Before I did it, I e-mailed everyone (I think) that was on the Blogroll and informed them of my decision. I received many replies to that e-mail, wanting to know why I decided to do it and why I didn’t just use a “No Follow” PlugIn for the Blog.

This post is to explain why.

Why I removed the Alex Jeffreys students Blogroll

I  decided to remove the blogroll when I realised there was no SEO benefit and when Alex revealed that our blogs are supposed to be Stand Alone and not a group.
Why bring people to your site, so they can go to another students site?

From my experience and the feedback I’ve received from the SEO experts I rely on for up to date information, the only way we would have had a major problem with Google, is if we had tried to put a few 100 links on it.

If we had been able to keep the number of links low, and because we clearly marked our Blogrolls, Alex Jeffreys Students, I would expect that any investigation would have seen that we were not trying to deliberately do anything wrong.

In that situation, the most Google would probably do is give no “credit” for the backlink.

I don’t know this for a fact, but it’s the best I could come up with, as we wouldn’t know for sure unless Google decided to take action.
‘NoFollowup’

I don’t agree with a blanket ‘NoFollowup’ policy, if I decide to link to a site in my blogroll, I want the site to get any benefit it can from the link. The same way that I would like to get the benefit of any backlink to my Blog

There is a built-in No Follow to the parts of WordPress that I want a No Follow on and I’m happy with that.

Backlinks

One Way Backlinks are links to your web site or blog from another web site, blog, Search Engine, etc. That your web site or Blog does not link back to.

One Way Backlinks to a website are the strongest links you can get, especially if the link is from an authority site.

Two way linking, I link to you, you link to me, are of little value, so I actually want one way backlinks to my site.

So our Blogroll links wouldn’t be worth a lot, as they were two way links.

That’s it, it was a business decision, nothing personal.

Eoin

Alex emphasized that we needed to take the advice he was giving us and not ignore it as “too simple” or “that won’t work” … they will work … because they have worked for him and plenty of others.

We covered getting Blogs set up right and getting together to help any students that are having problems with their Blog, or any of the other steps needed to get up to date.

We also covered some YouTube basics and I learned a few stratagies I didn’t know before.

Twitter was looked at again, to get anyone new to Twitter up to speed … and while we’re on the subject, if you’re not following me on Twitter … Why Not?
I’ll be posting information there also, as I find it, that may not get to my blog.

Alex also launched a competition aimed at getting us to implement what we have learned so far, to attract traffic from people interested in what we are doing and an added incentive, he’s put up a prize of $1,000 …

…. so I’ll be doing some work over the next few days and during the Christmas holidays to compete for that prize.

LogIn to your Blog.

If you are just going to call the new list “BlogRoll”, skip to part 2.

Part 1

If you want to make a new Category for Links, go to;

WordPress 2.7 = Links \ Link Categories
OR
Older WordPress version = Manage \ Links \ Link Categories

Name the Category and name the slug with the same name, but no Capital Letters and use a dash instead of a space. e.g new-category NOT New Category

Click Add Category.

Part 2

Next, go to go to ;

WordPress 2.7 = Links \ Add New
OR
Older WordPress version = Manage \ Links \  Add New

For name, copy and paste the  name of the person or web site.

For Web Address, copy and paste the full web address.  (I always check that it’s correct first)

Look down the page for Categories and select the Category you want.

Click Add Link.
Hope this help some of you

Eoin

There are two versions of WordPress being used at the moment, the older version, (which is what most people still use), and the newer version WordPress 2.7, so I’ll add instructions for both.

I put the Ads in the Right Column of my Blog using the text Widget.

Yes … I know there are PlugIn to do this, but if you upgrade WordPress, that PlugIn may not work afterward and your Ads stop showing.
The text Widget is far safer.
OK, I make the advert in HTML first, using Dreamweaver or NVU,

Then LogIn to your Blog and go to

WordPress 2.7 = Appearance \ Widgets
OR
Older WordPress version = Design \ Widgets.

Look for the text widget on the LEFT of screen.

Click Add.

Put the cursor over the new Blue text section on the RIGHT, hold down the left mouse button to move into the order you want it.

Then click Edit.

Paste the HTML into the white section.

Click Done.

Click Save Changes, (bottom Right)

Now open your Blog in another Browser window and see how it looks.

That’s basically what you do, you can edit and save as needed.

Eoin

PlugIns extend the functions on your blog.

For example, when I wanted to make it easy for people could easly share my blog on Social Networks, I found a PlugIn that adds the icons to the various Social Networks to the bottom of my blog posts … (you can see them in this post, beginning with FaceBook),

The PlugIn is called “Sociable“.

Try it … look at the bottom of this post for the line of small icons ….
move your cursor over the icons and click on one of the Social Networks you have an account in …
LogIn to your account and watch what happens … it’s nice an easy.

Other PlugIns I use are;

Google XML Sitemaps, to automatically build a Google Sitemap for my blog.

Google Analyticator, to automatically add Google Analytics to every page.

All in One SEO Pack, this is a Search Engine Optimization PlugIn that has replaced three older SEO PlugIns and is working well.

Twitter Tools. If you use Twitter, this is a great tool.

What Would Seth Godin Do, Displays a custom welcome message to new visitors and another to return visitors.