Everyone wants something for free.



Well, here it is.



I have entered into an associate arrangement with an organization called TradePub. They distribute free business and trade magazines, on behalf of the magazine publishers.



You can see the rotating magazines on the ad on the right hand side of your screen. Note that the magazines displayed are only a tiny portion of the total offering of trade publications available.



The good thing about this arrangement is the magazines are free to you, with no strings attached.



All you have to do is be involved in the industry that the magazine targets. If there were strings attached, I would not be making this recommendation, or getting involved with the offer.



It is a great offer, and free to you. I wouldn't be part of it otherwise.



It's very important to be up to date, in what's happening within your industry, and field of endeavour. The latest trade magazines provide that timely insight. They help you to become an insider in your industry.



There are free magazines available for business executives and entrepreneurs. Many magazines cover technology and operating businesses in a wide range of areas. New titles are being added all of the time.



You can receive as many free magazines as you want.



Full disclosure: I get a small commission from every free magazine subscription ordered. It provides me with some income, and also works as an experiment on the effectiveness of blogs as advertising and marketing vehicles. That is important for all of us, and for the future of blogs.



All of the trade publications are available to my United States based readers. There are specific categories of magazines that are available to residents of Canada, Mexico, and world wide.



Everyone can find a trade publication that suits them, as the list of industries is very exhaustive. General business, management, and computer magazines work for almost everyone too.



The list of available magazines is almost unlimited. There is almost certainly one in your field of business. Check it out, and see if I'm wrong about that!



To subscribe, simply click on the display advertisement on the right side of your screen. Be sure to use the link from Blog Business World, as it's the only way I get paid.



Hey, I have to earn a bit of a living too!



Keeping current with happenings in your industry will help you and your business to grow and prosper.



Click on my link, to TradePub, and subscribe to your free business and trade publications today.

READ MORE - Free business magazines for you

I am certainly no expert on Initial Public Offering (IPO) share sales to the general public.



The just announced, and heavily anticipated Google IPO, is no exception. My policy, when I don't know anything about a subject, is to search for information and to seek out experts in the field.



For some up to the minute thoughts and commentary on the Google IPO, and what it might mean to you, check out the extensive post series on Gordon Smith's Venturpreneur blog.



Special note to Gordon: While I don't know much about the Google IPO, I can offer you good Google loving anchor text in this post. Note your name, which you are optimizing for on searches, along the name of your blog.



Gordon Smith, of the University of Wisconsin Law School, is well versed in the legalities, implications, and repercussions of IPOs.



His thoughts on the Google IPO are tremendously informative. They are must read for anyone interested in the IPO.



I learned things that I barely even knew existed.



I'm sure you will as well.

READ MORE - Google IPO Insights

The inspiration for all of the outstanding internet blog carnivals is Carnival of the Vanities.



This week, that illustrious event is being hosted by my friend Trudy Schuett at WOLves.



This is the 84th edition of the long running Carnival of the Vanities series.



Trudy, as I expected, has done it up well.



There are entries covering politics, business, and general thoughts and essays, by some of the best bloggers on the internet.



Do yourself a favour, and check out the Carnival of the Vanities.



As with all carnivals, no one can fault you for wanting to run away and join them.

READ MORE - Carnival of the Vanities at WOLves

As everyone who reads Blog Business World on a regular basis knows, I write many columns and posts about search engine optimization for your blog.



As you know by now, search engine optimization, or SEO as it's often called by those who like to abbreviate things, is all about getting your blog or website positioned higher in the search engine results for your most important search terms, called keywords.



The most prominent search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, and Teoma. Usually, if your blog follows some basic optimzation techniques, you will rank well in all of them.



The good thing about blog SEO, is it is almost an automatic occurance, if you write regular posts about the topics your visitors want to read. I'm sure that is exactly what you wanted to hear. The great thing about it is that it's true.



Write good and interesting posts, that contain your important keywords, and you have already got a leg up in the search engine game.



Post regularly to your blog, so the search engine robot spiders visit your blog often. Frequent crawls of your blog, by the various spiders, will get your updated pages indexed so they can appear in the search results.



Along with good content, you need lots of incoming links to your blog. They are easily obtained by exhanging links with other blogs and by submitting your blog to the many free blog and mainstream internet directories. By providing interesting and informative postings, other bloggers will link to your blog within posts, and add your blog to their blogroll.



If you do nothing else, in the way of search engine optimization, the simple team of good content and links will give your blog a major boost in the search engine results pages (called SERPs) for your keywords.



One thing I try to provide for my readers are the basics of SEO, in easy to understand language. I like to take the mystery out of the process.



Once we have the basics covered, by making certain that you post good keyword rich content, and have a reasonable amount of links in place, we can go on to more advanced SEO.



If you decide, however, that no further optimization is of interest to you, it's not required.



In most aspects of life, 80% of the benefit is achieved from 20% of the effort. The remaining 20% of the results requires that major 80% workload. The pairing of content and links provides, that first 80% of the benefit to blogs, on the search engines.



For most of you, that will be enough, to compete for your keywords.



On the other hand, if you want to add that final 20% gain, I will work with you on that too.



Search engine optimization shouldn't be kept as a mystery to bloggers.



Simply write for your readers, and work on gaining links. Your SEO efforts will then match or exceed most websites on the internet.



I'll keep pulling back the shades on SEO for you, and let the sun shine on your blog.

READ MORE - Writing for your readers is good SEO

Many bloggers have moved their blogs to new addresses.



Many people have purchased their own blog domain name, rather than have the blog URL contain the blogging host. An example of that action would be removing the .blogspot.com or similar type URL extension.



Some bloggers simply want to escape their blog hosts for any numberof reasons.



The question then arises, as to whether your old blog is now a search engine competitor, for your new blog. That situation has happened to D. Gordon Smith of Venturpreneur. His old Blogspot hosted blog ranks higher, in placement #6 on page one in Google searches for "Gordon Smith" than his new blog, which checks in at #18 on page two.



Let's examine the situation. The new Venturpreneur blog is displaying a Google PageRank 5 (PR5) and a total of 426 PR or higher incoming links. The old Blogspot hosted version of his blog, which also sports a PR5, shows 50 PR4 or higher incoming links.



Note that Google only displays PR4 or higher incoming links, but all links in Google's index are counted toward the PageRank and the placements on the search engine results.



It's clear that the new Venturpreneur version has many more incoming links. The question then becomes one of quality. That is where the answer lies.



The incoming links for the old Blogspot hosted version of his blog, are not pointing to the blog title of "Venturpreneur", but to the name "Gordon Smith" or "D. Gordon Smith". Most of the new blog's links point to "Venturpreneur".



That is the power of what is called "link text" or "anchor text." Search engines, like Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search place heavy emphasis in their calculation algorithm on anchor text.



The heavy use of the name "Gordon Smith", in the link text to the old blog, gives it that continued power versus the new blog. On the other hand, because of the limited number of those optimized link text backlinks, the old blog remains at position #6, and not #1.



To place higher in the search results, you need to have link text that points toward the keyword searches you value most. In the case of Gordon Smith, he wants to place highly in the search results for his own name. To help him there, simply change your link to Venturpreneur to any of "Gordon Smith", "D. Gordon Smith" or "Venturpreneur - Gordon Smith". That will give Gordon far more powerful link text for his searches.



I have given Gordon a link text boost, by changing my link to his blog, to "Venturpreneur - Gordon Smith.



Most blog links point either to the name of the blog, or the name of the blogger. Sometimes, anchor text pointing to the most important searched keywords is better for you.



Let's use an example of your imaginary blog called Complete And Utter Waste Of Time Because I'm Bored blog. Most of your links will point to that title.



Let's go further and say you write most of your posts, on that fictitious blog, about aardvaarks. To get higher rankings on the search engines, you would prefer then to have your blog listed on the many blogrolls as "aardvaarks" or "aardvaarks blog". That emphasises to the search engines the importance of that topic to your blog.



Another area where Gordon could help his searches for his own name is in his title tags. This concept was suggested in the comments to the post by Tony Rickey of Three Years of Hell.



The title tag is what appears right at the very top of your screen, above everything else. Mine says "Blog Business World", which is my blog title. It also is my most important search term: any combination of "blog" and "business", singular or plural. Take a search of them, if you like.



Since Gordon wants his name to be searched, his title tags should also include his name. Make sure your most important keyword(s) appear in those title tags. They can be changed right in your template very easily.



If Gordon prefers his traffic to arrive at Venturpreneur and not at the old blog, he can use a 301 redirect. It will automatically send the reader to the new blog, evenif they click on the link to the old blog. He won't miss any traffic that way. The old blog will also pass along the majority of its accumulated Google PageRank, via the 301 redirect, as well.



If Gordon wants to maintain his old blog as an archive, a redirect will do that for him. Another option would be to transfer all of the old blog archives to the new blog, and delete the old Blogger hosted blog. That is up to him, of course.



As you can see, anchor text (link text) and title tags are a very important consideration for search engine power.

READ MORE - Old blogs for new...old blogs for new...