Geekmummy answers your Geeky Questions (New Bloggers Fortnight)

We can count ourselves as very lucky today, for on the blog we have the lovely Ruth who blogs at Geekmummy, she won the MAD blog award last year for most innovative blog and she fully deserves it. Have you ever seen any of her excellent vlogs?  She puts me to shame with my QVC inspired ones! I'll let her introduce herself properly -

Hi I'm Ruth, and I blog at geekmummy.com. I've been blogging in various forms since 2005, and I started my geekmummy blog in August 2010 as something to keep me busy whilst on maternity leave from work after having my son (as if looking after him and his older sister wasn't enough to be getting on with!). As I'm both a Mummy and a geek the name wasn't too hard to come up with! I was very flattered when Michelle asked me to participate in her New Bloggers Fortnight by answering some of your geeky questions – I love being able to help other bloggers. So here goes…
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Can you sum up SEO for a novice?

SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimisation", which is a phrase that seems to strike fear and confusion into the heart of many a blogger. When you visit any search engine (like Google or Bing) and type in what you are looking for, that search engine must decide which of the many millions of web pages it knows about is the most relevant to you. The precise way it works this out is a fiercely guarded, and frequently changing, secret, for if it was public knowledge then content producers would be able to "force" themselves to the top of the results pages, and the search engines would lose credibility with their users.

The good news is that the search engines generally like blogs as their content is regularly updated. And whilst you can spend a lot of time studying SEO, installing SEO Plug-Ins and improving your position in search results, there are a few simple things you can start doing now that will make the search engines rank you higher in their results.

• When you're writing a blog post, think about how people might search to find that article. Use those words in your post title, and again in the first paragraph of your post. These are called your keywords.

• If your post answers a question, consider using that question as your post title.

• Tag your posts - your blogging platform should allow the addition of tags to your post - again make sure you use these, and include your keywords

• Tag your images - most search engines have the ability to search for images as well as text, so again add relevant keywords to your images

Can you sum up what measures matter in the Ebuzzing and Tots100 rankings?

I can certainly sum up the measures used in the Tots100 rankings, as they are publicly available. There are seven metrics that make up your Tots100 score, and for each metric all blogs in the Index are scored relative to each other (i.e. it's not your absolute score that matters, it's your position relative to all the other blogs). I recommend reading the Tots100 primer over on the Tots100 website for a great explanation of how the index works, but in summary here are the seven metrics:

• Number of links to your blog (found via Google)

• Number of those links in the past month

• Number of links to your blog (found via opensiteexplorer.org)

• Your blog's MozRank (found via opensiteexplorer.org) - this a measure of how influential the sites that link to you are)

• Your Klout score

• Your Technorati score (this measures how many different blogs have linked to you in the last month)

• Number of subscribers your blog has in Google Reader.

It is harder to say how the Ebuzzing rankings are calculated, as Ebuzzing do not make that information public. What they do say is that blog and article popularity are calculated using their own algorithm, which takes into account content shares and recommendations on Twitter, Facebook and the primary content exchange platforms. It does seem that links to your blog are a major factor, and links from other blogs within your Ebuzzing category are weighted more heavily than other links.

In general I recommend focusing on producing great content that people will want to link to and talk about as the best way of improving your position in these rankings.

What exactly are backlinks? And how are they counted? Do they all stack up with time?

A backlink is a link to your blog from another blog or website. They are counted by search engines, who use the number of backlinks as a way of deciding how "authoritative" your blog is. In general your number of backlinks will increase over time, as the old ones don't tend to disappear (well unless the linking page is changed or removed), and you should be getting new links each month.

Can you explain ‘no follow’ and do many blogs use that?

To explain "nofollow" I first need to explain a little bit about how search engines explore your site and decide how "authoritative" you are. Search engines trawl the web with "crawlers"; programs which follow links and read the content they find. Each time you link to a site, you're effectively telling the search engines that this is a site that you think is relevant to your blog content. If the search engine keeps finding content it doesn't think is relevant (for example if you mostly talk about parenting issues but keep linking to financial sites), it will decide it doesn't trust you as much, and consider you less authoritative. This damages your page rank, and thus the position you'll achieve in search results. The nofollow tag can be used in a link if you don't want the search engine crawlers to follow the link - it's your way of saying "here's a link, but I don't want you to consider it relevant to my blog content". If you write sponsored posts this is essential, and indeed some companies that offer sponsored posts, like eBuzzing, insist on the use of nofollow links. The simple rule is if you're linking to something else, and it's not directly relevant to your content, use a "nofollow" link otherwise you may damage your own search engine ranking as well as that of your target.. I would also recommend if you're posting sponsored content you use nofollow links.

You make a link into a "nofollow" link by switching your blog editor into HTML view and manually adding the text rel="nofollow" to the link, so that it looks like this:

<a href="http://www.anothersite.com/" rel="nofollow">Click on this link</a>


If you're on WordPress self-hosted there are plugins you can add to your site to make this process easier, unfortunately if you're on Blogger or WordPress.com your only option is the HTML one.

I hope you’ve found this information useful. If you have any more questions please let me know – you can find me on Twitter as @geekmummy.

Thank you so much Ruth, I know that people will find that so helpful, me included.  I have never yet made a link 'nofollow' and I do sponsored posts, so something for me to have a play around with.

We are nearing the end of New Bloggers Fortnight now, in fact after today the fortnight is up but I still have a couple more posts and hence it will continue! Next up is Lou blogging at Bloggomy, who had one of those moments just recently where she wondered if she should just delete her blog.  Thanks heavens she remembered why she blogs and she is sticking around. Monday Lou questions how much you should share on your blog and the things to think through.

You don't have to be everyones Best Friend to be a Blogging Success

Today on the blog we have Clare, she blogs at Seasider in the City and is one of the nicest bloggers that I have had the pleasure to meet. (I tried hard to think of a word better than 'nicest' as I know some people think nice is limp but that is not the case at all). Not only is Clare nice she is also feisty, opinionated and fun to be with, well that is what I think, here is what she says about herself -

Clare is the tangerine dreamer behind Seasider in the City, with an undying love of family, golf and food and on an eternal quest to lose weight and get fit with minimal effort. The best is yet to come…
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In many areas of my life I don’t quite fit the normal stereotype. For many years I was one of the few straight members of a women’s football team, at the golf club I am very competitive which is quite unheard of amongst the women, as an IT manager I am pretty ungeeky, and certainly don’t spend my free time talking techie (unlike the group I overheard in the pub on Friday), and in the office I wear jeans and no makeup (gasp).

All these things make it at times difficult to fit in, I am not welcomed with open arms, more eyed with suspicion.

I have found blogging to be along the same lines. I see posts on blogs and forums saying you must do ‘this’ and you should never do ‘that’ and I smile to myself thinking I do exactly the opposite of that, and so what?

There are times when not being part of the ‘in’ crowd hurts a little, you see conversations on twitter and when you try and join in you are not really made welcome, sometimes you may tweet asking for help, knowing that the people that can are online right now, and you are ignored. Other times there is just the frustrating thing of commenting on a post and the blogger replies to every single other reply but not yours! It’s hard but slowly I am toughening up, developing a thick skin in blogging as I have done in the rest of my life.

Just over a year ago, when I started to write, I so desperately wanted to fit in and be liked. I would do anything not to rock the boat and jumped through hoops to try and be popular. I look back on this time and feel ashamed. It wasn’t me, who was I trying to kid – it was like turning up to work with straight hair and a full face of make-up! I even deleted a review post I had written because there was a lot of negative talk about the brand – I had no issue with the brand and I really liked the product, I didn’t even contact the PR to apologise. I removed it, just in case someone thought badly of me. How shallow!

What have I done then? I have written what and when I wanted. I join in with linkies, I review quite a lot of products. I do care about statistics though, even if I am told I shouldn’t – I like to do things well. My blog has grown beyond belief and I am proud of this, it is something I have done.

Most importantly though I have made some really good friends, pinpointed some fellow bloggers that are happy to share both their opinions and their time. They are happy to give advice whether you are brand new or been around the block a few times. They keep my feet on the ground and are a voice of reason if I think people are being mean!

My advice – don’t try too hard (at least not for too long)! If you are new and want some friends come and find me and anyone else appearing in Michelle’s new blogger fortnight – obviously you have already found the fabulous lady in question and she is well worth a follow too ;-)

Thank you Clare for sharing so honestly, I read this post and felt a little tug at my heart, in 500 words Clare summed up my life.  I have never been THE one, the one everyone wanted to be friends with.  I was always on the outskirts of the 'in' crowd and trying to fit in, trying to make sure everyone liked me.  Then a few years ago I grew up and stopped trying so hard and since then I have been a much happier woman.  When I first came to blogging, like Clare I found it incredibly tough and wanted to rise to the heady height so blogging stardom (if there is such a thing! lol) and what I found was that when I was focused on the stats and how popular my blog was I was at my most unhappiest and not feeling in the slightest joyful at what was being achieved. Things started to get taken for granted, I got to number 2 in the Wikio (now ebuzzing) parenting blog chart - so what? I had over 20,000 page views and just over 10,000 unique visitors in a month - yeah and...? My Klout score reached about 65 and my self-esteem reached about 2!

When I stay true to the reasons I blog, I am happiest and then things really do fall into place.  Making friends like Clare = result! 11,000 page views in a day on my blog as I was helping @ChristineMosler and Save the Children with their #healthworkers campaign = phenomenal and passing on the blog love in New Bloggers Fortnight - yep that rocks!

Thanks for reading, stay true to yourself and let yourself shine.  We can not all be the best read blog out there but we can all be happy and enjoy what we have instead of hankering after more and more, which I promise you might not be that satisfying at all when you get it....  You know what they say, be careful what you wish for!

Late tomorrow on New Bloggers Fortnight I welcome the superb Ruth from Geek Mummy, I put some questions to her that new bloggers had asked me and she comes up tops with the answers.  Check back to find out about SEO, no-follow links and ranking metrics.

Things I wish I had known at the Beginning by Multiple Mummy (New Bloggers Fortnight)

If you are here looking for Reasons to be Cheerful, then head over to Seasider in the City and link up there, for this week the lovely Clare is the host.  Cheers Mich x
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We have a fellow twin mummy on the blog today. Kerry from Multiple Mummy has just had her first bloggerversary and has really established a lovely blog full of family fun and honest tales of being a stay at home mum. Make sure you stop by and visit her if she is a new blogger to you. Here is what she says about herself -

A family obsessed lady who turns the big 30 in April. Mummy to a three year old boy Noah and two year old twins Little Madam and Chilled Out Boy and I blog at Multiple Mummy which has just celebrated it's 1st birthday. I am currently a stay at home due to childcare costs (please don't get me on my soap box) and am a Science Teacher by Trade (I also co-write Science Sparks) a job I love with a passion and hope to return to one day. Blogging has become my new addiction, and has kept my sanity. I am a chocoholic, a twitteroholic and a babyoholic and hope to have more! I am also a total geek! I used to be geek chic, but the chic bit has fallen off since having children! I'm a real people person and love a chat so please come and say hello.
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We all start blogging for different reasons. For me, I stumbled into it, and then found it to be my release from the carnage that can be two-year-old twins and a three-year-old little boy. I never comprehended how much I would learn and how addictive it would become. I never began to imagine the passion that would grow and the love I would have for it.

I have been blogging now for 1 year (my blogaversary was the 31st January) and I have come to understand a lot of things over that year, including the so called blogging rules which I think Dorky Mum sums up perfectly, but there are some practical things that I really wish I had known in the beginning that would have helped and my blog kick off to a flying start:

Join things and take Part

There are a lot of places to sign up to, that will give you more information, hints and tips for blogging, but will additional help enhance your network of ‘friends’ and I promise you this, as strange as it seems, some people will become true friends and you will get opportunity to meet them.

Things to join or know about are BritMums, Tots100, Netmums parent blogger network, parent blogger network group on facebook and Love all blogs. It has taken me all year to find and join them, and I am constantly stumbling upon things on other blogs that I don’t have, or have not seen, so really take a look around of other blogs.

Link ups are a great way to read new blogs and also to help give you inspiration for those moments of writers block. Some popular ones are The Gallery; Saturday is Caption day and Reasons to be Cheerful. Plus I have just started one called Family Frolics (thought I would sneak that in) and they are all worth a look at. Again I did not start doing this until nearly two months in, and it is all helpful in the beginning to get yourself known a bit. Don’t feel you have to do them all, and they should never be a chore, but if you like that week’s theme and it fits in with your blog, then link up!

As a new blogger, you are lucky as you are so looked after and well supported nowadays. There is the Love All Blogs site which showcases posts every week and BritMums has created a feature for new blogs so getting yourself seen is much easier. Do take advantage of this.

Facebook page

I waited ages (well 10 months in fact) until I finally made a Facebook page and wish I had done this sooner. In some ways I can get more conversation flowing on there than on twitter and you can get a lot of traffic via Facebook.

It is funny because Mich from Mummy from the Heart said I had a successful Facebook page and she asked me what I did to make that happen. I am not really sure. I think I treat it like my personal page and add bits to my wall about my day, share photo’s and link my Instagram to it sometimes, and if I start to write a tweet that might generate discussion, I transfer it to Facebook first as that links to twitter anyway, and so I get chatter from both aspect.

I make the effort to reply on Facebook to those who commented on my posts and definitely some of my readers are greater Facebook users than Twitter.

I created a welcome page on my Facebook, which I think helped and if you look at the page you can make one for free to by clicking the link at the bottom.

When I went to Cybermummy last year one of the sessions made out that your page should be like a business and you should only post on there a maximum of three times a week. I have not found this to be the case. Readers (who are normal people) read us because they can relate to us, and so want that connection. We are not trying to sell them anything; we are just sharing our thoughts. I think Facebook and twitter make us real.

So for example last week when I just commented I was excited that ‘Call the midwife’ was on, I got lots of responses from people who were watching it to!

My view is…chat.

Share the love

Ensure you have share buttons on your blog as a widget so that people can tweet or stumble or G+ your blog and get in the habit of doing this to other people’s blog posts you enjoy! Additionally ensure you have a ‘subscribe by email’ widget is my other tip especially as GFC is being phased out.

Also if you really enjoyed someone’s post share it on your social network sites. They then may return the favour later on. Having a blog roll or blog love page is also a great way to share who you are reading.

If you want comments (which we all love if we are truly honest) then you need to comment as well! Bloggers tend to be very loyal and if they notice someone is commenting regularly they will head over to that blog and return the favour and you may find you end up with a new follower.

Time and schedule

Remember you do your blog for fun so try not to let it take over you life (this is easier said than done with the addiction part of it) but do try to find some sort of balance, or at least after six months work out what you want from it and where you want it to go. That way you know what is a realistic amount of time to spend. One thing that took me ages to realise was that I could schedule my posts and so before this I was staying up late or getting up early to publish when actually there is a function that does it for you. Great if you know you are going away and want to prepare something in advance.
So there we have it, my list of things to make blogging life easier! However linking back to Dorky Mum’s first post, these are only suggestions and guidelines as to what I have personally found useful and are by no means a set of rules. I hope you find them useful too. Please to take a moment to stop by and take a peak at my blog. I love getting to know new people and I am friendly soul so please can and chat to me!

MM  x

Many thanks Kerry, since I have renewed my interest in Facebook in the last 4 days and taken on board your tip to use it as I would my own page the people chatting about my blog page has risen by about 700%! I call that a result.

I have a lovely post for you tomorrow, one I can really relate to.  It is written by Clare from Seasider in the City and she shares why you can be a success at blogging but not be everyone's best friend.

A Year of Valentines

If it is now Thursday and you are here looking for Reasons to be Cheerful, then head over to Seasider in the City and link up there, for this week the lovely Clare is the host.  Cheers Mich x
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This year has probably been one of my most favourite Valentines ever and that is quite something coming from me, as it is not a day I have really celebrated or put much emphasis on for a few years now.

I've mentioned before that dh and I will have been together for 18 years this year and I do believe that as time passes and children come along, a little bit of the romance slips away.  Well to be honest with us, it has been a fair amount of the romance.  It does not seem to come naturally to either of us anymore to do all those little things that take a lot of thought and not a lot of money that you do so freely in the early days.

However, I think the beauty of our relationship is that we have not given up, whilst it is not second nature for us to just do impromptu, loving stuff we do both love each other deeply and want to make the other one happy. So every six months or so one or the other of us will do something to initiate a little more romance and emphasis on us.  We might reinstate date nights, book time out together, do some extra little jobs the other might nprmally do or something similar. In 2010 we even did a marriage course together and that was an experience I would definately recommend to anyone.  Our marriage was not in trouble, we just took the time to build on it.

So what made this year's valentine so good? Well, Mum is up so we had an instant babysiter and as I was supposed to be going out to my regular bible study group on Tuesday we had our valentines a day early and went out for a meal and then onto the cinema on Monday.  Perhaps not the most magnificent or imaginative of nights out but we enjoy it and that is what counts. The meal was hilarious as everything that could go wrong did, but did it spoil it for us?  No, on the contrary it made our evening fun and we had a great chat.

The film we went to see was 'The Vow' and wow, I loved this movie.  It had me laughing, smiling and even having a little cry.  I walked out with all my nails bitten off as I was so anxious, willing the stars of the movie to get it back together. It was an awesome film and one I will be buying and boy it must have had a good effect on dh.  All I said afterwards was how much the guy obviously loved his wife and that it made me want a guy who could show his love like that.

I won't tell you the ins and outs of my valentines present but suffice to say it did not cost the world but it was perfect.  There was so much thought in it and it was personal to us and also dh had based each of my small presents of a piece of bible scripture.  Something I am sure many people would not be interested in but as an active Christian it worked.  The boy did good!

As well as dh doing good I had a couple of lovely surprises Valentines morning. I was catching up with a few jobs and the doorbell went and there stood a Royal Mail delivery man with a super big parcel from Warner Bros. containing some great new DVD's for the kids to entertain themselves with this half term.

A bumper selection from Warner Bros.

All the kids (and the dog too) were engrossed in the Looney Tunes DVD's

Then not 10 minutes later the door went again and yet another Royal Mail man stood there and handed me a box from Warner Bros.  For a quick second I wondered if groundhog day had arrived but no, this box was for me, all me! and what a treat it was....  take a peek.

I have to say a big thank you to Warner Bros. as they have just sorted out my date nights for quite a while to come. Not sure how dh will feel when I submit him to The bodyguard, Valentines Day and Midnight in Paris but it is all in the name of romance and keeping our love on fire so that's a good thing! As I read one of my daily devotional emails today about how valentines should be every time we make an effort to be romantic and not just once a year I knew this was right and I booked in our next date night for Friday - 2 in one week.  Go Mich!

Here is to a year of Valentines, fancy joining me?  Well, you know what I mean, not literally me.  That is just for dh and I.

Mummy, Mummy Mum on using Social Media (New Bloggers Fortnight)

Today's guest writer is a lovely woman that I have met a couple of times. I recall first meeting her last May at blog camp and I was in awe that such a new blogger had the guts to come along to a blogging event so soon in their journey.

Hello, I'm Emma and I blog at Mummy..Mummy..MUM!! I have 3 small children and love to write, chat and make things mostly while drinking coffee and eating cake.

I started my blog about 10 months ago and have had such a great year because of it. I've been given the opportunity to do some amazing things and met even more amazing people. I have absolutely loved my blogging journey so far.


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I am by no means a social media expert, but am a bit of an addict, so here is my rough guide to social media.

If I’m honest I started my blog because I thought I could make some money from advertising. I wrote some posts, sat back and waited, nothing happened.

It was only then that I googled ’mummy blogs’ and found ‘Sticky Fingers’ and ‘The Gallery’ prompt. Thanks to ‘The Gallery’ my blog had its first visitors. I can still remember getting that first e-mail to say someone had commented on my blog and how exciting it was. From that point I didn’t look back. I became a regular contributor to The Gallery and Silent Sunday. Through these I found many wonderful blogs and soon had regular visitors to mine.

Eventually I cottoned on to the fact that joining Twitter would be a good thing, and was soon spending most evenings engaged in twitter chats. Through twitter I have made many friends, some of whom I have met in real life. All have been amazingly supportive. Twitter can be a great place to just hang out. Like anything you have to put time in to get something out of it. It takes time to build relationships with people and build a following, but is absolutely worth it.

From a blog point of view Twitter is an invaluable tool for marketing your blog. It is such an easy platform to get your latest post out to potentially thousands of people, with little effort.

To find people to follow, I would pick a blogger you like and follow the people they follow to start with. After a while your audience just grows by itself.

Twitter can be a little overwhelming at first, but you just need to dive in and start chatting.

Top Twitter Tips

• Find like-minded people to follow.
• Use tweekdeck or hootsuite to manage lists or more than one twitter account.
• Be thick skinned – don’t worry if people don’t follow you back immediately, as long as you interact with people your followers will grow.
• Consider your twitter name, most people have a name linked to their blog, but that’s not always best especially when there are a lot of similar blog names around.
• If you read something you like, retweet it. Everyone likes to be be retweeted.
• Use Follow Friday, where people recommend people for others to follow using the #FF hashtag
• Put some time into it, like relationships in the real world, twitter relationships take time to grow. 

Pinterest

Pinterest is quite new to me, but I LOVE it. It’s basically a visual bookmarking tool. You have boards for different areas of interest and then you can ‘pin’ posts to the boards using an image from the post. Pinterest is a great way to not only keep track of posts you love, but to get your own posts out there for others to find and hopefully re-pin for you.

Again you just have to dive in there, add some boards and start pinning and following. Don't forget to add the 'pin it' button to your blog then people can easy pin your posts.

Facebook

Most people have a separate Facebook page for their blog. I found it quite hard to build up a following on facebook, but again it’s worth persevering with as its another great way to interact with followers.

The best thing to do is follow blogs and brands you like and interact with them, whilst ensuring your own posts and status’s are interesting and engaging.

Basically you only get out of social media networks what you put into them, the more you interact and share other's posts, the more your own will be shared. It is hugely time consuming, especially these days when there are so many different networks. I have only briefly touched on the main ones I use. Don't forget there is also Stumble Upon and Google Plus which seem to be growing in popularity.

I never did manage to monetize my blog very well, but the experiences and friends I have made along the way have most definitely made the journey worthwhile.


Many thanks Emma, one of these days I will get my bum in gear and head over for a look at Pinterest, I see so many people talking about it but for now I do not have the mental capacity to deal with anything else so Twitter and a renewed interest in Facebook will have to do for meNext up on new bloggers fortnight will be Kerry from Multiple Mummy and she will be sharing with you the things she wished she had known about at the start of her blogging journey.

Thanks for reading, catch you soon. Mich x