If you’ve read previous chapters of my S E O 101 series (download the free search engine optimization ebook), you’ve probably noticed that I keep drilling the idea of good content into your head as the backbone of top rankings (The old content is king idea).

Believe it or not, your users can be a top source for that content. Comments, testimonials, reviews and the like can be great information that catches long tail search phrases that you might never think of when deciding on keywords and phrases you target. And, since you really shouldn’t try to target a page to more than a couple anyway, user generated content can fill the void.

In addition, statistically more web site customers (for you ecommerce sites) read reviews than not. Something like 3/4 of online shoppers read reviews before they buy. That’s a lot!

Credibility is extremely important, so those reviews and testimonials not only help with your long tail optimization, but can help position your site as trusted and an authority site.

So, here are a few thoughts to help you get started with your own user generated content strategy.

1. Add Reviews, Testimonials or Comments - If you don’t have any of these on your site or blog now, get them. In particular, retail sites with reviews have a higher conversion rate and order size than sites without.

2. Make it easy - The easier it is for users to read and post, the more feedback you will receive, thus more content and long tail spider bait.

3. Put it above the fold - Reviews should be high enough on the page to be seen, preferably next to the product and with ratings, as in stars. Ratings go hand in hand with reviews, so provide a star rating as a quick look graphic. Want proof? Just take a look at what Amazon.com does with theirs:

Amazon.com puts their reviews and ratings right at the top of the page and follows up with individual review ratings on the user review pages, which you can see at my review of Who Killed the Electric Car?

4. Give them incentives - The best thing you can do for your customers or visitors is to provide them with service, but to encourage participation and provide some good vibes, give them something special like the opportunity to win a prize, to get a “Top Contributor” badge for their web site or whatever feel good promotion you can come up with.

5. Provide suggestions - Instead of 301 redirecting the page of a defunct product to your home page (so annoying!), provide a page with alternative suggestions. Not only is this useful to the customer, but you might get some feedback, comments, testimonials, etc. out of it. More content and link bait!

6. Extend the tail - Did you know that reviews extend the long tail more than you could probably do on your own (without getting real spammy)? This is because search terms for reviews tend to be much longer. In addition to “keyword1 keyword2 keyword3″ your page might be found for “keyword1 keyword2 keyword3 keyword4″ or “keyword1 keyword2 keyword3 keyword4 keyword5″ for instance.

7. Moderate - Yep, it’s time consuming, but it just has to be done on your own site (You have less control over reviews and comments about you on third party sites). You’ve got to watch out for inappropriate comments or attempts to game you for back links. You’re acting as editor to make sure your content remains good, quality information.

8. Require registration - Some folks will click away when they have to register, but having registered users gives you some control over who posts what. Spammers and trouble makers can better be controlled and registration provides a level of credibility to the users.

9. Make them happy - People are inherently happier when they are allowed to contribute and interact. Your site and your visitors will be better for all of the comments, testimonials, suggestions and reviews you let them post.

10. Videos and images - Up until now, I’ve discussed textual content, but allowing customers and visitors to upload images and videos can be super effective and a powerful motivator for them. Just ask YouTube and Flickr! And, again, Amazon.com has jumped on the video bandwagon. I did a video review of the Linksys WRT350N router a while back and as I write this, my video review is the top listed review.

The video review can also be viewed on Linksys WRT350N Customer Review page. Free content for Amazon.com!

There you go. User generated content basically turns your customers and site visitors into SEOs for you while generating fresh keyword rich content for the spiders to devour.

Also remember that customer/user feedback and interaction on your site or blog can help you with branding, stickiness and reputation management.

I’ve got an old Averatec 3150P laptop that came with the original release of Windows XP. With only 256 MB of RAM and a 30 GB hard drive, every update to XP dragged the little laptop down to the point where I just couldn’t use it anymore. It crawled, taking a full ten minutes or more to boot. Multitasking became nearly impossible.

I tried making XP as “lite” as possible, removing anything I didn’t need, defragging, whatever I could think of but the laptop still worked as though it was submerged in mud.

This laptop is a really nice, compact size and works well. It has a CD writer, can play DVDs, speakers, built in wireless-B and is lightweight. While it’s not worth anything at this point (which is why I don’t want to spend money on more RAM), it’s perfect for those times when I don’t want to lug the work laptop and just want to take something light that can run Skype and pull up a web browser to access Google Docs or Google Apps, since I just moved my e-mail over to the “Don’t be evil” monster. If it got lost at an airport, oh well…

So, I’ve heard Linux is good for old hardware. Being a total novice at Linux, I had to do some research. Yes, I’ve played with some Linux CDs that came with magazines or that could be downloaded in the past, the kind you can run by booting to the CD without disturbing anything on your hard drive. They were fun, but not spectacular enough to make me a convert.

I ran numerous Google searches for phrases like “linux for old hardware” to narrow things down a bit. For those not aware, there are a zillion Linux distributions out there, some for specific purposes like development or bare bones use. I came up with a list of several to try, including Gentoo, Zenwalk, Mandriva, Knoppix, wattOS and Unbuntu.

I first tried Unbuntu, but quickly found that my 256 MB laptop did not really have a full 256 MB. Apparently something on board takes the first 34 MB because a check of the system only shows about 222 MB. The “live” CD required 384 MB to run the demo and 256 MB to install. I tried several times, but gave up. What I could see looked good, but I just couldn’t get it to work.

I moved on to the other distributions mentioned and attempted all of their “live” CDs. Again, I ran into problems. For whatever reason, none would run properly on the laptop. When I tried to boot, I got various error messages, probably due to the low RAM.

I was about to give up, contemplating wiping the drive and replacing XP with Windows 98, when I came across a post about Freespire. What the heck, one more shot.

It worked and looked good. Frankly, some distro interfaces are still kind of clunky. Freespire’s is very nice so I took the plunge and installed it on the laptop, wiping all traces of XP from it. I figured if it didn’t work, I had nothing to lose at this point.

Not only did it install, it works quite well. The interface is slick and so far all of my plug and play devices are working, even my Buffalo g54 wireless-G card that I prefer to use over the built in wireless-B. Even Windows XP wouldn’t work with that card without installing the software and drivers.

Freespire includes Firefox and OpenOffice and a link to CNR.com, which houses a ton of free and paid software and updates. I snagged Skype and some antivirus software first thing.

The best part? The laptop is peppy, faster than it ever was under XP, despite the “Designed for Microsoft Windows XP” label on the front of it.

Downside? There are still a few clueless web sites out there that insist on Internet Explorer to work properly (That is SOOOOO 1998!). Some even require Windows Media Player for videos, so you just have to work around them. I tried WINE, which is supposed to let you run some Windows software and managed to get Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player installed, but actually getting them to run apparently requires some tweaking that I haven’t had time to do yet.

But, I’ve got a new toy to play with. I’m a believer!

Submit your search marketing, web development or technology site or blog to The Web Optimist’s new S E O Resource Directory.

Yep. That’s exactly what this is. Yet another cool WordPress plugins post pointing out some of the freebie plugins used on The Web Optimist blog. Of course, most of these are used with SEO in mind. Might as well jump right in.

1. BT Active Discussions - This neat utility allows you to give your blog comments a forum-like interface. This makes it easy for site visitors to zero in on discussions they want to check out and go right to the post to read and submit their own comment. I’ve tried a couple of actual forum plugins for WordPress in the past and never could get them to work properly. This one was a breeze. Check out my search engine optimization discussions.

2. WordPress Link Directory - Create your own directory. This plugin gives you the choice of accepting only reciprocal links or any links. You can create categories and sub-categories and even check for dropped reciprocal links. I recently installed this plugin on my blog as a fledgling resource directory.

3. Spread The Love Link Builder - This plugin tracks pages you link to in your blog and sends an e-mail to the site owner notifying them of the link and encouraging them to link back.

4. Dagon Design Sitemap Generator - Need I say more? This plugin creates a spider and user friendly index of all posts by category with the number of comments for each. You install the plugin, create a page, paste some code and you’re off and running. See it in action at The Web Optimist sitemap.

5. Link To Me Text Box - This plugin will set up a “link to me textbox” with HTML code in your blog posts. Simplicity at its best. You can find examples of this plugin in action at the bottom of any post on this blog. For instance, take a look at Free eBook: 65 Quick S E O Tips Even Your Mother Would Love and you’ll find the link box just above the “Leave A Comment” section.

6. Ask Me - I don’t know if this plugin is even supported currently, but used it for an “Ask Me about SEO” section until I switched hosting companies and couldn’t get it to work again. It basically extends the comment function into a Q&A format perfect for any question and answer oriented page.

7. Khanh’s Quick Feeds - Want to add a page of news feeds to your WordPress blog? This is your plugin and it’s AJAX powered! Take a look at my own Search Engine Optimization News Feeds page for an example. I didn’t just create this page for my users, but for me, too!

8. Random Quotes - This plugin is perfect for randomly displaying any type of text on your blog pages. I use it for my S E O Quick Tip box found on the right navigation of every page on the site. A different tip is displayed each time a page loads. The plugin has a really nice, easy to use interface.

9. Redirection - Makes page redirects simple. Easy to use interface, logging options, tracking of redirects and simple drop down redirect options made this a life saver when my former hosting company imploded and I had to recreate recent posts and redirect the old URLs to the new ones.

10. WP Sticky - Got something you want to stay at the top of your blog for a while like an announcement or notice? WP Sticky is kind of like a yellow sticky. It sticks to the top of the main blog page until you pull it off.

These are just a few of the neat plugins I am currently using. Naturally, there are a zillion out there, which is what makes WordPress so great. If you need something for your blog, chances are there’s already a plugin for it or close enough to work with.

Wow. Donna Fontenot (aka DazzlinDonna) has a post called Richard Burkhardt: Search Blogger of the Day where she points out my recent post Reciprocal Linking for Ranking is Anything But Dead and my “interestingly different about page.”

Thanks Donna! I’m honored! Of course, it’s Burckhardt, not Burkhardt. What can I say? My ancestors just wanted to be different!

I introduced you to blog optimization in S E O 101 - Blogs and Feed Optimization Tips.

Hopefully, you’ve got your blog up and running and chock full of great content by now. If you’re just getting started, read the post above first, then come back to this one.

In addition to providing a platform for terrific information (for humans and search engines), a blog is a natural pathway to the world of social media. Blogs are interactive, encouraging posts and information from visitors, and syndicated through RSS feeds, spreading your content (and links) across the web to be found in search engines, dedicated blog searches, news feeds, you name it.

So, here are some advanced tips to help get your blog on the road to good rankings.

1. Socialize. Interact with your visitors. Don’t just publish your posts and sit back. Answer questions, link out to their sites when they offer good content, respond to their comments in a timely, informative manner, etc.

2. Own a niche. It’s a lot easier to dominate a space if you start out with a smaller, less competitive, narrowly focused subject area. For example, you’re more likely to become a dominant player with a blog about “rechargeable outdoor power tools” than you are for simply “tools’ which is way too broad a term with a lot more competition.

3. Work your titles for both audiences – readers and searchers. Be sure you start out with the title of your post to attract readers. After the post has some history and has fallen into the archive section of your blog, go back and optimize the title for SEO.

4. Keep the post slug the same. Write this yourself, don’t let WordPress generate it. Don’t go back and change it at a later date because this is what determines how your post link is formed. Writing your own post slug allows you to create an easy to read, optimized URL.

5. Optimize for the Google indent. We’ve all seen Google search results where a page from a domain ranks with another page from the same domain just under it, but indented. Focus on getting a post ranking well using standard SEO, anchor text links, etc. Then find another, similar post to optimize. Link the ranking post to the second post to try to pull it up.

6. Re-purpose posts and pages. Let’s say you did a post on social media way back in 2005 and you want to do a similar, updated post. If the 2005 post is just way out of date and not of particular use these days, write over it with your new content. The old post has history and back links that can give you an immediate bump.

7. Use a single category. I know it’s tempting sometimes to place your posts in multiple categories, but get over it. You risk duplicate content issues with multiple categories, so make it easy for Google and concentrate on one.

8. Use a folder. Unless there is a very good reason to put your blog on a separate domain or subdomain (like your site is just a blog or you really believe a separate domain will give you more credibility), put it on your main site as a folder. This keeps link juice targeted to your main domain.

9. Got a Flash site that won’t rank? Start a blog on the domain to create the related content and links to the Flash pages. Chances are your blog pages will be what rank, but they’ll link back to and guide your visitors to your Flash pages.

10. Create your own custom footer. If you’re using WordPress, try the Feed Footer Plugin. With it you can create your own custom footer content, complete with HTML, for your posts that will show up in your RSS feed. This is great for plugging favorite posts and monetizing your feed.

One final thought to consider. Blogs are all about sharing, so if a visitor shares something really good, promote it to the front page of your blog. Do a post all about it and thank them for the great content. Your visitors will love it and come back for more.

Remember, you can turn active users into free SEOs who write content for you.