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Monthly ArchiveApril 2007



AdSense Chris Gray on 24 Apr 2007

Use Section Targeting to optimize your AdSense Ads

I decided to monetize this blog over the weekend (no better time to start than now). I started by placing a few Google AdSense ads in the header and sidebar. After placing my ads and letting Google do it’s thing for a day or two I started to notice irrelevant ads on my index page.


While reading up on how to implement AdSense ads I ran across a neat little trick called Section Targeting. Section targeting allows you to suggest sections of content that you would like Google to emphasize or downplay when matching ads to your site. By placing a few special HTML (comment) tags around content you would like to emphasize or downplay, you now have greater control of how Google matches ads to your site.
To emphasize a section of a page you would use the following syntax:

<!–– google_ad_section_start ––>
“The content you would like to emphasize goes here…”
<!–– google_ad_section_end ––>

You can also identify sections that you would like Google to ignore by adding a (weight=ignore) to the starting comment tag:

<!–– google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) ––>
“The content you would like Google to ignore goes here…”
<!–– google_ad_section_end ––>

I surrounded each post and comment tag in my WordPress template with section targeting tags. It is too early to tell if section targeting is helping generate more relevant ads (due to the fact that it could take two weeks or more for Google to fully index this site)…but I thought I would give it a try in the meantime.
Follow-up to come…

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RSS/Syndication Chris Gray on 19 Apr 2007

What is FeedBurner and should I use their services?

When I first started researching SEO late last December I began noticing a number of sites using a service called FeedBurner to syndicate their RSS feeds. Being new to RSS and blogging in general, I was interested in why someone would want a third-party to manage their feeds so I decided to head over to the source and find out what “burning a feed” was all about.

Maybe it was just me, but I found the FeedBurner landing page to be less than informative and a little hard to navigate. I was determined though, and after a minute or two of searching I was finally able to track down the “About” page.

The description of what I found is as follows:

“FeedBurner is the leading provider of media distribution and audience engagement services for blogs and RSS feeds. Our Web-based tools help bloggers, podcasters and commercial publishers promote, deliver and profit from their content on the Web.”

Ok, that’s great but why do I want you to manage my feed?

After a little more digging I found that if you syndicate your feed using their service you are able to track a number of useful statistics – a feature not natively available to most blogging software (WordPress in my case).

A few of the stats that you may find useful are listed below:

  • Number of subscribers
  • Type and Version of Web Browsers used to read your feed.
  • Pages viewed

For an additional fee they also offer a more detailed list of stats. I may revisit this area in the future if I decide that this service is worth keeping.

Another apparent upshot of redirecting your feeds through FeedBurner is a reduced load on your web server. (I was unable to confirm that this was true but thought is was worth noting since I had seen it mentioned on a few other blogs).

I’m sold, how do I get started?

Transitioning my feeds to FeedBurner was quick and painless.

All I needed to do was:

  • Sign up for a free account
  • Fill in the URI of your feed
  • Give your feed a name
  • “Burn” your feed
  • Redirect your feed URIs to point to the new FeedBurner feed

That’s about it…not much to it. The final step would have been a deal breaker for me hadn’t there already been a convenient WordPress plug-in that handled the feed redirection automatically. I downloaded and installed Steve Smith’s “WordPress FeedBurner Plug-In” from the link that was provided at the end of the “Burning” process. Steve’s plug-in “detects all ways to access your feed” and then redirects any incoming feed request to your FeedBurner feed.

Are there any downsides to using their service?

One thing to point out; by directing your feed traffic through a third-party service (like FeedBurner) you are now at the mercy of their servers. If they go down so does your feed.

Final Thoughts

All in all FeedBurner looks like a decent service. I will use it for a while and let you know how it goes…

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Random Chris Gray on 14 Apr 2007

SEO here I come!

Welcome to SEO Ladder. This blog is a chronicle of my journey to learn SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques.

I plan to post information that I learn as I attempt to drive traffic to this site (as well as a few others that I currently maintain). I plan to play by the rules…no Black Hat techniques here. I do plan to share every mistake, blunder, and hopefully triumph.

So here goes…

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