This post is about my Bachelor Thesis.

It has nothing to do with the main topics and content of Financial Jesus.

Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimization

As a part of my thesis I intend to test some simple HTML elements and see how does using (or not using) them on a web page affect the search engine rankings of the pages.

The search engine that I am targeting is Google.
I will use different keywords and methods inside HTML tags on various ways to see which option is better for ranking higher in Google.

I have come up with a number of keywords that I will use in these files that when searched from Google, currently have 0 results.

After I have published this post with links to my made up files the files will get indexed by Google. After being indexed, I can use my special made up keywords to find the files.
For example if I intend to test how the <title> tag works I can make a simple HTML file that has a keyword called “asdeavasadhflweadjjjae” in it. Currently when you search for it in Google you will get 0 results but after the file gets indexed it will show up.

The things I am testing

Having links to other pages

Does having links on a HTML page benefit it SEO wise?

Here are links to the three files.

• The first file is intended to find out whether or not using external links in a file benefit the files ranking SEO wise.
• The second file is a test file without any links. This is necessary in order to compare the two other files against something.
• The third file is intended to find out whether or not using links to the same domain name benefit the search ranking.

Don’t worry if you click on the links and don’t understand what they are meant for – unfortunately I can’t go into great depth because that would make the experiment an immediate failure.

Matching the folder/file and keyword text

In this experiment I compare 3 different files.

1. A file with an unique keyword that has a random name and is in a random folder
2. A file that has the folder name and the keyword name match
3. A file that has the folder name, file name and keyword name match

Here are the links to the three files. ( in the order showed above)

This experiment is intended to figure out which of the 3 options above rank the highest in Google.

Keyword use in H1 tag

How should you use keywords in H1 tags in order to get maximum SEO benefits?

Here I compare 5 different files:

1. Keyword as the first word in H1 tag
2. Keyword not in H1 tag
3. Keyword twice in the same H1 tag
4. Keyword in the middle of H1 tag
5. Keyword as last word in H1 tag

Here are the links to the 5 files.

Using keywords as anchor text in internal links

Here I try do get an idea whether or not using keyword as anchor text in internal links offer any SEO benefits.

Here are the tehkupehku links. (The 4th word is a unique keyword made up by me – it has no meaning)

Keyword use in the title tag

In this experiment I try 5 different methods on how to use the keyword in a page title for maximum SEO benefit.

1. Keyword as first word in title
2. Keyword as first word in title + also keyword in somewhere in body
3. No keyword in title
4. Keyword in the middle of the title
5. Keyword twice in title

Here are the links to the 5 files.

Using the meta description tag

Is the meta description tag beneficial for your Google rating?

Here I compare 2 files:

• A file with meta description
• A file without meta description

Links to the files.

This is all for now!

Good news everybody!

FinancialJesus.com has been up and running for 15 days straight and it looks that things are getting better by the day.
Sunday(that’s yesterday, baby! ) was our record breaking day with 579 unique visitors.

Here’s what happened during the first 15 days

FinancialJesus.com has a total of 34 posts and exactly 70 comments.

The comments part is what I am particularly satisfied with! It shows that there is already starting to form a small community around this website and that is exactly what I have been trying to do!

During the first 15 days I have had 1596 unique visitors! This is an average of 100 visitors a day! I am very satisfied with this, but to tell you the truth this number is very far from what it will be. All my next efforts will be made in order to get more visitors to FinancialJesus.com and eventually get the average to 1000 unique visitors per day.

My number 1 traffic source?

StumbleUpon.com – I can’t recommend it enough! I spend a lot of time on StumbleUpon to find new interesting stuff, and to tell you the truth I have submitted a few of my more interesting posts to StumbleUpon as well… If you are a user, add me as a friend

Most viewed post

My most viewed post is Top 10 richest countries of the world. I wrote it only 3 days ago, but it has already got 1134 unique visitors and 1253 page views. Nothing compared to big sites, but pretty OK for FinancialJesus.com.
The traffic to Top 10 richest countries of the world has mostly come from StumbleUpon. Guess who adds his own content to StubleUpon? That’s right – ME I only do it for posts I feel are StumbleUpon material, so, to tell you the truth, I don’t feel bad at all.

What have I learned?

Basic things actually.

1. If possible make lists – they are easier to read.
2. Use a lot of titles and highlighting – This make it easier for visitors to read your content as well
3. Use spell check – you always make mistakes!

Ads?

As you have maybe noticed financialjesus.com is ad free. But it is not my intention to keep it ad free forever. In fact just about 2 hours ago I added some Google Adsense ads to my top post – Top 10 richest countries of the world. Since I have almost no experience with ads I have yet no idea on how it will turn out. The reason I decided to post some ads is to make a small case study for myself – that way I’ll get a little experience on whether the ad formats and positioning that I used work or not!

For information on how my next 15 days will go and how the “ad placement project” went, sign up to my full feed RSS or subscribe via email.

This is a list of 15 most important WordPress plugins that you should install in order to get a blog that has excellent functionality and high traffic.

The plugins are in order of importance. If you feel that you don’t want to install all of them in one day be sure to start with the more important ones!

1. Feedburner Feedsmith – This plugin detects all possible ways a user can access your WordPress installations default RSS feeds and replaces it with a Feedburner feed. Among others the biggest benefit of having a Feedburner RSS feed is that it can tell you how many subscribed users you really have.
2. Google Analyticator – Google Analyticator allows you to use Google Analytics to track visitors to your blog without having to add the tracking code manually to your WordPress blog. To get an small overview about the information Google Analytics provides, check out my post 10 days since the launch of FinancialJesus.com
3. Akismet – This plugin automatically checks all the comments and trackbacks people leave to your blog to see if any of them is spam. It is totally automatic, so you don’t have to do anything (if you don’t want to). Akismet comes together with WordPress, but in order to activate it, you need a API key. You can get one by signing up at wordpress.com
4. Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin generates a XML sitemap of your blog each time you write a new post and lets Google and other search engine know of new content. Without Google XML Sitemaps it could take Google weeks to make your new article findable from their search engine, but with XML Sitemaps they will always know if you have new content.
5. Post Plugin Library and Similar Posts – These plugins analyze the posts that you have written and display a list of other posts that are similar to the one your visitor was reading. The first plugin does nothing by itself – it only gives your WordPress blog a framework that you could run Similar Posts
6. Subscribe to Comments – This plugin gives your readers an opportunity to subscribe to comments left to a particular post. New comments are automatically emailed to the user.
7. Brian’s Threaded Comments – This plugin gives an opportunity to reply to individual comments. The default WordPress setup automatically puts the newest comment at the end of the list. This plugin gives the user an option to reply to other peoples comments so that the answer will be displayed directly beneath the original comment.
8. Show Top Commentators Widget – This plugin automatically counts who are your blogs top commentators and shows them with a link to their website on a sidebar. This is a great way to increase the comments left to your blog because it gives your readers the chance to benefit from your blogs traffic. For instance being a top commentator in John Chow’s blog got me 84 visitors during 10 days.
9. All in one SEO pack – This plugin gives you tons of possibilities to make your blog more findable by Google and other search engines. It gives you detailed tweaking options to how Google can see your blog.
10. Auto social – This plugin will automatically submit all your posts to del.icio.us. Great for extra traffic!
11. AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget - This plugin gives you a button under all your posts that your readers can use to submit the article to different social bookmarking sites. Again – great for traffic!

Whatever plugins you use, keep in mind that no plugin can get you traffic when you don’t have any content.

For more tips about getting traffic to your WordPress blog sign up to our full feed RSS or subscribe via email.