Thanks for visiting again, why not get my Blog updates via Twitter?
Thanks! Eoin

Yesterday, I removed my Alex Jeffreys students Blogroll from this blog.

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

Once you start using Twitter, you’ll find that there are a LOT of posts on screen. It can make twitter look totally disorganised.

How do you keep an eye on the people on Twitter that you really want to get updates from?

There are two method that I have used.

The first is using Twitter Profiles. basically, you just go to the person’s Twitter Profile and bookmark the page, in it’s own special folder. Then, when you get the time to catch up, just use the bookmark to go to profile and read the person’s past messages.

The second method is to use software to do the job, the best so far seems to be Tweetdeck.

After you install it, it allows you to make groups, and you can move followers into smaller groups in the software, to minimise the clutter.

A great feature of Tweetdeck is it opens automatically opens windows for your @replies and direct messages sent to you, so you don’t miss a message from someone.

As I mentioned before, I’ve been using Twitter since 2007, so I’ve had time to find what works best for me and personally, I’ve found bookmarking better,  but I do think it depends on the individual, as many people couldn’t do without Tweetdeck.

Before you begin work on your website or Blog, you need to get the code needed to install Google Analytics.
Google Analytics is a free, reliable tool that tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site.

Basically, it will show you how people found your web site, so that you can fix problems and also focus your marketing resources on advertising that delivers a better Return On Investment. You can also use it to improve your site to convert more visitors.

Adding Google Analytics to your web site is an essential step, as it gives you more of an advantage over your competition, as you will be able to see what’s working and not working, not just guess.

To use Google Analytics, you need to sign up for a free account with Google and then insert a simple piece of code on each web page or into your Blog.
After you install it, you will be able to analyse and monitor all the visitors to your website.

For a full list of the freely available Google Analytics features, go to: http://www.google.com/analytics/features.html

Instructions To Install & Configure Google Analytics:

A. INSTALL GOOGLE ANALYTICS

To install Google Analytics, sign up for a free account at http://analytics.google.com

You need to have a Google Account to do this, which is also free, just follow the directions on screen.

B. CONFIGURE GOOGLE ANALYTICS

i) Follow the steps provided by Google for creating a profile for your domain name.

ii) Take your time, as any mistakes may not be noticed until after you have done a lot of work, which may need to be re-done.

iii) Once these steps are completed, Google will provide you with some HTML code that copy to the bottom of every web page, immediately before the HTML </body>.

If you have a WordPress blog, download this PlugIn to make life easier.

Be sure to select “New Tracking Code (ga.js)”, it looks similar to this:

<script type=”text/javascript”>

var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);

document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src=’” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));

</ script>

<script type=”text/javascript”>

var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-#######-#”);

pageTracker._trackPageview();

</ script>

C. To add this HTML code please follow these steps:

a) Scroll down to the bottom of each page, to where you see the body tag:  </body>

b) Right before the </body> tag, paste the lines of HTML code provided by Google.

c) Save the changes.

D. ACCESS YOUR WEBSTATS VIA GOOGLE ANALYTICS

To access your stats, log in to your Analytics account at http://analytics.google.com.

To learn more about using Google Analytics, take a look at this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KK7i084W2w

How To Twitter

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform, it’s called micro-blogging because all posts must be 140 characters or less.
It can also be used as an Instant Messenger, if the person you are contacting in online.

Twitter is so new, that the only way to really understand Twitter is to get an account and use it.

So if you haven’t got a Twitter account, go to http://twitter.com and first watch the video.

Then click on the What? Why? & How? links.
This information will help to explain what Twitter is.
Next … join Twitter.

You will be asked for a User name, e-Mial address and password.

For your user name, I suggest you use your own name, with no spaces, so if your name is John Smith, your user name would be johnsmith.

Be sure to fill out your Twitter Profile. To do this, LogIn to Twitter and look to the top right of your screen, for “Settings”.

For “More Info URL:”, I suggest you put a link to your blog or website.
For “One Line Bio:”, write a short bio about yourself, make it interesting, especially if you want people to follow you.

What next?

Twitter is based on “Followers” and “Following”

“Followers” are people that have decided to Follow your updates.

“Following” are the people your decided to Follow their updates.

In order for someone to see a message you send to them, they must be following you.
So people that are your “Followers” can read your messages, but unless you are also following them, they can send a message to you.

There is a way around this, that I will show you later.

When you want to send a message (called a Tweet in Twitter slang) to someone, you use the @ symbol + their User name.

My username is eoinoleary, so to send a message to me, you would start the message with @eoinoleary

Remember I wrote that in order for someone to see a message you send to them, they must be following you? and that there is a way around this?

Well if you send a message to anyone on Twitter, using the @ symbol + their User name, it will show up in their “Replies” section, that you can find on the Right, under Home.
However, many people don’t check their replies, so there is no guarantee that they will see it.

Using Twitter

To use Twitter, you need to do is to find people to Follow and people to Follow you. The best way to do this is to find people you know on Twitter,.
You will also be able to see how they are using Twitter and maybe send messages to each other.

To do this, login to Twitter and look to the top right of your screen, for Find People.

You have three choices.
1) Find On Twitter: Which is good if already know someone you know is on Twitter.

2) Invite from other networks: If you have an online e-mail account, you might be able to find people you already know by letting Twitter take a look.
At the moment Twitter can automatically check Gmail, Yahoo mail, AOL, Hotmail or MSN.

3) Invite by e-mail: This is easy, just send an e-mail to people you know, asking them to join.

You can also look for celebrities on Twitter, like Barack Obama, http://twitter.com/BarackObama, who used Twitter during the 2008 US Presidential election.

Be aware that you will find that many celebrity Twitter Accounts are fake accounts, so before you follow them, be sure to take a look at their posts and their profile.
A fake account should be obvious.

I’ve been using Twitter since 2007 and I find it interesting to see what people do with it.

Twitter can be used in many ways, but I’ve observed some interesting characteristics.

The people that have been on Twitter for a few months seem to have adapted Twitter for their needs, posting frequently, with a high percentage of useful information.
Most of these people have a large number of followers, at least 500 but probably far more.

Now I know that “useful information” is dependent on the individual, but why would you follow someone that always posts useless information?

Then you have the people new to Twitter, the majority seem to spend their time feverishly running around trying to build their Followers. I was guilty of this in the past myself.

Posting Useful information is the main tip for Twitter, but Following and Interacting is the real secret of Twitter.

If you follow people that you genuinely want to receive tweets (posts) from, and interact with them, you will start to see Twitter in a whole new light.

This is by no means a full Twitter how to, but it should get you started and don’t forget to follow me, eoinoleary on Twitter.