You can now add a Sphinn button to your site to let visitors quickly submit your post to Sphinn, the SEO Digg clone from Search Engine Land.

Here is the button:

Feel free to download it and host it yourself. It also does measure up to Danny Sullivan’s button standards.

Wordpress Code:
<a href="http://sphinn.com/submit?url=<?php echo get_permalink() ?>"><img src="http://bloggerdesign.com/downloads/sphinn.png" border="0" alt="Sphinn" title="Add to Sphinn"></a>

JavaScript Code:
<script type="text/javascript">
var URL = window.location.href;
document.write("<a href='http://sphinn.com/submit?url="+URL+"'><img src='http://bloggerdesign.com/downloads/sphinn.png' border='0' alt='Sphinn' title='Add to Sphinn'></a>")
</script>

I’ll be working on getting the Sphinn button into the social bookmark tool too in the upcoming week or so.

[tags]sphinn,search-engine-land,social-bookmark,digg[/tags]

“Why should I use del.icio.us?” is a question I got the other day. It seems that del.icio.us provides no search engine love as it blocks the bookmarks with nofollow tags, yet it is very valuable.

What del.icio.us is good for is exposure. Lots of people use del.icio.us to not only store their own bookmarks but find new and interesting websites. I know that sites like LifeHacker sometimes posts on what is popular in del.icio.us too. This then turns in to a very valuable link back to your site.

What you are really doing is trying to create buzz and visibility for an article or a site that you think is interesting. It’s not about spamming link building for search engines.

Lets not forget that del.icio.us is owned by Yahoo and who knows what Yahoo might do with del.icio.us. They could do away with the nofollow tags or possibly use it to influence their own rankings. Only time will tell.

I would continue to use del.icio.us as an avenue for social bookmarking and exposure because it’s the most popular and most used social bookmarking site out there. However, also look into other services too. Sites like Spurl.net are more search engine friendly and can actually dual post to del.icio.us also. Now you are hitting two good sites with one bookmark.

Blogs sure are great, and owners are doing everything they can to optimize them for search engines, but what about people? There are a few usability plugins that make it easier for visitors to interact with your site.

Optimal Title / SEO Title : Good title tags are not just for search engines. They also appear in the users history and possibly bookmarks. Title tags should be specific -> generic. So, don’t start all your tittle tags with your blog name please.

Subscribe to Comments : Getting comments is one trick, keeping the people up to date on the comment discussion is important. I can’t think of how many times I’ve posted and then I couldn’t remember where I made my comments. Email notifications is a great way to get updates on comments and keep your visitors connected.

Chicklet Creator : A big feature of blogs is the syndication abilities. Having a feed is great, but making it easy to subscribe to is even better. (This is one of my projects.)

Spam Detection : Reading a blog full of viagra and casino comment spam is not fun. Chances are, it’ll annoy your users too and they’ll stop visiting.
- Akismet
- Spam Karma