Zemanta puts the ‘cherry on top of the sundae’ @e1evation

Zemanta puts the ‘cherry on top of the sundae’

By Todd Lohenry + on December 22, 2011 in Blogging, Content Management, Content Marketing, Just in case, Thoughts, TODDx Talks, Tools

It’s a sad dog that can’t wag it’s own tail now and again so it is with all humility that I tell you that my blog, e1evation, llc, steadily ranks within the top 50 thousand websites in the US according to Alexa for the past few years. If you read my blog, you’ll quickly see that I’m no Seth Godin or Chris Brogan – I do, however, have a couple of great tools that make me competitive…

The three tools that help me keep my rankings high are:

Google Reader is the way I ‘listen’ to the internet. It allows me to create a virtual newspaper with sections that map to my blog’s focus and I either create great content by connecting the dots I glean from Google Reader or I use Windows Live Writer to curate that content and incorporate it in my blog. Zemanta, though, puts the ‘cherry on top of the sundae’ for me by converting each post from a blob of text to an eye catching, content laden, Search Engine Optimization [SEO] magnet. You can see how I use them together here:

Let’s dig a little deeper! Not only are posts with images and related articles more appealing to readers, they are more appealing to Google:

“Businesses leveraging content marketing campaigns for SEO should consider including photographs on their article pages, PR Newswire recently reported. The use of images optimized with captions and other tags that include related keywords provide more SEO opportunities. The captions and other metadata included with the photographs increase SEO, while effective use of the pictures will give a website higher quality feel. When a prospect lands on a page and sees a compelling photograph, they are a more likely to have a positive perception of the website, increase the company’s authority as a news provider. Brafton has reported that content pages with images have 94 percent higher page views than those that only have text. Moreover, labeling the photograph with an appropriate title tag will increase the likelihood that it appears in various Image Search tools offered by search engines, according to PR Newswire. In general, images should follow the same best practices for SEO as other forms content. Any instance of keyword stuffing in a photo title or caption will negatively impact search ranking and the overall quality of the website.” Source: Images can help content marketing, SEO campaigns | e1evation, llc

Zemanta helps me enforce this critical aspect of blogging by adding 4 control panels that help me put the finishing touches on my posts:

Media Gallery
Related Articles
In-text Links and
Metadata tags

Because Zemanta is available in both the free and hosted versions of WordPress, my only question to you is why aren’t you using it like I am? Questions? Feedback?