Archive for the SEO Category

The Google Zoo?

By IM News on June 6, 2012

If you have your own blog, website, or are involved in SEO, you have probably at least heard about the Google updates name Panda and Penguin. If you are one of the unfortunate, you have been personally effected by one or both of these updates. If the latter sounds like you, I feel your pain as I have also been effected by the recent updates.

Many people have been speculating as to what the updates involve and what they are being trigger by. The most common reasoning says it is all about backlinks…. Either links  from bad neighborhoods or having an unrealistic (too optimized) diversification of anchor links pointing to your site. Like most people, I started testing to determine the inner workings of these updates. I became quickly frustrated however, because my results were showing that it was not only backlinks that effect ranking after the panda and penguin updates. I could quite figure it out…. Until I watched this video. Then it all made much more sense. It is a little over 20 minutes but I highly recommend you watch!

That’s right! It is about on-page optimization! That actually makes complete sense. Google has always said that your sites should be built with your readers in mind. If you are creating content that is unique and your visitors like, then Google will reward you. This could also explain why so many people are going with the backlink hypothesis. The on-page factors of the sites where you are getting backlinks from have been devalued because of there on-page factors, either by panda or penguin.

In any case, don’t take this as the gospel on the Google updates. This is just a piece of the puzzle and happens to go along with my testing. I highly recommend that you do your own testing if you haven’t already!

To Taming the Google Zoo,

Shawn Brown

Corresponding video: internet marketing

This entry is filed under SEO and tagged , , , , .

Google never forgets

By IM News on December 7, 2011

A key entry in shoeintology is that google never forgets.

Often I am classified as one of the best seos in the world.

Whatever.

I can teach anyone everything I know about SEO in less than 1 minute.
That’s it. All my secret tricks.

  1. Put your keyword in the title tag of your html post.
  2. Include the keyword in your url structure.
  3. Get back links.

The last one requires skill. There are obvious ways to get back links. Buying them is effective if you have common sense.

From my experience the best way to get free, great looking backlinks,  is to start a shitstorm.

Years ago I wrote about why you need to embrace negative press but I left out one key thing.

Google never forgets.

You see people have a short memory. Especially online.

Everything has like a 30 day max lifespan. TRUST ME.

But again google never forgets. All the links you scooped up in the controversy are yours forever.

Just remember that if your butt hurt right now cause someone called you out and everyone is talking about how bad your product is linking to your site.

30 days from now nobody will care but google.


Shoemoney – Skills To Pay The Bills

This entry is filed under SEO and tagged , , .

How Do You Build A Brand That Google Rewards With Traffic?

By IM News on September 5, 2011

/> Is it just me or have you also noticed that Google seems to be paying a lot more attention to brands these days? So much so, in fact, that it can almost feel that brand signals might be included as a part of their search engine ranking factors?

Are brands really being given more weight in Google? And how does it affect how we market our businesses?

First, let’s take a look at what brand is, what it isn’t, and how to establish one.

What Is A Brand?

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a

“name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.”

So to be an identifiable brand, we need to be “distinct from other sellers”.

Sounds easy enough; however, how to do you accomplish it in practical terms? How do you come into a market that is dominated by blogs like Problogger, Copyblogger, Entrepreneurs-Journey and claim your piece of the blogging pie?

How Do You Build A Brand?

id=”more-8166″>1. Define What Your Brand Is

Do you build a brand around your name or your blog/product?

Let me answer this question with a question: would you use Twitter any less if you didn’t know who the founders were?

On the other hand, would you come to Entrepreneurs-Journey.com as often, if we took Yaro Starak completely out of the equation?

These are questions that all of us will have to answer for ourselves, but here are my thoughts.

There’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t brand both YOURSELF as an expert in your chosen field AND your blog/site/product as the answer to a particular problem your readers/customers might have.

Traffic Generation Cafe, for instance, has quickly become a site known for teaching how to get more web traffic in a language everyone can understand – even when it comes down to the all-mysterious SEO.

However, I am not hiding behind my blog either. Even though I can’t yet compare myself with Yaro, Ana Hoffman is truly becoming a name that is a brand in itself.

How do I know? By looking at my Google Analytics and seeing how much traffic comes from searching for “Ana Hoffman” as the keyword.

If something were to happen and I needed to step away from Traffic Generation Cafe, it will (sadly for me) continue just fine since it’s a brand of its own.

On the other hand, if I have to ditch my blog and start all over again for whatever reason, I won’t feel like I am starting from scratch – my name alone will give me a head start in whatever new venture I branch out to.

2. Keyword.com, Brand.com, or MrSmith.com?

That’s the next important decision to make on your way to defining your brand.

I know this is a non-issue for most of the readers here – most of you have already started a blog and, of course, picked your domain name.

However, it doesn’t mean that it’s a good one or that you can’t change it.

When I started my very first blog, I had absolutely no direction. I had no idea what the blog theme was, what I wanted to write about, what my target audience was, or which direction to take my blog in the future.

No wonder that blog miserably failed.

But not all was lost.

What I did was take that very blog and completely revamp it with the new design, new niche, and, yes, the new domain name.

And it did wonders for my blog – just come over to Traffic Generation Cafe and see for yourself.

My point is that it’s never too late to start anew; and in many cases, that is exactly what you need.

So unless you are Chris Brogan, don’t go for YourName.com – it won’t get you too far.

Creating a true brand name is a long-term commitment lined with sweat and tears; Amazon didn’t become what it is today overnight.

My choice is to go for a keyword-rich domain that will also tell your visitors what your blog is all about before they ever click on the link. Actually that might be precisely why they’ll click on your link among all other competition in Google search results.

For instance, if you are searching for tips on traffic generation, would you be more apt to click on “AnaHoffman.com” or “TrafficGenerationCafe.com”?

Precisely my point.

3. Think Territorially

Not too long ago, Brian Clark of Copyblogger.com wrote an excellent post on How to Dominate Your Niche.

In it he talks about how so many bloggers are more concerned about dominating or at least breaking into the perceived blogging hierarchy in any given niche; often more so than focusing on building a thriving business.

I can completely relate to that.

It is nice to be included on different lists like “The Best of…”, “The Most Popular Among…”, don’t you think?

I’d even go as far to say that we take it personally when we DON’T see our name in any given post mentioning other bloggers in it. What do you mean I didn’t make this post? Am I not as popular as the other bloggers? Do I need to forget about the voice of reason, quit sleeping, and start networking night and day to make sure my name shows up on every bloody list out there?

Yes, we are all designed with the need to feel valued.

And value in the blogosphere is generally expressed in the mentions on other blogs, social media, etc.

However, we forget that there are many bloggers out there that win every single popularity contest, yet they are still broke.

What are you building your brand for? To have your name recognized or to build a thriving business that actually pays the bills?

I know, I know, a little of both doesn’t hurt, but realistically speaking we all have 24 hours per day and we need to choose wisely how we spend them.

Forget about the popularity contest. Carve out your territory within your niche and dominate that. Recognition will come naturally.

4. Make More with Fewer People

This point ties in nicely with marking your own territory, so to speak.

Connect with your readers. Show them who you are. Stand out. Be a personality. Or become one if you aren’t already.

No, you don’t have to be the next Naomi Dunford to succeed. And you don’t have to go to an extreme to find loyal readership.

In most cases, you just need to be… you.

Build trust with your readers, and they will build your brand for you.

Online Marketing Strategy And Your Brand

Let’s shift gears a bit and talk about how this emphasis on brand changes, or should change, your online marketing strategy.

To be more precise, how can you “help” Google to see and accept you as a brand and bring you more SEO traffic as a result of it?

1. Make Sure Your Brand is Memorable

Now that you are settled on what your brand is, it’s time to market the heck out of it.

Make sure your readers can easily remember your brand and can easily find it by searching for any number of keywords on Google.

If, for instance, my new visitor forgets the exact name of my blog, they can Google “Ana Hoffman”, “traffic generation”, “traffic cafe”, etc – all those paths will lead them back to my blog.

Think of all the possible search terms your readers might find you under and make sure your site is listed at the very least towards the top of the first page of Google for the terms – #1 spot is the goal, of course.

Real brands have people search for their brands. Let Google know that you are looked for and not simply found.

2. Social Media Presence

That’s where the magic of having a loyal audience comes in.

As I mentioned above, it’s not about the numbers; it’s about your connection with your readers and their willingness to spread your brand in the online world.

Your goal is to have your blog mentioned in the social media as much as possible, whether linking back to your blog with your brand anchor text or simply mentioning your brand somewhere around it.

I know Yaro doesn’t use CommentLuv plugin on this blog, but for those of you who do or are at least considering it, I am happy to say that I have the new beta version of the plugin installed on my blog at this very moment (it will be publicly released some time) in the fall and it’s a spectacular way to drive more brand recognition via various social media channels. Come to Traffic Generation Cafe and see for yourself.

3. Offline Techniques Work Online

Imagine a real brick and mortar business and what they have to do to promote their brand in the offline world.

They are constantly working on getting their brand out there by getting involved into all kinds of “press worthy” activities: sponsoring, donating, participating – building relationships, in other words.

That’s the type of events that will get your name and your brand out there in the online world as well.

Just a few suggestions:

  1. Do interviews.
  2. Participate in blogging contests. If you don’t know where to find them, take a look at this “Surviving the Blog” contest that just started at WeBlogBetter.com.
  3. Sponsor blogging contests. If you don’t have the time to write, donate. You’ll get a lot of natural backlinks, as well as gain some brand recognition.
  4. Mention other blogs in your posts. Be gracious about spreading some link love, and it’ll come back to you in one way or another.
  5. Give away a freebie that can be given away. Don’t horde your free info products in other words; let your readers give them away on their blogs – it will only bring more traffic and recognition for your brand.
  6. Write for other blogs.

All these things will not only create the brand that will become more and more recognized in the blogosphere, but also recognized by Google, making it easier for them to bump your site in their search listings.

After all, all these people talking about you and your business online can’t be wrong, right?

Love it or hate it? Comment to show me that you’re alive!

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Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

This entry is filed under Best Ways To Make Money, Internet Marketing, SEO, Traffic and tagged , , , , .

How To Find Out What Your Blog Ranks For In Google (And Bring In More Targeted Traffic)

By IM News on August 28, 2011

Google’s mission as stated on the company information page is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Yet, most websites are nothing but a hodge-podge of disorganized content without any central theme.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what makes it impossible for them to rank for any competitive (read: traffic-bringing, money-making) keywords.

Take, for instance, internet marketing blogs.

Internet marketing in and of its own is a hugely vast topic that includes any and every subject from your mindset and personal development, to how to create a distinct social media presence, to how to rank your site on Google, to how to bring more targeted traffic to your site, and so on and so forth.

Writing content around ALL these topics is the very trap many bloggers fall into.

Not picking a specific niche within the internet marketing industry will most likely mean sporadic readership (readers like to visit blogs if they know what content they can expect from them) and lack of attention from the search engines (since you are not clearly telling them what your site is REALLY about).

Search engines are very sophisticated creations indeed; however, they still need to be told what the site is all about clearly and distinctly. That’s the only way they can decipher meaning.

If you want to bring TARGETED website traffic, you need to provide TARGETED information.

Establishing relevancy to a particular topic is what Google needs to see to tip the almighty search engine ranking scales in your favor.

Here’s why it’s so important – from the horse’s mouth:

As a rule, Google tries to find pages that are both reputable and relevant.

If two pages appear to have roughly the same amount of information matching a given query, we’ll usually try to pick the page that more trusted websites have chosen to link to.

Still, we’ll often elevate a page with fewer links or lower PageRank if other signals suggest that the page is more relevant.

For example, a web page dedicated entirely to the civil war is often more useful than an article that mentions the civil war in passing, even if the article is part of a reputable site such as Time.com.

It is the key to how Google works when it comes down to your site rankings.

So how do you establish a clear relevancy for a certain theme in a way that the search engines can easily match your site with the topical keywords?

id=”more-7984″>

First of all, you need to know what your site is all about.

High search engine ranking optimization can be easily damaged in two ways:

  1. By including irrelevant content.
  2. By having too little content on the subject.

If you know what your site is really about, it’ll be easy to avoid either one of these mistakes.

What Is Your Site Theme?

The commonsense objection here is “of course, I know what my site is all about; silly question“.

I understand where you are coming from, but the thing is that there’s a huge difference between your perception of what your site is all about and the way the search engines actually see it.

In order for us to be objective here, we need to ask the following questions:

  • What subjects are you currently ranking for?
  • What major keyword groups bring you the most search engine traffic at the moment?
  • What subject themes are objectively relevant to your site?

Let the digging begin!

Google Webmaster Tools Evaluation

The first most obvious, as well as the easiest way to determine your site theme is to analyze the data provided by any tracking software you might be using on your site.

Start by looking at what Google itself thinks your site is all about.

Google Webmaster Tools will actually provide you with a better picture than Google Analytics would in this particular case.

From your dashboard, simply click on “Keywords“.

Here’s a snapshot of what Google thinks of my site:

class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-4257″ src=”http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/keyword-relevance.png” alt=”theme keyword relevance in Google webmaster tools” width=”544″ height=”184″ />

Of course, this is the analysis of my home page and it’s greatly influenced by the every-changing posts that I display there at any particular time.

Apparently, it’ll serve me right to stop mentioning my own name as much as I do now; as it is, Google thinks that Traffic Generation Cafe is more about “Ana” than any other subject theme…

Mind you, these are the most used keywords that Google found when crawling your home page, NOT the keywords that actually bring you any search engine traffic.

And this will be our next test to determine what our overall site theme actually is.

Search Engine Traffic Keywords Evaluation

What are the most popular search terms that Google lists your site for?

Google Analytics is the best free tool to determine that.

To find the information in your GA account, from your Dashboard go to “Traffic Sources”, then “Keywords”.

class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-4265″ src=”http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/keywords.png” alt=”theme your site with keywords” width=”199″ height=”255″ />

That’s where you’ll see the ACTUAL traffic-generating keywords that Google finds your site to be relevant for.

Start checking them out to find common themes that connect them.

Competition Evaluation

Yet another way to see if you are on the right track with your theme is to check out the sites that you consider to be your main competitors and see what they are currently ranking for.

Obviously, you wouldn’t have access to their analytics accounts, so I’ll give you one of the best tools I’ve ever used to spy on my competition.

SEMrush.com will give you a list of all the keywords any site is currently ranking for – the first 10 results for any search will be shown even if you are not their premium user.

class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-4270″ src=”http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/dog-training.png” alt=”semrush report for dog training” width=”538″ height=”222″ />

You can dig even deeper and check out each individual page to see how well your competitors are doing in ranking pages for specific keywords.

Interpret Your Findings

At this point, you should have enough data at your fingertips to interpret which topics your site is legitimately relevant for and to understand why you have your current rankings.

Your next big step should be to make sure your blog structure reflects your overall theme and then continue writing the kind of content that will reinforce your standing with the search engines for those specific keywords, thus confirming your site relevance to the topic at hand.

Do you really want to write on the subjects that your site is not truly about? What’s the point of diluting your site theme and risk losing already existing rankings plus acquiring new rankings within the same theme?

Once you establish your site theme, it’s extremely important to stick with it: both for your readers’ and search engines’ sake.

After all, you want everyone to see you as first among peers – the most relevant resource on your subject.

Ana Hoffman

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align=”right”>Get your bonus copy of my book />“How To Start An Internet Business />& Make Your First $ 1,000 Online” />Download Here

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Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

This entry is filed under Best Ways To Make Money, SEO and tagged , , , , , , , .

Plenty of SEO Data Provided by Sheer SEO

By IM News on August 16, 2011

 

Please visit my sponsor

The key to success in any number of fields is to arm yourself with the right kind of information. Day traders are constantly bombarded with data about the flood market. Scientists run experiments so they too can gather useful information that can lead to eye-opening conclusions. Search engine optimization is no exception.

When you take on the task of improving your site’s SEO, you shouldn’t just go about it in a willy-nilly fashion, throwing everything out there and hoping something sticks. You need data. You need the facts. To that end, Sheer SEO is a tool that can arm you with that kind of information. Let’s get down to today’s review and see what this package has to offer.

Automates Your SEO Efforts

When you go to the main page for this SEO software, you’ll find that the developers claim it “automates your SEO efforts.” That’s true to a certain extent, but this tool is much more geared toward providing you with the data you need so that you can focus your SEO efforts one way or another.

To get a quick sense of what you can expect from Sheer SEO, you can get a sample SEO report for your website for free. On the homepage, there is a field to enter your website address. When you do, you get a real-time report that provides all sorts of useful information, like how you are ranking for some of your target keywords and keyword phrases.

Before you even get there, it even suggests some of the keywords where you may want to rank, based on the content that is currently on your site. When you sign up for an account with Sheer SEO, you gain the ability to track other metrics and data points too.

Tracking Data Over Time

Continuing with the example of how you rank for select keywords, an account with Sheer SEO lets you see these rankings over time.

For this example, we took a look at how JohnChow.com was ranking for the search term “make money” in the United States version of Google. As you can see, the ranking fluctuated from 4th to 6th in the last two weeks or so. As you can also see, this set of SEO tools also lets you look at current competitors and historical competitors. The kicker is that tracking the rankings is only one small part of this much larger package.

Other Tools in Sheer SEO

The overview page gives you a brief glimpse into the various tools that are at your disposal with Sheer SEO. For instance, you can also track the progression of your PageRank, as well as estimate potential traffic, inspect your main referrers, and submit your site to multiple web directories.

These aren’t just stats that tell you where you were and where you are either. The keyword density tool, for instance, can offer perspective into how you are managing your content too, giving you the opportunity to make suitable adjustments. Similarly, you can use the backlink checker or the tool for counting indexed pages.

While there are other tools that may offer similar functions, Sheer SEO will also monitor Twitter for mentions of your site, as well as track all activity related to your site on Facebook, plus check the various social bookmarking sites for mentions. There is even a utility for finding relevant blogs where you can purchase blog reviews, gaining valuable backlinks that can further improve your SEO efforts.

How Much Does It Cost?

The user interface is reasonably straightforward, navigating through the various tools using the main left sidebar. How you go about using the data provided is your own prerogative, but being armed with this data will certainly go a long way.

The pricing plans can be a little confusing, considering that there are no fewer than nine options. These range in price from free (three month trial, single domain) to $ 199/month (agency plan, 50 domains). You don’t get into multiple domains on a single plan until you reach the “small agency” level, though you get discounts when ordering multiple domains for the smaller accounts.

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR SHEER SEO


John Chow dot Com

This entry is filed under How To Make Money Fast, SEO and tagged , , , .

How To Submit Your WebSite To Google Search Engines- Your URL

By IM News on July 29, 2011

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Video Rating: 4 / 5

This entry is filed under Make Money Website, SEO and tagged , , , , . | 20 Comments

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