good idea to consider making one.

Some people don’t like replying to asks, as Tumblr won’t let you remove the initial ask. It has become common to see people making new posts to reply to asks. This is a simple example:

As you can see, I used the mention to have the RP partner notified then I copied and pasted their question on my post and used the quote to indicate it. You can also have fancy graphics, like a line to separate the contents, just do whatever you feel like with the formatting or keep it simple.

To make sure your partner got the answer, I recommend copying the link to the post and pasting on the ask and then replying it privately. An example sent to my rp blog:

4. Basic Etiquette

Ok, this is a little subjective most of the time but here are a few things that are considered universal courtesy.

Never reblog someone else’s headcanons. If you enjoy it, maybe it should politely contact the author and ask if it is ok to write something based on their original idea but you should never downright copy or lift something from another creator. It is considered rude, or even theft in some cases.

Don’t reblog threads you are not involved with. It is ok to leave a like, but never reblog. This is because Tumblr can mess up the notifications and disrupt the flow of the RP.

Don’t copy other people’s graphics. It is very rude and sometimes they commission (aka: paid) for it.

Trim your posts. What does that mean? Every time you reblog with a reply, the post tends to get longer and longer, and it can cluster your and your mutuals’ dashes. This is why the New X-Kit’s “editable reblogs” is an almost must-have tool. If for some reason you can’t install X-Kit (if you are on mobile for example), then remove the previous post or ask your partner to trim for you.

Never take control of your RP partner’s muse. This is called “godmodding” and it is heavily frowned upon. It is ok to control your muse and the possible NPCs that you inserted, but never seize someone else’s character. Likewise, it can also be very upsetting if you use what people call “meta-gaming”, applying knowledge that your muse shouldn’t know about the other. For example, let’s say your RP partner’s muse is a vampire, but they have never disclosed that information to your muse, who also doesn’t have an excuse to know that (for example, being a vampire hunter) so it can be quite jarring sometimes. When in doubt, contact your partner.

This should go without saying, but RPing sexual themes with users under the age of 18 are illegal. It doesn’t matter if the age of consent in your location is lower, once you join Tumblr you are abiding by their user guidelines and the law of the state they are located in. If you are an adult, don’t engage minors with these topics, maybe a fade to black would be a better option. If you are a minor, don’t insist or you might cause a lot of legal problems for others.

Try to tag anything triggering. Violence, gore, NSFW. Both Tumblr and the New Xkit have options to block keywords.

When picking PSDs or graphics for your blog, you should avoid templates that change the color of the skin of POCs muses and try to pick the right race/ethnicity of the muse you are going to RP as. I won’t go through a lot of details, as it is a rather lengthy subject in an already lengthy conversation but keep this in the back of your mind.

Some RPers don’t like when you reblog memes from them without sending anything. Try to always reblog from a source or to interact with the person you are reblogging from, it can be rather disheartening to be seen as a meme source rather than a RP blog. This isn’t a rule and some people don’t mind, but it is always a good idea to try to do this.

This might be more of a pet peeve of mine than proper etiquette, but it is ok to use small font. What is not ok is use small font + underscript. Some people have disabilities that might make it harder for them to read it, so it might be a good idea to refrain from using it. Maybe if you feel like doing something fancier every now and then, but I wouldn’t recommend making this a habit.

Mun and Muse are different entities. Remember that it isn’t because a muse does something (especially a villain one) that the mun condones something. Never assume anything about the mun, when in doubt talk to them.

Be mindful of your partners and treat them the way you would like to be treated.

As a rule of thumb, always talk to your RP partner. It is only fun as long both of you are enjoying it.

5. Closing Words

This got longer than I expected.

Despite all of that, don’t be too worried about not being very good at first. I assure you that you will get better with time, so don’t be afraid of experimenting as long you feel comfortable. And don’t be afraid of saying “no” if something bothers you.

My inbox is always open to questions and ideas, so feel free to contact me anytime!

I would also ask my followers: there is advice I missed/overlooked? Anything you would like someone have told you when you first started? Add your thoughts so I can update this.

Happy RPing!

#roleplay advice #roleplay help #rph #rp reference #rp resources

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i-jayadevi · 5 years ago

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Building Links To Your Site by the following ways

There has been a lot of debate in the SEO community over the years about constructing connections to the website. The discussion is particularly heated at the time when Google is launching its "Jagger" upgrade.

Let's begin with what we mean by inbound links, which are also called back links. These are links from other sites to your URL that direct the surfer to your site when the link is clicked. The fundamental assumption is that if you have high ranking sites that link to you, then you must be essential to yourself and have precious content, so you should be extremely ranked. The way that Google ranks sites is called Page rank and can be seen as a green line on the Google Toolbar, which is 0 to 10. As Google points out, Page Rank depends on the uniquely democratic nature of the internet by using its vast link structure as an indicator of the value of each page. In principle, Google interprets the connection from page A to page B as a vote on page A for page B. Google, however, looks at more than just the amount of votes, or connections the website receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the ballot. Voting by websites that are themselves "significant" weighs more strongly and helps to create other websites "important." Important, high-quality sites obtain a greater Page Rank, which Google remembers each time it searches. Of course, important pages don't mean anything to you if they don't suit your request. So, Google combines Page Rank with advanced text matching methods to locate websites that are both essential and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the content of the page (and the content of the pages that link to it) to determine if it matches your query.

So, back to the issue "Does the inbound links to your site assist the credibility of your site," and therefore visibility when searched. The wide response to this issue is "yes," but with a number of very significant caveats that we will cover in the other parts.

Okay, so backlinks are basically great, particularly from high ranking locations, so how do we get them? The first and best way is to have such excellent content on your site that all of these high-powered sites want to connect to you. The downside to this technique is that it's slow and requires a lot of time and effort on your part. But don't worry, when someone is trying to construct a level playing field, there are always individuals out there who will provide work-arounds.

The first was reciprocal links, where you say you're going to connect to a site if they connect to you as well. This stretches the original idea, but it's not too bad, because how many of these kinds of connections are you going to set up? Well, in fact, some individuals have made thousands of such connections between locations, maybe not what Google originally designed!

But then, because of Google's emphasis on link popularity, the idea of link farms was born. These are sites that connect to other locations simply to boost connections to the site. Pay a few bucks and get thousands of connections to your website. Too good to be true, you bet. Google hates link farms and considers these connections as spam and actively penalizes websites that use those connections. So, the first link rule is that you do not use a link farm. The second rule is that it does not use a lot of reciprocal links, Google can readily verify this and the "Jagger" update that is presently being rolled out seems to be particularly focused on penalizing sites with a lot of reciprocal links. The jury is still out whether the "themed" links will be treated in the same way. "Themed" links are links to locations that are very tightly linked to the same main theme as your own site. If you think about this, it makes a lot of sense and is much more probable to be based on a true content-based link.

We believe that another area that Google is focusing on is how quickly your site gets backlinks. If your site is one month old, it's hard to believe that you'll get 100 true backlinks in that moment. So, the third rule of linking is to ensure that your links are built in a realistic way. In all of these respects, Google is attempting to guarantee fairness, and that's why fresh sites are often held back on the results pages.

Finally, we should mention the sites that will enhance your ranking-the Directories. There are many of these, but the most important one is the DMOZ, also known as the ODP. DMOZ is the Open Directory Project and is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory on the Web. It is built and maintained by a large, worldwide community of volunteer publishers. The name DMOZ is derived from the acronym for Directory Mozilla, as administered by Netscape Communication Corporation. It's Pagerank is 9 and the DMOZ link will assist your site. We recommend that everyone visit http:/dmoz.org and try to get listed, it's free. The Yahoo directory is also essential and free for non-commercial locations, but $299 per year for company.

So, in short, by far the best way to get connections is to have a quality website that other individuals want to connect to. So again, we're going back to content. If you provide quality information, more and more sites will link to you over time, and if they are in the same business sector as you are, the better.

And now there's a poem written by my partner, reflecting the Jagger update.

Just when you thought it was safe, To step back into the water, Google throws in the underwear, For doing things you didn't have to, Just when the surfboard is shining, And you're ordering champagne, Google has been listening softly, And feels you need more pain, Those link farms you've visited, Weren't Health Farms After all, Reciprocal is now the word For what Big G's doing to you.

Or is it hijacked like Flight 505, By others who would become, Your Link Promoting Partners, Who just asks for your link back, And now you owe the reaper, And your harvest begins to burn, Simmering in the torrid glare, Of Google bent on being cool, Where everyone should fight fair, Everyone obeys the golden rule, And slowly and inexorably we move, Out of the shadows and into the light, With every kind of light,

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mansoormaghfoor · 5 years ago

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Building Links To Your Site by the following ways

And now there's a poem written by my partner, reflecting the Jagger update.

source https://blog.hireavirtualassistant.net/2019/09/building-links-to-your-site-by.html

#hireavirtualassistant.net #virtualassistant #virtualassistance #VA

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jhansikumari · 5 years ago

Text

Building Links To Your Site by the following ways

And now there's a poem written by my partner, reflecting the Jagger update.

source https://blog.hireavirtualassistant.net/2019/09/building-links-to-your-site-by.html

#hireavirtualassistant.net #virtualassistant #virtualassistance #VA

0 notes

krisggordon · 7 years ago

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How to Get Your Website Listed Multiple Times in Google SERPs

Do you have a business, or maybe clients that own local businesses? If yes, then you’re in the right place, because you’re going to find out how you can double or even triple their click-through rates on Google.

People often think that they can only rank once for a keyword. For the most part that’s true, because Google has gradually restricted the number of times you can show up with the same domain on the same search query. However, things are a little bit different when it comes to some businesses.

About Multiple Listings on Google

Advertise with Google Adwords

Set Up Your Account

Choose or Create Your Landing Page

Create a Campaign

Set Up Your Budgets, Target Audience and Keywords

Write Your Ad

Google My Business (Google Maps)

Set Up Your Account

Fill in All the Details Correctly

Get Some Fancy Pictures

Get Some Reviews

SEO & Organic Search Results

Fix Technical Issues

Keywords and Content (OnPage SEO)

Promotion (OffPage SEO)

Which Method Should You Focus on First?

Before we get into the specifics, let’s see why it’s hard to get multiple listings on Google in general and why local businesses have an advantage.

About Multiple Listings on Google

Multiple listings have been a concern for Google for a pretty long time. Plenty of changes have been made over time, but things have finally started to settle.

Although you can see multiple listings from the same domain on organic results, that happens rather rarely. Google’s algorithms are set up to increase the difficulty of ranking again, proportionally to the number of times a domain is already ranking.

Matt Cutts explains the phenomenon pretty well in the following video.

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This video is yet another reason why blackhat SEOs make everyone else’s life harder. Google had to constantly change to adapt to people trying to manipulate the system.

If you try to rank multiple pages on the same keywords, some of your pages might end up in Google’s omitted results. Even worse, if you have a lot of pages competing for the same keyword, you might get into keyword cannibalization.

When Google has too many options to choose from, it gets annoyed. You risk getting a small penalty for that, which will result in lower overall rankings for that keyword.

Now you can always try to create multiple listings and manipulate the organic searches by buying more domains and pretending you’re not the same person, but it’s a risky move. If Google flags your network as a Private Blog Network, it will compromise all your websites. Since the laws of certain countries require visible business info on websites, a link between your sites can’t be easily avoided.

However, things are very different for local SEO. Why? Because there are multiple listings. First, we have Google Adwords, then we have the local business listings from Google Maps and lastly, we have the organic results. If you can get to the top of all three, you’re in for a guaranteed triple CTR to your business.

Solution #1. Advertise with Google Adwords

We’re going to cover this first, because it’s the highest listing you can get (above MyBusiness Listings and Organic search results). However, that’s not always true, considering ads can sometimes be displayed on the right sidebar, at the bottom of pages and even on second or third pages, depending on quality.

Although you can use Adwords to get multiple listings on any keywords, it’s known that Google will sometimes decide not to show any ads, if no relevant ads are found. For local businesses, on the other hand, chances of ads showing are pretty high.

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The advantage of using Google Adwords is that you’ll get results as soon as you set up your first campaign. The downside, obviously, is that you have to pay.

Depending on the competitivity of your niche and also your skills on managing paid advertising campaigns, the costs can vary.

Furthermore, you can also take into account that the CTR for Adwords is only 2% of the total number of clicks on Google. The rest goes to organic searches. However, for local businesses people might be clicking more on maps and MyBusiness listings than on organic results.

1. Set Up Your Account

This is fairly simple and straight-forward. You need to go to Adwords’ Homepage and set up an account. If you don’t have a Google account, you’ll have to create one.

If you already have a Google/Gmail account, the setup will be a lot easier. Just log into your account on Chrome or any other browser, go to https://adwords.google.com and click on Start Now.

The steps are pretty easy to follow. I’m sure you’ll be able to get past the account setup. What’s really cool about Adwords compared to SEO is that you get live phone support from Google itself. I recommend that you use it to your advantage, especially if it’s for setting up your first campaign.

2. Choose or Create Your Landing Page

Your landing page is very important for the success of your campaign.

First of all, you need to have a landing page that satisfies Google. It makes a lot of sense that Google also analyses the quality of the landing page you’re going to show for your ad, because otherwise, the highest bidder would always win, leaving no room for fair play or quality.

Google doesn’t only look at the money. If it was so, nobody would use Google by now. I mean, look at Yahoo! Don’t you just hate it when the entire background is an ad? I know I do!

Secondly, you need to A/B test during your campaign to optimize for better opt in rates. If your goal is for clients to fill up a form, then you have to constantly test out what makes more people do it.

Now I’m no adwords expert, but friends of mine that are have told me that SEO criteria match the quality signals for Adwords landing pages, so keep this in mind when you’re building them.

However, it’s a bad idea to use the same pages that you use for organic traffic on your Adwords Campaigns. Search Engine Optimized pages are usually filled up with more content. Since you’re main purpose here is to get leads or make sales, adding more content might have an impact on the page’s performance.

For maximum profit and efficiency, make sure you use landing pages specifically designed for your ads and for your goals.

3. Create a Campaign

Once you finish creating your account, Google will ask you for your website. Provide it to enter the Adwords Dashboard. From there, find the Create New Campaign button. It sometimes also looks like a + sign.

There are multiple types of campaigns that you can set up, but we’re interested in the Search Network and or Display Network.

Search Network means that your ads will show up when people search for particular keywords that you pick. Display Network means that your ads will also show up on other people’s websites, if they’re using Adsense. This type of advertising is called retargeting, as it can follow users for a long time after they perform a search and show them your ads. It’s also more visual, as you can display image ads, animated gifs and even videos.

You can pick any one of them or both, but keep in mind that the latter is more expensive.

4. Set Up Your Budget, Target Audience and Keywords

All these details are very important and you’ll learn more about them only through practice and experience. Start with a small budget at first, to test things out. You can always expand.

You can also use Google’s Keyword Planner to do keyword and bidding research. That way, you will be able to find out what people are searching for, how much your competition pays on average and also if the competition is low or high.

How to get to the Keyword Planner Tool

You can use these criteria to determine a budget and an average bid for your ad. After you do your research, set up your target audience and write a list of keywords you want to target. Don’t add all the keywords you can find. Only add very similar and close ones. Create more ad groups to be able to add the keywords in the title, description and URL of your ad when creating it. This will help with your click through rates.

Usually, the calculations are pretty simple. If your service/product is worth $100 and the cost per click is 1$, you’ll have to make 1 sale every 100 clicks just to break even. However, Google can’t tell you how many clicks you’re going to get. This is up to you and how your ad and landing page are written.

5. Write Your Ad

Finally, we got here! Things on this step aren’t too dificult. Just create your heading, description and URL. The URL is fake but, as I previously mentioned, having the keywords that the user has just searched helps a lot. When the users click, it will redirect them to your landing page.

After you finish writing your ad, you will have to reach for your wallet and pull out your credit card.

Solution #2. Set Up Your Google My Business Listing (Google Maps)

If you don’t have a Google MyBusiness listing yet, then you should make one right now, as you read this article. It’s easy and, most importantly, it’s completely FREE. But wait, there’s more! It also works really well if you know what you’re doing.

1. Set Up Your Account

For this, you need to follow the same steps as for creating the Adwords account. The steps are very similar.

However, there’s a chance that your business is already listed. I really don’t know how Google does it, as often times every detail is right on the spot, from phone number to working hours. I assume they have some sort of field agents, or secret shoppers. Who knows?

If your business is already listed, you can claim the ownership pretty easy:

2. Fill in All the Details Correctly

Google will ask your for a lot of details about your business. Make sure you answer them all correctly. Fill everything up. The more info you give, the better it will help you rank.

3. Get Some Fancy Pictures

Pictures are very important for the local listing. Why? Because people are very interested in seeing them. For example, if you’re a restaurant, they might want to take a look at the surroundings and dishes. If you produce construction materials, they might want to see some screenshots of your products.

However, what’s most important for the start are pictures with the location itself, especially the entrance. If it’s a local business, it means that people want to go there physically. Help them find your place. Sometimes, trees are blocking Google Street View, and if your hair saloon is on the second floor of a building, people might be confused.

You can even include pictures with your staff. That’s always cute. Your clients can also post pictures at your location, so make sure you always treat them right. You don’t want pictures with bugs in your dishes getting on the Google Maps listing. If there is one downside to it, it’s that it’s very, and I need to emphasise on this, VERY HARD to remove a Local Business listing.

4. Get Some Reviews

Reviews are a very important ranking factor when it comes to local map listings. However, it’s a double sided blade. If you get negative reviews, it won’t help too much.

Remember, people are more inclined to leave a negative review than they are to leave a positive one. You’ll need action for a positive review, so make sure you have some sort of gamified system in place to convince your clients to leave one.

If you do get negative reviews, make sure you address them with a positive attitude. Apologise if it was your mistake and never insult or get angry if it’s just a dumbass (see what I did there?). Also, never try to rub your own back here. Google can figure out fake reviews if they’re coming from the same devices/IPs/locations.

Although location and reviews are probably the most important ranking factors for maps listings, there are other ranking factors that you can take into account. I wrote an article on this. You can read it here.

Solution #3. Get Your Website Ranking High in the Organic Search Results

This is by far the most complex thing in this list. Counterintuitively, it’s also going to be the shortest section. You’ll have to read far more from our blog to get a better understanding of SEO, but we will at least cover the basics.

You might not even need a website for your local business. However, you’ll never be able to get multiple listings without one, as it’s mandatory for both paid and organic results. If you don’t want to spend money now on building one, Google MyBusiness offers a free one. It’s very limited and doesn’t come up with a top level domain, but hey, it’s a website!

In order to get your website ranking naturally in Google, without the use of ads, you have to take good care of it, write useful content and promote it properly.

1. Fix Technical Issues

The first thing you want to do is make sure your website runs smoothly. Technical issues include but aren’t limited to optimizing images, minifying HTML, CSS and JS and leveraging browser cache.

You’re looking for a page load time of maximum 3 seconds. It’s known that conversions drop if your website loads slowly, so you can make this a priority. It will affect you greatly long term. If after all the optimizations the website is still running very slow, consider contacting your web hosting provider and ask them to increase resources, or even switch hosts.

If you run your website on a CMS (Content Management System) like WordPress, then things are pretty easy, because you can use plugins. Just search “issue you want to fix” + WordPress plugin on Google and you’ll get what you need. There are plugins out there for virtually anything you want to do. Make sure you pick a plugin that has been recently updated and has a lot of positive reviews.

Example showing how to find WordPress plugins

You can do the same thing for other platforms, such as Joomla, Drupal or Magento. Although most of them are free, some more advanced plugins may require payment.

For a full list of what you need to do, you can check out our awesome article about fixing technical issues on your website.

2. Keywords, Content and UX (OnPage SEO)

The technical stuff is also OnPage SEO, but here we’re only going to talk about the content. Google ranks your pages depending on the quality of the content. It’s really hard to say what good content means, but a fair thing to say is that the user’s experience matters a lot.

Google has been looking into things like keyword density for a long time but, more recently, it has started analyzing things that include how much time a user spends on a page or if they hit the back button to search for something else. Google’s algorithms will record a user’s experience and rank your web pages according to it.

However, before you consider A/B testing and optimizing your page for a better user experience, make sure you have the proper keywords in your Title Tag and Headings. Even in 2018+ it’s pretty obvious that without them, you won’t be able to rank. You can use the same keywords from Adwords.

If you want your content to be very well optimized, you can use our Content Assistant. Also, focus on writing your content for human beings, not for robots. If you don’t know what to write about on your local business website, make sure you give this article a good read.

3. Promotion (OffPage SEO)

You can always kickstart a new piece of content with ads. However, it’s a better idea to use social media instead of adwords for this one. Before you do that, though, try to promote it for free in local groups, or groups related to your industry.

Speaking of social media, if you don’t have a Facebook page for your business yet, make sure you get one. In fact, go ahead and secure as many social profiles as you can. Some will fit your business and others won’t. For example, Pinterest works very well for restaurants, while Twitter works very well in the business and IT niches.

Your main purpose here is to get other websites to link to your site. You can also steal your competitor’s links by using the CognitiveSEO Toolset, or get notified when someone mentiones you or your competitors online by using BrandMentions. After you get notified, you can establish a relationship with whoever mentioned you, for further promotion.

For local SEO, it’s a great idea if you get links from other local websites. You can go ahead and create some links yourself, but if you scale this up, you can get in trouble with the big G. However, creating a few listings on local websites shouldn’t do any harm.

Also, don’t forget to promote offline. Online works best with offline. You can barter with other adjacent businesses around you that aren’t direct competitors. You’ll both have something to win this way and it will cost you nothing.

If you keep doing this, you should start seeing results over time. You can use our Rank Tracker to monitor your progress.

Which One Should You Focus on?

Well, this really depends on every business and its possibilities, but I think it’s pretty obvious that the first move you should make is set up a Google MyBusiness listing. If you don’t have that, you’re losing a lot. It’s not only free and really easy to set up, but it also has a lot of potential. The sooner you start with it, the better, as you can start asking your clients for reviews.

For the other methods, you will need a website. The question of whether a local business needs a website or not has often knocked on my door. People try to replace websites with Facebook Pages and Google MyBusiness Pages, but I’ll tell you one thing: they’re not the same thing.

You have full control over your website, which means you can optimize it for your specific needs. Most importantly, you own it. Countless times have I heard about people desperate that they’ve got their Facebook Pages banned for various reasons.

In any case, without a decent website, you won’t be able to properly do SEO or Adwords.

Adwords can go well anytime, if you have the buck. To be honest, even as an SEO, I recommend investing in Adwords, especially when you’re starting out. SEO takes a lot of time and even a big budget if want to do it right. With adwords, you don’t have to wait 6 months for the results. However, there’s always a chance that you won’t make any money at all.

With SEO, the sooner you start, the better, as it does take a long time to rank. You can save money in exchange for time, if you do it yourself. However, be very careful how you ‘optimize’ your website. Make sure you read some more articles on our blog before you start and, if you have no idea what you’re doing, maybe even hire a consultant.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article. If you have successfully listed a local business multiple times on Google, please leave a comment below and share your experience with us. We’re always eager to hear about our readers’ success stories, so don’t hesitate to write.

The post How to Get Your Website Listed Multiple Times in Google SERPs appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

from Marketing https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/18625/google-multiple-listings/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

0 notes

philipfloyd · 7 years ago

Text

How to Get Your Website Listed Multiple Times in Google SERPs

About Multiple Listings on Google

Advertise with Google Adwords

Set Up Your Account

Choose or Create Your Landing Page

Create a Campaign

Set Up Your Budgets, Target Audience and Keywords

Write Your Ad

Google My Business (Google Maps)

Set Up Your Account

Fill in All the Details Correctly

Get Some Fancy Pictures

Get Some Reviews

SEO & Organic Search Results

Fix Technical Issues

Keywords and Content (OnPage SEO)

Promotion (OffPage SEO)

Which Method Should You Focus on First?

Before we get into the specifics, let’s see why it’s hard to get multiple listings on Google in general and why local businesses have an advantage.

About Multiple Listings on Google

Multiple listings have been a concern for Google for a pretty long time. Plenty of changes have been made over time, but things have finally started to settle.

Matt Cutts explains the phenomenon pretty well in the following video.

youtube

This video is yet another reason why blackhat SEOs make everyone else’s life harder. Google had to constantly change to adapt to people trying to manipulate the system.

When Google has too many options to choose from, it gets annoyed. You risk getting a small penalty for that, which will result in lower overall rankings for that keyword.

Solution #1. Advertise with Google Adwords

youtube

The advantage of using Google Adwords is that you’ll get results as soon as you set up your first campaign. The downside, obviously, is that you have to pay.

Depending on the competitivity of your niche and also your skills on managing paid advertising campaigns, the costs can vary.

1. Set Up Your Account

This is fairly simple and straight-forward. You need to go to Adwords’ Homepage and set up an account. If you don’t have a Google account, you’ll have to create one.

If you already have a Google/Gmail account, the setup will be a lot easier. Just log into your account on Chrome or any other browser, go to https://adwords.google.com and click on Start Now.

2. Choose or Create Your Landing Page

Your landing page is very important for the success of your campaign.

Google doesn’t only look at the money. If it was so, nobody would use Google by now. I mean, look at Yahoo! Don’t you just hate it when the entire background is an ad? I know I do!

Now I’m no adwords expert, but friends of mine that are have told me that SEO criteria match the quality signals for Adwords landing pages, so keep this in mind when you’re building them.

For maximum profit and efficiency, make sure you use landing pages specifically designed for your ads and for your goals.

3. Create a Campaign

There are multiple types of campaigns that you can set up, but we’re interested in the Search Network and or Display Network.

You can pick any one of them or both, but keep in mind that the latter is more expensive.

4. Set Up Your Budget, Target Audience and Keywords

All these details are very important and you’ll learn more about them only through practice and experience. Start with a small budget at first, to test things out. You can always expand.

How to get to the Keyword Planner Tool

5. Write Your Ad

After you finish writing your ad, you will have to reach for your wallet and pull out your credit card.

Solution #2. Set Up Your Google My Business Listing (Google Maps)

1. Set Up Your Account

For this, you need to follow the same steps as for creating the Adwords account. The steps are very similar.

If your business is already listed, you can claim the ownership pretty easy:

2. Fill in All the Details Correctly

Google will ask your for a lot of details about your business. Make sure you answer them all correctly. Fill everything up. The more info you give, the better it will help you rank.

3. Get Some Fancy Pictures

4. Get Some Reviews

Reviews are a very important ranking factor when it comes to local map listings. However, it’s a double sided blade. If you get negative reviews, it won’t help too much.

Solution #3. Get Your Website Ranking High in the Organic Search Results

In order to get your website ranking naturally in Google, without the use of ads, you have to take good care of it, write useful content and promote it properly.

1. Fix Technical Issues

The first thing you want to do is make sure your website runs smoothly. Technical issues include but aren’t limited to optimizing images, minifying HTML, CSS and JS and leveraging browser cache.

Example showing how to find WordPress plugins

You can do the same thing for other platforms, such as Joomla, Drupal or Magento. Although most of them are free, some more advanced plugins may require payment.

For a full list of what you need to do, you can check out our awesome article about fixing technical issues on your website.

2. Keywords, Content and UX (OnPage SEO)

3. Promotion (OffPage SEO)

If you keep doing this, you should start seeing results over time. You can use our Rank Tracker to monitor your progress.

Which One Should You Focus on?

In any case, without a decent website, you won’t be able to properly do SEO or Adwords.

The post How to Get Your Website Listed Multiple Times in Google SERPs appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

from Marketing https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/18625/google-multiple-listings/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

0 notes

wjwilliams29 · 7 years ago

Text

How to Get Your Website Listed Multiple Times in Google SERPs

About Multiple Listings on Google

Advertise with Google Adwords

Set Up Your Account

Choose or Create Your Landing Page

Create a Campaign

Set Up Your Budgets, Target Audience and Keywords

Write Your Ad

Google My Business (Google Maps)

Set Up Your Account

Fill in All the Details Correctly

Get Some Fancy Pictures

Get Some Reviews

SEO & Organic Search Results

Fix Technical Issues

Keywords and Content (OnPage SEO)

Promotion (OffPage SEO)

Which Method Should You Focus on First?

Before we get into the specifics, let’s see why it’s hard to get multiple listings on Google in general and why local businesses have an advantage.

About Multiple Listings on Google

Multiple listings have been a concern for Google for a pretty long time. Plenty of changes have been made over time, but things have finally started to settle.

Matt Cutts explains the phenomenon pretty well in the following video.

youtube

This video is yet another reason why blackhat SEOs make everyone else’s life harder. Google had to constantly change to adapt to people trying to manipulate the system.

When Google has too many options to choose from, it gets annoyed. You risk getting a small penalty for that, which will result in lower overall rankings for that keyword.

Solution #1. Advertise with Google Adwords

youtube

The advantage of using Google Adwords is that you’ll get results as soon as you set up your first campaign. The downside, obviously, is that you have to pay.

Depending on the competitivity of your niche and also your skills on managing paid advertising campaigns, the costs can vary.

1. Set Up Your Account

This is fairly simple and straight-forward. You need to go to Adwords’ Homepage and set up an account. If you don’t have a Google account, you’ll have to create one.

If you already have a Google/Gmail account, the setup will be a lot easier. Just log into your account on Chrome or any other browser, go to https://adwords.google.com and click on Start Now.

2. Choose or Create Your Landing Page

Your landing page is very important for the success of your campaign.

Google doesn’t only look at the money. If it was so, nobody would use Google by now. I mean, look at Yahoo! Don’t you just hate it when the entire background is an ad? I know I do!

Now I’m no adwords expert, but friends of mine that are have told me that SEO criteria match the quality signals for Adwords landing pages, so keep this in mind when you’re building them.

For maximum profit and efficiency, make sure you use landing pages specifically designed for your ads and for your goals.

3. Create a Campaign

There are multiple types of campaigns that you can set up, but we’re interested in the Search Network and or Display Network.

You can pick any one of them or both, but keep in mind that the latter is more expensive.

4. Set Up Your Budget, Target Audience and Keywords

All these details are very important and you’ll learn more about them only through practice and experience. Start with a small budget at first, to test things out. You can always expand.

How to get to the Keyword Planner Tool

5. Write Your Ad

After you finish writing your ad, you will have to reach for your wallet and pull out your credit card.

Solution #2. Set Up Your Google My Business Listing (Google Maps)

1. Set Up Your Account

For this, you need to follow the same steps as for creating the Adwords account. The steps are very similar.

If your business is already listed, you can claim the ownership pretty easy:

2. Fill in All the Details Correctly

Google will ask your for a lot of details about your business. Make sure you answer them all correctly. Fill everything up. The more info you give, the better it will help you rank.

3. Get Some Fancy Pictures

4. Get Some Reviews

Reviews are a very important ranking factor when it comes to local map listings. However, it’s a double sided blade. If you get negative reviews, it won’t help too much.

Solution #3. Get Your Website Ranking High in the Organic Search Results

In order to get your website ranking naturally in Google, without the use of ads, you have to take good care of it, write useful content and promote it properly.

1. Fix Technical Issues

The first thing you want to do is make sure your website runs smoothly. Technical issues include but aren’t limited to optimizing images, minifying HTML, CSS and JS and leveraging browser cache.

Example showing how to find WordPress plugins

You can do the same thing for other platforms, such as Joomla, Drupal or Magento. Although most of them are free, some more advanced plugins may require payment.

For a full list of what you need to do, you can check out our awesome article about fixing technical issues on your website.

2. Keywords, Content and UX (OnPage SEO)

3. Promotion (OffPage SEO)

If you keep doing this, you should start seeing results over time. You can use our Rank Tracker to monitor your progress.

Which One Should You Focus on?

In any case, without a decent website, you won’t be able to properly do SEO or Adwords.

The post How to Get Your Website Listed Multiple Times in Google SERPs appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

0 notes

faterpresources · 4 years ago

Note

1. Setting up the blog

Tip: @glenthemes have very good themes and a basic installation guide here.

Tip : If you mess with your theme, remember there is the Theme Recovery.

Tip: If you use Chrome or Firefox you can set up different profiles and associate each with a different blog, so you don’t need to log out from any of your accounts.

Oh, and if you are planning to do a multimuse, it might be a good idea to list which muses you have. The same goes for a hub blog; list the muses and link to the pages.

Tip: Anything larger than 300 pixels will be stretched to fit the post. As of today ( 4/29/2021) the posts are currently 540 pixels wide. This can be useful as making banners for your blog.

2. Introducing yourself

(as you can see, I’m not very good at saying ‘hi’)

It might also be a good idea to follow a few RP memes blogs. They often have options to break the ice, like one-liners that your mutual can send you.

Tip: Don’t forget to turn on the asks and the anon

3. Practical advice

Alright, now that you have a few mutuals, it is time to get to some general tips:

To make things easier to locate, always tag the URL of your RP partner when doing a reply. There are other useful things you can tag, such as open starters, memes, and such.

Risking being obvious here, but when you are not interacting as your character it might be a good idea to tag as “ooc” or “out of character”.

Because of Tumblr shadowbanning and shenanigans, it isn’t unusual for people to have NSFW sideblogs (sometimes referred as sin blogs). If you want to write smut, it might be a good idea to consider making one. Update (12/25/2021): tumblr now is hiding a few selected tags on the ios app, meaning that certain posts with the NSFW tag won’t appear at all. You can read about this here.

Some people don’t like replying to asks, as Tumblr won’t let you remove the initial ask. It has become common to see people making new posts to reply to asks. This is a simple example:

To make sure your partner got the answer, I recommend copying the link to the post and pasting on the ask and then replying it privately. An example sent to my rp blog:

4. Basic Etiquette

Ok, this is a little subjective most of the time but here are a few things that are considered universal courtesy.

Don’t reblog threads you are not involved with. It is ok to leave a like, but never reblog. This is because Tumblr can mess up the notifications and disrupt the flow of the RP.

Don’t copy other people’s graphics. It is very rude and sometimes they commission (aka: paid) for it.

Try to tag anything triggering. Violence, gore, NSFW. Both Tumblr and the New Xkit have options to block keywords.

Be mindful of your partners and treat them the way you would like to be treated.

As a rule of thumb, always talk to your RP partner. It is only fun as long both of you are enjoying it.

5. Closing Words

This got longer than I expected.

My inbox is always open to questions and ideas, so feel free to contact me anytime!

I would also ask my followers: there is advice I missed/overlooked? Anything you would like someone have told you when you first started? Add your thoughts so I can update this.

Happy RPing!

#mod talks #rph #roleplay help #rp help #Anonymous #original #guides #long post

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