• Apply to the Yahoo! directory (cost - moderate)
• Submit to solid directories such as Joe Ant, GoGuides, BOTW, Ezilon, Rubberstamped and Massive Links. (cost -moderate)
• Join a Chamber, your industry Association, and clubs. (cost - low to moderate)
• Issue a press release announcing the new site (cost - low)
• Buy a list of high-profile journalists and contact directly for one-on-one interviews (cost -moderate)
• Backlink your competitors and those ranking ahead of you for link and advertising leads. (free)
• Develop a “how to” video for your site and it’s products. Submit to the video and HowTo sites (cost - low)
• Buy ad space in offline publications annoucing your new site (cost -moderate to high)
• Find an established business in a complementary industry to host a co-promotion or buy their mailing list to send out link incentives. (cost - low)
• Find out who’s podcasting in your niche and buy space, offer to be a guest or donate products to be given away in exchange for either of the above. Look for high visibility podcasts to advertise in, sweeten the deal with incentives. (cost - free to low)
• Locate the prominent bloggers in your niche and start adding to the industry by commenting on their views. Don’t be obnoxious and don’t do it everyday. Join their community and they’ll join yours. (cost - free)
• Be sure to incorporate an incentive-to-link program in all your external correspondence such as autoresponders, confirmation emails, reminders etc. (cost free)
• Create a corporate blog and invite bloggers, journalists, and your customers to contribute. Continually promote the site and it’s writers and in turn, they’ll support your site by linking to it. Don’t forget to add an RSS feed as well. (cost free to low)
• Be sure to add the blog to all the blog directories as well as the RSS feeds to RSS directories. (Cost - free)

Put the following code anywhere in your theme’s template functions.php file. For example, if your theme is called “travel” then you would probably find this file here - wp-content/themes/travel/functions.php. If for some reason this file doe not exisit, just create it and save it in your theme’s folder.

Copy and paste the following into the functions.php file -

function exclude_category($query) {
if ( $query->is_feed || $query->is_home ) {
$query->set(’cat’, ‘-1′);
}
return $query;
}
add_filter(’pre_get_posts’, ‘exclude_category’);

The code above excludes the category with the id of “1″ from both the RSS feed and from the main page of your blog. If you want to exclude multiple categories, simply add a comma ( , ) and a dash ( - ) followed by the category ID. For example: ‘-2, -3, -4′. You can locate the category id by logging into the Wordpress dashboard, clicking on manage, then categories.

If you just want to exclude a category from the main page and not the RSS feed, simply replace “( $query->is_feed || $query->is_home )” with “( $query->$query->is_home )” or to remove it from just the RSS feed “( $query->is_feed)”.

That’s all there is to it! Happy coding!

So I sat down and wrote the following code that I think you might find helpful to increase your blog’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization) value.

All of these changes should occur in your header.php file of your Wordpress blog’s template files.

First, I wanted to dynamically create the <title> tag with the blog’s name as the default, but include the category, archive or page title when I was browsing a category, archive or page. Here is the code to do that. Simply cut and paste this code, replacing your current <title></title> tag.

<title><?php if (is_home()): bloginfo(’name’); elseif (is_category()): bloginfo(’name’); print(” - “); single_cat_title(); elseif (is_day() || is_month() || is_year()): bloginfo(’name’); print(” - “); the_time(’F Y’); else: bloginfo(’name’); print(” - “); the_title(); endif; ?></title>

Next, i wanted to dynamically create the <META description> tag to make it unique to each page of my blog. Specifically I wanted it to display the current category or archive I was browsing or if I was browsing a page I wanted it to dynamically create the description from the first 20 words of my post. Here is the code to do that. Simply cut and paste this code, replacing the current <META description=”" /> tag.

<meta name=”description” content=”<?php if (have_posts()&& is_single()):while(have_posts()):the_post(); the_excerpt_rss(20,2); endwhile; elseif (is_category()): single_cat_title(); print(” category of the “); bloginfo(’name’); elseif (is_day() || is_month() || is_year()): the_time(’F Y’); print(” archive of the “); bloginfo(’name’); else: bloginfo(’description’); endif; ?>” />

NOTE: You can change the number of words contained in the page description by changing the first number of the_excerpt_rss() function. So in my example, I have it set to 20 words - the_excerpt_rss(20,2). If I wanted 25 words, I would change it to this - the_excerpt_rss(25,2).

Finally, the <META keywords>. I wanted to keep the keywords consistent from category to archive to page, only adding additional category names or archive attributes. Here is the code to do that. Simply cut and paste this code, replacing the current <META keywords=”" /> tag.

<meta name=”keywords” content=”<?php if (is_category()): single_cat_title(); print(”, “); elseif (is_day() || is_month() || is_year()): the_time(’F'); print(”, “); the_time(’Y'); print(”, “); endif;?>travel, blog, destination, information, see, do, help, advice, reviews, save, savings, ideas, business, golf” />

That’s all there is to it! To make it easier for you, here is all of the change in once place so you just copy and paste once! Happy SEO!

<title><?php if (is_home()): bloginfo(’name’); elseif (is_category()): bloginfo(’name’); print(” - “); single_cat_title(); elseif (is_day() || is_month() || is_year()): bloginfo(’name’); print(” - “); the_time(’F Y’); else: bloginfo(’name’); print(” - “); the_title(); endif; ?></title>
<meta name=”description” content=”<?php if (have_posts()&& is_single()):while(have_posts()):the_post(); the_excerpt_rss(20,2); endwhile; elseif (is_category()): single_cat_title(); print(” category of the “); bloginfo(’name’); elseif (is_day() || is_month() || is_year()): the_time(’F Y’); print(” archive of the “); bloginfo(’name’); else: bloginfo(’description’); endif; ?>” />
<meta name=”keywords” content=”<?php if (is_category()): single_cat_title(); print(”, “); elseif (is_day() || is_month() || is_year()): the_time(’F'); print(”, “); the_time(’Y'); print(”, “); endif;?>travel, blog, destination, information, see, do, help, advice, reviews, save, savings, ideas, business, golf” />