Submit a Complete Sitemap of your Blogger Blog to Google for Better Indexing

Sitemaps, in simple English, are text files (see example) containing a list of all web pages that exist on your site. It is important that you create a comprehensive sitemap as it will help Google and other search engines crawl your site better and that might mean more traffic coming your way in the long run.

The Problem with Blogger Sitemap Files

Ideally, the sitemap file should contain all URLs of a site but if your blog is hosted on blogspot.com (or if you are using a self-hosted version of Blogger with a custom domain), you’ll be surprised to know that the default sitemap file (see example) contains only the 26 most recent pages of your blog.

That’s a bad thing because some of your older blog pages, that are missing from the system-generated sitemap file, may never get indexed in search engines. There’s however a simple solution to fix this problem.

Generate a Complete Sitemap for your Blogger Blog

Step 1: If you haven’t done this already, sign-in to your Google Webmasters account and add your blog. For details, check this video tutorial on how to add a blog to Google.

Step 2: Once your blog is added to Google, open the Sitemap Generator and type the full address of your blogspot blog (or your self-hosted Blogger blog).

Step 3: What you get is list of sitemap files that contain each and every page of your blog. You now just have to ping Google, Yahoo and Bing to inform them about these XML sitemaps.

As shown in the video screencast below, you need to manually add each of the sitemap files into your Google Webmaster Tools dashboard but for Bing or Yahoo, you can simply click blue hyperlinks and these search engines will automatically download the relevant sitemap files from your blogspot site.

Once all the Sitemaps are added, your Google Dashboard should look something like this.

If you see a red cross or an orange exclamation symbol instead of the green tick, that means something is wrong with your XML sitemap. Verify that the file exists by typing the sitemap URL in your browser.

Sometimes media enclosures (like MP3 files) in blog posts can create warnings during sitemap submission. And if you have switched from Blogger to WordPress, it still makes sense to submit sitemaps of your old Blogspot blog as that will only help search engines discover your new WordPress pages. Good luck.

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Create PDF Documents in Office 2010

Office 2010 includes a built-in PDF writer to help you save any document into the PDF format at the click of a button. You can also convert documents to PDF and email them as attachments directly from the Office program.

To save a document as PDF, go to Share -> Create PDF Document. Alternatively, you may use Share -> Send Using E-mail -> Send as PDF to attach a PDF copy of the document in a new email message.

Office 2007 users can download the free "Save as PDF" add-on to export files as PDF format in their Office programs.

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Your Next Résumé Should Look Like This!

A typical job résumé, or curriculum vitae, is often a long and boring Word document highlighting your education, work experience, your interests and other achievements.

This format has been around since the “snail mail” days and it still works but, in the tough job market, if you really want to create something memorable that will immediately catch the attention of your prospective employer, try building a Visual Resume when applying for your next job.

In a Visual Résumé, you narrate your story in pictures. The slides have minimal text though you may include multimedia elements like a video of a talk you delivered at some conference or even audio narration.

Visual Résumés – Examples

Here’re some good examples of visual résumés that may inspire you. You can even apply some of Jobs’ presentation techniques (like no bullet points, ever) to make your résumé all the more impressive.

Visual Resumes won’t replace the traditional CVs yet but HR teams, who are often responsible for scanning a pile of resumes, won’t mind clicking through a few slides and, who knows, your creative and out-of-the-box thinking might just help you land your dream job.

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AdSense Tip – Attract New Advertisers to your Site

Google AdSense is an auction based advertising system so your advertising revenue (or CPMs) will automatically go up if more advertisers choose to target your website.

The system, in simple English, works like eBay. You (the website owner) are selling ad space and the buyers (in this case, advertisers) are competing against each other to grab that space. The bid amount will therefore increase as more buyers enter the auction process thus benefiting the seller (you).

Increase your Site’s Visibility on the Google Ad Network

Advertisers are using tools like DoubleClick Ad Planner to determine which websites on the Google Ad Network they should target and you therefore need to ensure that your website is both visible and discoverable in these tools.

For instance, here’s a public listing of my blog on Ad Planner. This report is like a marketing brochure that you are handing out to an unknown number of prospective clients daily through Google and therefore it always should have updated information.

Advertisers can see the type of ads that are accepted on the site, the traffic details (pulled from Google Analytics), the topics that are covered by the site (categories) and other information that will help them quickly decide whether or not they should include the site in their campaigns.

In this video, Vijay Vachani of the AdSense team will walk you through the steps that are required to add your website to Google Ad Planner.

Step 1. If you have not added your website to Google Webmaster Tools yet, do that first. Sign-in to Webmaster Tools using your Google Account and add the site URL.

Step 2. Once your site is verified, go to the Publisher Center of Google Ad Planner and include the site** to your Ad Planner profile. If you have just added your site to Webmaster Tools, it may not immediately show up in Ad Planner.

Step 3. Finally, click the “Edit Site Info” link to assign a good description and relevant categories to your site. Google will automatically present a rough estimate of your site’s traffic to advertisers but you can give them a more accurate picture by allowing Ad Planner to use data* from your Google Analytics account.

In addition to creating your own Ad Planner Profile, you may also want to implement these three simple yet effective suggestions by Lauren Weitzman to attract advertisers:

• Always allow text and image ads on your site.
• Create channels for placement targeting so advertisers can target specific slots on your site (see #16).
• Always put the main ad unit above the fold.

[*] When you share Google Analytics data with DoubleClick Ad Planner, the same data may also be displayed in Google Trends for Websites.

[**] You might want to use Chrome or Firefox when using Google Ad Planner because some of the features of the site don’t work in IE.

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March 22, 2010 Want to Advertise your Website on TV Channels?

Do you want to advertise your website on national TV channels but don’t have the budget to spend thousands of dollars on a TV commercial that would air for only thirty seconds?

Well this may come as a pleasant surprise but you can actually run ads on TV for your business for the price of a dinner out. The ads may not air during the very expensive prime-time shows but you can still reach the TV audience with a limited budget. Watch this story from Slate.

March 22, 2010

Want to Advertise your Website on TV Channels?

Do you want to advertise your website on national TV channels but don’t have the budget to spend thousands of dollars on a TV commercial that would air for only thirty seconds?

Well this may come as a pleasant surprise but you can actually run ads on TV for your business for the price of a dinner out. The ads may not air during the very expensive prime-time shows but you can still reach the TV audience with a limited budget. Watch this story from Slate.

Seth Stevenson of Slate Magazine shares how he used Google TV Ads, a service of Google, to run an ad on the national Fox News channel for as little as hundred bucks!

It’s a pretty straightforward process and anyone can run a TV campaign in minutes from the comfort of their living room using any Internet connected computer.

You upload a video file to your Google AdWords account, set a daily budget (amount that you are willing to spend per day on the TV commercial), pick a time of the day when you want the ad to air and finally choose a list of networks (or specific TV shows) on which you’d like to broadcast your ad.

Coming back to Slate’s experiment, their TV ad was aired a total of 54 times on 4 different cable networks and was seen by at least 1.3 million people.

Slate had put a website URL in their TV ad and it turned out that 1,000+ people actually visited that website after watching the TV commercial. The total cost for running the TV campaign was only $1300 -- that’s like paying a very reasonable cost of $1 per visitor (CPC).

Whether you a freelance web designer or run a discount store on eBay, Google TV ads can be an exciting platform to find new customers for your small business with limited budget for advertising. The service is currently available to advertisers located in the United States and you can only target U.S. based cable networks.

Read more "March 22, 2010 Want to Advertise your Website on TV Channels?"

March 22, 2010 Want to Advertise your Website on TV Channels?

Do you want to advertise your website on national TV channels but don’t have the budget to spend thousands of dollars on a TV commercial that would air for only thirty seconds?

Well this may come as a pleasant surprise but you can actually run ads on TV for your business for the price of a dinner out. The ads may not air during the very expensive prime-time shows but you can still reach the TV audience with a limited budget. Watch this story from Slate.

March 22, 2010

Want to Advertise your Website on TV Channels?

Do you want to advertise your website on national TV channels but don’t have the budget to spend thousands of dollars on a TV commercial that would air for only thirty seconds?

Well this may come as a pleasant surprise but you can actually run ads on TV for your business for the price of a dinner out. The ads may not air during the very expensive prime-time shows but you can still reach the TV audience with a limited budget. Watch this story from Slate.

Seth Stevenson of Slate Magazine shares how he used Google TV Ads, a service of Google, to run an ad on the national Fox News channel for as little as hundred bucks!

It’s a pretty straightforward process and anyone can run a TV campaign in minutes from the comfort of their living room using any Internet connected computer.

You upload a video file to your Google AdWords account, set a daily budget (amount that you are willing to spend per day on the TV commercial), pick a time of the day when you want the ad to air and finally choose a list of networks (or specific TV shows) on which you’d like to broadcast your ad.

Coming back to Slate’s experiment, their TV ad was aired a total of 54 times on 4 different cable networks and was seen by at least 1.3 million people.

Slate had put a website URL in their TV ad and it turned out that 1,000+ people actually visited that website after watching the TV commercial. The total cost for running the TV campaign was only $1300 -- that’s like paying a very reasonable cost of $1 per visitor (CPC).

Whether you a freelance web designer or run a discount store on eBay, Google TV ads can be an exciting platform to find new customers for your small business with limited budget for advertising. The service is currently available to advertisers located in the United States and you can only target U.S. based cable networks.

Read more "March 22, 2010 Want to Advertise your Website on TV Channels?"

Add Your Blog Sitemap to Google Webmaster

Add Your Blogspot Blog Sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools

Step 1. Open the Google Webmaster Tools website at google.com/webmasters and click "Add a Site" button to submit your Blogger blogger.

You can either type the web address (URL) of your blogspot.com blog or even a self-hosted blog where you are using the Blogger platform with your personal domain.

Step 2. Google will ask you to verify that you are the owner of this blog. Just copy-paste the meta code to the clipboard and then paste* this information into the template of your Blogspot blog.

*You should switch to the "HTML" version of your blog template and paste the code just below the tag.

Step 3. Go back to Google Webmaster Tools and select "Sitemaps" from the right sidebar. Now click the "Submit a Sitemap" button.



Step 4. Type atom.xml?redirect=false and submit. Once the clock status icon changes to a green tick, your Blogger sitemap has been successfully submitted to Google for indexing.

* If you are using FeedBurner for your Blogger RSS Feeds, the redirect=false parameter will force Google to download your Blogger feed and not the FeedBurner feed.

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