Scraps Of Mind

I love my old boots.

They’re 11 years old and I’ve ‘replaced’ them twice with newer boots. But I just can’t get rid of my old friends.

And although I wear my newer boots, whenever I know I’ll be doing a bit of walking during the day I always reach for my trusty old boots, knowing they will see me through. They’re even more comfortable than my runners (trainers, sneakers).

They’ve walked me around large chunks of France, Italy, the UK and Ireland.

They’ve been used and abused.

And they just keep giving.

Is it any wonder that I would dedicate a scrapbook layout to them.

They have been repaired so many times, I’ve lost count. And I know that one day (probably in the not too distant future) they will be beyond repair and will go to that Great Shoe Closet in the Sky.

But that day is not now.

Now I open my wardrobe and my hand hovers over my smart boots before drifting, as though drawn by a magnet, to my shabby old friends.

A quick shine up and they’ll look as good as new. Yeah, right. I know it’s to my eyes only, but I don’t care.

My boots and I will walk on together.

Old Friends walking into the sunset.

Have you ever noticed how some of your blog posts seem to attract more visitors from Google than others do?

Incidentally you can see this information in whatever statistics package you use. For Wordpress bloggers it’s in the Stats Dashboard and for others it is sure to be in the stats section of your platform’s dashboard. Or you can sign up to a free Google Analytics account which will give you more information about your blog’s visitors than you can imagine existed.

Anyway, back to the topic.

There are reasons why some of your posts attract more Google visitors than others. And one of those reasons is probably in your post Title.

Google searches operate with key words or phrases. These are the words that you type into the search box to locate all the web pages that include your search criteria. Unless the key words you type in are pretty obscure, Google will probably return thousands (or even millions) of links to pages where the key words you are searching for appear. There might be hundreds of screens with these links.

Now obviously no one who is searching on Google is going to wade through hundreds of screens to find what they want. Usually they will only go as far as the first handful of screens and select from the links that they find there.

So how do those web pages make it to the first few screens?

Well some of them pay Google for their position at the top of the list, but for most of the rest it’s because they do something called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) on their web pages to get Google to notice them more.

SEO is a huge topic and covers many things but here are a few simple things that you might like to keep in mind when you’re writing your blog posts that will improve their position on Google search rankings.

1 Choose your key words and key phrases

Try to make them not too generic. You’ll have better success if you choose a phrase that isn’t being used by hundreds of thousands of other web sites.

If you look at the stats on your Google visitors you will see which key phrases your visitors typed in to find your site. These would make a good starting point for choosing your key words and phrases.

2 Try to include your keywords in your post title

When Google is searching for keywords placing is very important. Keywords in the title carry far more ‘weight’ with the Google search engine than when they just appear in the content of your post.

3 Include your keywords in your heading

After your Title, the next most important place (from a ‘weight perspective) is in your Headings.

Your Headings should use the headings tags (h1,h2,h3,h4) to count or the search engine won’t realise they are headings. There is usually a formatting icon on your blog’s editing tool that let’s you choose whether your text is to be part of your regular content or a heading.

4 Include your keywords in your content

Sprinkling your key words throughout your content will also help your post rank well for your chosen key words.

Just remember your post is being written to be read by humans so don’t stuff it full of key words so that it’s not good to read.

5 Include your keywords in your tags

Before you publish your post you will have the option to add tags. Make sure that your key word or phrase is one of the tags.

6 Link to the post from other posts

If you have the opportunity to link to your ‘key word’ post in other posts that you write, do it. Especially if you can use your key words to form the anchor text (the text that you make the link on).

Now just start watching your stats to see how many new visitors Google brings to your blog.

Other Related Articles:

Get a Traffic Rush to your Blog with StumbleUpon

Are you Driving Blog Commenters Away?

Another Word Art Digital Scrapbooking Freebie for you

It’s a bit weird living on the opposite side of the World to most of my readers. Not so much in the right to left sense, that just means I’m awake when you’re asleep and vice versa. The part I find the weirdest is the top to bottom perspective.

You see I live in Australia and, being in the Southern Hemisphere, our seasons are opposite to yours in the Northern Hemisphere.

So it is quite strange to read on blogs and forums about how everyone is getting excited about their summer vacations and is melting in the heat etc. When we are muffling up for winter and firing up the central heating, you Northerners are running around in sandals and shorts and reaching for the air cooler.

So to celebrate the diversity of the seasons in both hemispheres, here is some Summer and Winter Word Art Freebies for you to enjoy.

To download this Word Art just right mouse click on the image and choose Save Target as… or Save link as…

I hope you have fun using these. And if you post your scrapbook layouts on your blog please let me know so I can come and see them.

A Contest and a Video

Following on from my update last Monday on the Kilmore Celtic Festival, I came across the video below. It seems a fitting conclusion to my Celtic week.

But first a gift wrapping contest

Yes, you read that right.

Many scrapbookers extend their love for all things paper and decorative and they really go to town when wrapping up gifts. I must confess, I’m not one of these folk. Gift wrapping is a little too ephemeral for me. I like the things I create to last just a tad longer.

However I’ll be the first to admit that a beautifully wrapped present is a wonderful thing to receive.

And Scotch (the sticky tape people, not the alcoholic beverage people) have come out with a contest for all you gift wrapping enthusiasts where you can win $10,000!

To enter, describe in 100 words or less why you or someone you know has what it takes – whether it’s a vast amount of gift-wrapping experience or endless creativity – to be crowned the “Scotch Brand Most Gifted Wrapper” for 2009.  The person who nominates the grand-prize winner will also receive $1,000 for his/her winning recommendation. Be sure to also include the following:

• Your name, home address, city, state, zip code, daytime phone number, fax number and e-mail address (if available).
• Nominee’s name, home address, city, state, zip code, daytime phone number, fax number and e-mail address (if available).
• Whether the nominee is entering as a professional or amateur. Note that anyone who is currently or has previously earned income as a gift wrapper at a department store, specialty store, etc. is considered a professional.

Entries must be received no later than October 5, 2009 and can be submitted by mail, fax or e-mail to: Scotch Brand Most Gifted Wrapper Contest, c/o Hunter Public Relations, 41 Madison Avenue, 5th Floor, New York, New York 10010; fax: (212) 679-6607; e-mail: giftedwrapper@hunterpr.com.

Eight winners will receive a 3-day all-expenses paid trip to New York City where they’ll compete in the practical leg of the competition in a Grand Wrap-Off  between the final eight contestants to determine the winner of the contest and the $10,000 prize.

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, pop an email off to them or visit http://www.scotchbrand.com/ for a complete set of contest rules.

And now to the video

Many of you will recall the popularity of  Riverdance in the 90s. They were a brilliant Irish Dancing Company who toured the World leaving us awed and amazed as they step danced, tapped and high-kicked across the stage. If anyone had a little bit of Irish in them, Riverdance woke it up and really brought it out.

The most well known dancer from the Company was Michael Flately who went on to form his own company called Lord of the Dance.

Well, (drum fanfare) Scraps of Mind is pleased and proud to bring you:

The New Lord of the Dance:

This is very funny

…and a Template Digital Scrapbooking Freebie

Coming up with fresh ideas for your scrapbook layout designs can sometimes be a challenge. So here’s a tip you might find useful:

Recycle your old scrapbook layouts!

I don’t mean that literally of course. But if you choose some of your favorite scrapbook layouts that you have previously done you can easily create a sketch that you can turn into a totally fresh new layout.

How to Create a Sketch from a Scrapbook Layout

• Choose a scrapbook layout that has some strong structural elements to the design.
• Now sketch the layout on a piece of paper, leaving out all the small details. Just draw basic geometric shapes such as circles, rectangles and triangles to represent the key elements.
• The reason for this is that you don’t want to replicate your original scrapbook layout on your new one. You just want to create the structure that you can build your new layout on.
• Now turn the sketch around. See how it looks from each of the four sides. You don’t need to necessarily repeat the sketch exactly as the original layout. But you will have the basic structure of the design to build on.

And for digital scrapbookers you can take it a step further and Read the rest of this entry »