I have several websites hosted with Weebly, including this one. I'm really glad I found this platform, because it's so easy to use and has a blogging tool built into it. It's also pretty SEO friendly, although it can take a while for blog posts to get indexed by Google.

Sure, Weebly is no Wordpress when it comes to blogging. But it's still pretty darn good. It's as good as Blogger in my opinion -- although Blogspot blogs get indexed by Google a lot quicker, often almost immediately.

And since you're paying for the hosting, you can put your own ads on your site, and make some money. With Blogger you've got to be careful about doing this. They have been known to simply remove sites for overdoing this aspect, although a few ads here and there generally aren't a problem. Still, it's hard to know where the cut off point is. (You can make money on Blogger with Adsense and Amazon, though. They don't mind that!)

That said, you can also provoke the ire of Weebly for having too many ads. But at least you can e-mail them and ask to check that you aren't overdoing it, and they will definitely get back to you. You won't get that kind of customer service from Google -- at least not for a free service.

The great thing about the Weebly blogging tool is that it's already part of the package. You just set up your domain and get cracking. And from what I can tell blogging really does seem to help that main domain SEO-wise. I've repeatedly observed that in the weeks after writing several blog posts I not only get more long tail keyword search traffic to those individual posts, but the traffic to my main domain tends to rise a little as well. I think this is because Google is rewarding the website for including fresh material -- for having a pulse, so to speak. (I assume this phenomenon applies regardless of the web host. Just another good reason to add a blog to your website, no matter how you do it.)

The other thing is that new Weebly sites get indexed automatically before too long. That is, you don't actually have to tweet your new URL or create some backlink elsewhere to alert Google to its existence.

I suspect this is because the search engine is looking though Weebly itself pretty regularly, and so it will catch those new websites built on it. This probably happens with all big website hosts these days. Still, it's good to know.

You can always tell when some online problem has caused a lot of damage because you'll tend to see many websites popping up dedicated to combating the scourge.

For example, when people started realizing that there were adverse reports about them and their businesses appearing in search engines, online reputation management became a booming little industry in its own right.

And after years of reports about crimes -- sometimes as serious as murder -- committed by people who met their victims via online dating, the sites themselves started being much more rigorous about their own internal security procedures, and promoting this as an extra reason to join. Also, businesses specializing in checking people's backgrounds started to pop up.

Now, in the wake of Google's Penguin update, countless business owners are trying to have the bad links that shady -- or even just a bit careless -- SEO companies built for them located and removed. Many of them will no doubt be seeking out the bad link removal services that existed prior to that major algorithm change. And there are some entirely new ones popping up to meet the demand.

Take this website devoted exclusively to this purpose. It's got next to no backlinks itself so is clearly "hot off the presses". I suspect there'll be quite a few more sites like this appearing in coming months.

One of the aspects of website promotion that the recent Penguin update targeted strongly was an excess of unnatural links to URLs. For example, if too many backlinks with exactly the same anchor text appeared these were deemed unnatural, and incurred a penalty.

The idea behind this was that natural, voluntary, one way links (the best indicators of quality in Google's eyes) will by their nature include wildly varying anchor text, sometimes with seemingly completely unrelated keywords in them. Conversely, much similarity in anchor text implies an attempt at manipulation.

This has left anyone interested in SEO in a bit of a quandary. They know that you should continue to build links to your pages because it still helps them rise in the search engine rankings. But while you do this, you have to consciously avoid making these links look unnatural. It's pretty funny when you think about it.

It's like that famous line that came originally from French writer Jean Giradoux: "The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made." Or to put this more specifically: Google doesn't like to be tricked, so now you've got to trick it into thinking you're not trying to trick it ... or something.

The absurdity of this makes you want to throw your hands up in the air in complete exasperation.
And as far as I'm concerned it's all the more reason to just do a lot less link building full stop. Surely the best approach is to use the extra time and energy this allows to focus on putting more really good quality content on your website. That way those links to it will develop and they will be natural.

Sure, you'll have to wait a while to see some results. But the benefits will be more substantial, and last longer (possibly indefinitely) too. Best of all, you won't incur Google's wrath.

Like almost all bloggers, I get a lot of comment spam. This is annoying, of course. But what's really surprising is that quite a bit of it comes from search engine optimization companies!

Clearly, these businesses are not at all concerned about the quality of their work. And I suspect they haven't been keeping up with developments in their own industry. While spamming comment threads may still work as a way to lift rankings in the short to medium term the effect must certainly be waning. Nowadays, any URL associated with the practice risks being slapped pretty heavily by Google, or even completely removed from its index.

The fact that this practice is still so widespread is another reason that website owners should do as much of their own SEO as possible., in my opinion. Imagine pouring thousands of dollars into such a campaign thinking that it was completely legitimate, only to see your search engine traffic disappear overnight!

That's not to say that all blog commenting is bad. There is SEO value in leaving good, relevant and thoughtful comments because you do get backlinks -- but most importantly you are alerting other bloggers to your website's presence. If both your comments and your website content are of a good quality, then a few of them will probably link to one of your pages in time. Therefore the best way to approach commenting is to only ever write ones that you would leave regardless of whether you even had a URL to link back to or not.

I've been thinking about building another site lately and so I have been pondering what domain name to give it. This is always a bit tricky because I've got to consider the SEO aspects, but it also has to seem natural and be easy to remember.

This ease of recollection factor is important generally, but it is crucial when it comes to getting word of mouth interest in a website. And that's still definitely worth having, even though people tend to forget it.

For this reason it's always preferable to have a domain name that's fairly short. So two words is good. And three can be fine if each of them isn't too long.

I also think it helps a lot if the title you give to the whole website is an exact match with the domain name -- or at least very close to it. It also helps if it's a "dot com", because that's still the one that most people automatically think of.

And you should try not to use dashes in it if possible. If you are trying to tell someone what it is, these make it sound very awkward. And people always forget where they go, anyway. (I know there is a school of thought that says dashes can be useful for clarification in some cases where words other than those intended can be perceived. By strongly separating them, dashes make Google's job easier. But such cases are rare. And I think the search engine is more than smart enough to figure out what they are now anyway since it will factor in the website's overall content.)

If you do these things you don't even have to meticulously describe the whole domain name when you or other people verbally promote your website. You just say it is called "My Own Site". If they want to have a look they'll string those words together and usually put the "dot com" on the end and know what it is. But even if they don't they'll just search for those words and your website will tend to come up at the top of the results.

The more I get into social media, the more I realize just how important it is to anyone with a website or blog. That's why I'm using Twitter a lot now. (That said, I haven't really looked into Facebook. I know some people swear by it for drawing traffic. But I just can't get into it.)

Twitter is really focused and targeted. And you can use its search function to find members according to various criteria. Say you want to find people to connect with in your city. You can go to the advanced search form and specify a location along with other criteria.

Or you can just use the basic search function and type in one location keyword and another one or more keywords and you'll get some good results. One search that works well is a city name along with "recommend". You'll get a whole bunch of people who are obviously presently in a particular location and hoping for some good advice on which are the best local bars, cafes and restaurants, etc.

This gives you an opportunity to tweet about your location. And those particular tweets can get found by others seeking local tweeps to follow. Needless to say, those people who are asking for the advice will appreciate it, too. Do this regularly and you'll get some local click-throughs.

You can also use Twitter search with website search engine optimization in mind. If you do a location search along with keywords like "blog", "blogger", "webmaster", and "website" you'll find people with a strong online presence. You can interact with them and build up a bit of a rapport. Eventually this is sure to generate the odd link back to your website or blog. These links are doubly powerful because not only are they one way, they are also very geo-targeted.