Words from Alejandro U. Alvarez
SEO
Stumble Upon Low Bounce Rate
Sep 14th
This might seem strange, but the lowest bounce rate in my blog comes from Stumble Upon visitors. And this is not surprising, since I think that Stumble Upon is the most accurate way of getting your blog to your exact target audience.
For example in the picture above, from my Analytics reports for last month, Stumble Upon visitors' bounce rate is 47.45% less than the blog's average. Demonstrating the accurateness of its interest/channel system.
In case you don't know what the bounce rate is, it is something quite meaningful for a blog's success, it is the percentage of visitors that only read/watch one page/article, so every blogger's aim should be to have a very low bounce rate, which would mean that users come, read one article, like it, and stay to read more.
Go check your stats for Stumble Upon visitors, and you'll see that what I say is completely true!
Use Firefox to spell check your website
Sep 14th
If you maintain a website, you will surely know how important it is to never have any spelling errors in your copy. And if you really care you will always run for sure a spell checker on all your text, but isn't that quite over work? Wouldn't it be much simpler if your browser did all the spell checking without you having to worry about anything?
Well, there is a very simple way of doing so, simply copy the following javascript code and paste it into the address bar:
javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true'; document.designMode='on'; void 0
If you find it useful, I recommend that you store that code as a bookmark, I call it Spell Check for example.
Note: I'm not sure whether this will work or not on all browsers, I have only used it on Firefox. And by the way, if you want to change the language right click over some text (Once the spell check was applied) and in Languages select another one, remember that you can download any dictionary that you might need.
This system basically makes all the text editable, and since Firefox automatically spells checks all user input (If you set the options to do so) it will spell check the whole page 
Cheers,
Measuring the quality of your blog
Aug 29th
Although there are a lot of online resources to measure the wuality of your blog, like Blog Juice, Website grader (The bottom of the resports is dedicated to blog) and others like Technorati Authority, all of this services focus on popularity and sometimes SEO aspects.
Taking into account that all a blog is about is people reading your content, the best way to measure your site's quality is to use Google Analytics and check the time spent per visit, and the time spent per page. This way if you see 90% of the visits spend less that 10 seconds on your page, who cares if your traffic is 10k, your blog does not have quality. It may be the design, the content, something that is making the users leave even before they had time to know what it was about.
As you can see in the image, you have an average, a daily basis, and a visual graph displaying the variations. An ideal time would the one it takes the user to read the article and maybe post a comment. Most users will take about a minute to do all that. If your average is under a minute, then you must do something, go through the stats, page by page, and check how much time they spend on each page, that gives you an insight of what's happening.
Also check the main exiting pages (Which will usually be the same ones they entered) and sometimes you'll see a particular page being exited too much, it is usually because of the article title, an egaging title will keep your visitors on the site, at least long enough to determine whether your article is interesting or not.
Something that is usually a great way of keeping your users on the site is putting an image always on each article. It gives a visual representation of what the article is about, and as you know, an image is always understood faster than a whole paragraph.
Another great way to help the reader know what the article is about is highlighting important words. It helps the user know where to look when skimming through the article.
Follow this simple tips and you'll increase the time users spend on your blog, which hopefully will mean that they will start to read your articles from start to end!
Optimizing your landing page
Jun 12th
There is no need for me to prove to you that an optimization in your website's landing page will improve your Return on Investment (ROI) and your Rate of Return (ROR). As a matter of fact it is probably one of the hardest, most over-looked, and most important parts of SEO for a website. It is merely the showcase of your business, it is a fact that most of the visitors will simply decide whether to stay or not by simply looking at your home page.
Then, what should I be doing to prevent this? I've thought of this same question, and I've came up with the following statements, check right now how well you are doing the job:
(They are not in any particular order)
- Your homepage is persuasive and it makes the visitors feel confortable:
A common mistake is writing on the go the content you display and forgetting to check for errors, the text you write on your homepage is probably the most important one, and errors on it will make you lose all your credibility. Other usual errors are the lack of images, low resolution images, unconnected images... The visual aspect is even more important, since it determines the visitor's first impression. - You provide easy navigation that focuses on the most important links
You must always show the visitor clearly what the next step should be. Brighter colors, out stand from the other links, do it however you want, but make sure that there is a path from the homepage to the result you want to achieve, whether it is to contact you, view your showcase, buy your product... - Your content resolves any possible doubt the visitor might have
People won't know what your incredible product is, so for example an "About" page is a must-have. If you are unsure on how to organize the doubt-resolving content consider building a FAQ, which provides easy access to all possible problems a visitor will encounter - Your copy has been optimized to capture visitors
The content you write is the most important part once a visitor has gone past the homepage, he has already decided that your site "looks" worth watching, now you must prove it with content. Test whenever possible what is best for your niche, long text? short text? - Your idea is clear after no more than 4 seconds of looking at your homepage
If that was not true then you have to redo it. Your main point, idea, product, basically what you are offering must be completely clear for the visitor after no more than 4 seconds. Too much information without something in common and the visitor will probably be out, visitors want to know what they will find before having to actually search for it. - You think your homepage is great
This is the most important one, Do you think your homepage is great? If you don't then don't waste your time reading this lists, delete it and start from scratch, do something you consider good, then you can bother with the tiny details.
Hope you could agree with all the statements!