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Contact Form Plugin

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Contact Form Plugin by BestWebSoft is a sweet little plugin that integrates into your wordpress page, or post, by a shortcode. Very useful for blogs, no php or html knowledge required. It is relatively popular among wordpress users, I my self use it on couple of my clients websites, mostly for its multi language support.

Here are the plugin stats from wordpress.org:
Requires: 2.9 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.4.2
Last Updated: 2012-10-23
Downloads: 373,521

See more of the plugin at: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-plugin/

SEO Company Abuses Google+ Local, Infuriates Search Community

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SEO Company Fakes it on Google+ Local

Ever seen that show about the world’s dumbest criminals? Well, it turns out that some SEOs are just as clueless as the jokers featured on that program. It’s really cool to watch how fast the Internet moves sometimes, and the story I’m about to tell you is proof positive that in the search community, when you attack your own, word gets around.

Here’s What Went Down

It all started when Scott Hendison stumbled upon an SEO company called Auroin that had somehow been using a fake location on Google+ Local. He was surprised (to say the least) when he discovered that there was a glowing review from, um, him, right there with the false location info. He dug a little further and found out that many of his colleagues in the SEO world – heavy hitters such as Larry Kim, Jill Whalen, Ross Hudgens, and others – had all added their own near-perfect reviews to the company’s page as well. Each review scored Auroin’s services 29 out of 30 possible points, which added up to a nearly perfect score.

You do the math.

Hendison did, and he publically announced his findings on (where else?) Google+:

After Scott posted his warning on Google+, the announcement gained some lightning fast viral traction. SEOs came out of the woodwork to check out the faux reviews and crazy claims for themselves. I, for one, appreciated the snarky sentiment of the post. The Internet is no longer a cavern in which spammers can hide to make false claims and hatch seedy plans, and these creeps are finally being exposed – one bad guy at a time.

Here’s how the SEO community fought back.

Hell Hath No Fury like an SEO Scorned

After Scott’s post traveled to his extended Google+ circles and beyond, the SEO world mobilized. A swarm of angry SEOs assaulted the page over an impressive 48-hour period. They left searing reviews and terrible feedback, starting with Scott’s flagship contribution:

Others were equally bad, but also pretty funny:

Less than two days after the initial discovery, Auroin was officially toast. Big G stepped in and slapped the page with a big red “spam” badge and all the fake positive reviews were taken down. In related news, the negative reviews remain on the company’s page for your viewing pleasure.

How to Protect Your Identity on Google+ Local

Many SEOs voiced concern about how easy it was for these clowns to impersonate real people and leave fake reviews for the crooked company. Think about it – if you’ve spent years creating an online persona for yourself and you’ve built a brand and a following, how scary would it be to think that someone could capitalize on your good name right on your own turf… overnight?

Yeah, it freaks me out a little, too. That’s why I was happy to discover that Google+ has added a way you can check all the reviews you have left for others. Now, you can also sneak a peek at the reviews you friends have left for others by exploring their Google+ pages, too.

Google announced the new addition (more transparency – yay!) right on Google+, and in the announcement, there were instructions to help users navigate to the appropriate section of friends’ profiles to make it happen. Simply click on the “about” tab and scroll to the section titled “Local”. You’ll find a number representing the total reviews they’ve left, and it’s linked so you can see each review for yourself if you ever so desire. This is great because you can discover any bogus reviews and manage ones you left yourself.

What is even scarier, however, is that the offending party in this case created fake G+ accounts for all the “people” it used to write the fake reviews. So what’s to stop Google from mistaking someone else for you? Not much, as it turns out. But Authorship may play a key role in weeding out the imposters as Google becomes more sophisticated. This is definitely one case where you do want Google knowing more about you.

Source: http://site-reference.com/articles/seo-company-abuses-google-local-infuriates-search-community/

Former Google Search Quality Team Member Reveals All

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If you think you have heard it all from the Google front, think again.

In today’s post, you will learn about an ex-Google employee who decided to share some of his experience at Google and give webmasters some juicy insider tips.

On his site, James Norquay landed an exclusive interview with Andre Weyher, a former member of Matt Cutts’ search quality team. Wehyer is no longer employed by Google and has recently moved to Australia. He worked with the AdWords and Adsense team for two years and moved to Search Quality soon after.

Wehyer mentioned he enjoyed working with Matt Cutts and the team atmosphere was fantastic. He liked Search Quality because there were fewer people and he gained a wealth of knowledge while he got to “investigate the deep and dark corners of the internet, keeping the search index clean from spam and blackhat SEO.”

What were Wehyer’s daily duties?

Wehyer was in charge of content quality and back link profiles. He assessed the quality of web pages and applied penalties if needed. He also created spam reports on specific markets.

He stated a fact we already know:

“The teams main focus is fighting spam and keeping Google’s search results clean so that the user gets the best possible experience. This is a very important thing for Google if you think about it. Google’s entire earning model relies on the good quality of the organic results, if people didn’t trust organic, they would stop using search and not click on ads anymore.”

Wehyer, when asked about Google’s latest slurry of algo changes, said there are many more to come. Google is “fed up” with violators and those who do not follow the guidelines.

In Wehyer’s own words, a webmaster would be “out of his mind to still rely on techniques that were common practice 8 months ago. Purchasing links was always risky but resembled a game of roulette, you could get caught but many people also got away with it. Today it’s not a question IF you get caught, it’s merely a question of WHEN you’ll get caught.”

Another part of the interview caught my attention. Wehyer said this statement…

“Relevance is the new PR.”

With this statement, he is alluding to people trying to get links from high PR sites and how this method is outdated.  Today, it is more advantageous to acquire links from related sites and the high PR is just the cherry on top of the cake.

In the next part of the interview, Norquay asked Wehyer what concepts he used to identify a spammy site while working at Google .

Wehyer said he divided this topic into categories:

On-page signals – Keyword stuffing, hiding elements under the CSS, keywords the same color as the background, etc.

Content quality – Google is not interested in the nature of your content, but more in its authenticity. Poor content could be identified as scraped, synonymized, or poorly written.

Backlink profile – A few questions Wehyer would use to determine a spammy link profile:

How many total links are there?
What is the quality of the pages the links come from?
Are the pages real or just existing to host links?
What are the anchors?
What is the commercial vs. non-commercial ratio of the anchors?

Wehyer said he used a logical thought process when determining if linking profiles were spammy. He imagined what the anchors would look like if the linking happened naturally and then compared this with the site’s actual linking profile. (not entirely scientific, don’t you think?)

On-Page Tactics

Wehyer went on to discuss the most important on-page optimization elements. He says most people overlook these strategies but they are very important.

  • Choose a good domain which is a great head start. Valuable domains are often expensive.
  • Add the basic elements such as titles, descriptions and H1/H2 headers.
  • No more than two commercial keywords in your titles
  • Focus on content quality

According to Wehyer, “Try to work on your website as if SEO was not part of your plan, create content out of a sincere interest and enthusiasm for the topic of your page. This is what Google and your users want form you, I know it’s tempting to think about financial gain but remember that Google’s primary concern is valuable information!”

Off-Site Tactics

Wehyer recommends staying away from anything automatic or your website will be at risk.

  • Link building has changed. It is now focused on building relationships with webmasters who are related to your industry.
  • Directories are still valid link opportunities. Poor quality directories are still out, but moderated, niche directories are still worth researching.
  • Focus on the quality of the links – According to Wehyer, “getting 3 links from authentic pages will do much more than 1000 links from splogs, so invest your time into getting quality, not quantity.”

The Kicker

Here is one of the most interesting statements to come out of Wehyer’s mouth:

…if you want to please Google with your SEO, then forget about SEO. Google wants you to create a site as if you don’t intend to manipulate their algo, but as if you are dinging because your passionate about the topic of your site. If you really are, your content will be great and your target audience will love you, this will do the best possible SEO you can imagine.

…if you want to please Google with your SEO, then forget about SEO?

Even Cutts recommends sound SEO principles. I think Wehyer was referring to manipulative SEO here. Maybe he should have clarified that.

Wehyer concluded with mention of his new project NetComber which will be a fingerprinting website that uses over 3,000 factors to determine if websites are owned by the same person. Search engines use this data to fight spam and now this tool will be available for users to check the quality of a directory, get ideas for potential linking partners, spy on the competition, and more. The tool is currently free to use.

Source: http://site-reference.com/articles/former-google-search-quality-team-member-reveals-all/

WordPress Statistics Plugin

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WordPress Statistics Plugin, or short WP Statistics is a very useful and easy to use plugin to keep track of your blog visitors. The programming behind the plugin is very simple, witch is the thing that makes it so genius. I use it on all my sites, and all my client sites. It has proven to be stable and reliable.

I did made a very small contribution to it by translating the plugin on Serbian language for use, of course in Serbia an the ex Yugoslavia region.

See more of the plugin at: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-statistics/

Akismet

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What is Akismet?

Akismet is a hosted web service that saves you time by automatically detecting comment and trackback spam. It’s hosted on our servers, but we give you access to it through plugins and our API.

How can I use Akismet?

There are a couple of ways:

The easiest is through pre-built plugins. WordPress is our most popular plugin, but there are over 20 others to choose from.

The other way you can access Akismet is through our API. The API gives you direct access to the Akismet service. In fact, it’s what all of the plugins are built on.

Whether you use a plugin or the API, you’ll first need to register an API key with us. The API key is a string of letters and numbers that acts like a username/password, allowing you to login to the Akismet service. You should never give your API key to anyone, as this will give them access to your account.

How does it work?

Each time a new comment, trackback, or pingback is added to your site it’s submitted to the Akismet web service which runs hundreds of tests on the comment and returns a thumbs up or thumbs down. As a result, you don’t have to waste your time sorting through and deleting spammy comments from your blog.

5 things every blogger should know about spam

1. Web spam is different from email spam.
Email spammers want you to buy their product. You are the target of the ad contained in each email spam you receive. Comment/web spammers want your readers to buy their product. You (the blogger, author, moderator) are not the target.

2. Web spammers are social engineers.
Email spammers write messages to get your attention. Comment spammers write messages to escape your attention. They want you to believe they are real bloggers, real people, writing real comments, so you’ll approve the comment and publish it on your site. They use flattery, appeal to your good nature, and simply lie in order to convince you to give them the benefit of the doubt.

3. Web spammers are basically advertising on your blog..
..and they’re keeping all of the profits. They’re not even asking your permission first. Right now someone is offering to sell links from your blog to anyone willing to pay a few dollars (or a few cents). If your blog is well known, it may even be listed by name, with backlinks for sale at a set price.

4. It’s all about the backlinks.
Web spammers are selling links from your blog to their clients. They do this to game the search engines and trick your readers into visiting dubious web sites. Their clients are sometimes seemingly harmless, but are often peddling fake pills, porn, scams and malware. Sometimes they’ll use “buffer sites” – that is, innocent looking web pages intended to disguise the fact that they’re really advertising something more sinister.

5. Spammers employ humans.
Not all spam is delivered by spambots. Spammers are increasingly using humans to write and post comments by hand. Typically they are exploiting low-paid workers in internet cafes, schools and factories. Sometimes they are viral marketers paid to promote a new product. Either way they are trying to exploit your blog for their profit – and hoping to do it without you noticing.

How can Akismet help?
Akismet monitors millions of blogs and forums, watching the methods and tricks used by spammers in real time. We know all about their spambots, comment factories, buffer sites and social engineering tricks. Akismet will use this knowledge to warn you when a spammer – automated or human – tries to sneak a spam comment past you. So if you notice a comment in your spam folder from someone you don’t know, or linking to a web site you’ve never seen before, take a good look at it before you hit the Unspam button: in all likelihood, Akismet put it there for a reason.

Source: http://akismet.com/how/

How to Score Guest Post Opportunities out the Wazoo

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guest_post

The last wave of Google changes has left everyone in the world of SEO with bewildered brains and sweaty palms. We’re trying to regroup, make sense of the madness, and scrambling to create another cohesive SEO strategy for our websites. But in the aftermath of all these algo updates (and promises of plenty more to come), is more SEO really the best strategy?

Another writer here at Site-Reference thinks maybe the answer is no, and she’s compiled a killer list of alternative marketing channels for your website. One of the methods she suggests is guest posting, which we’ve discussed here quite a bit. Guest posting is the single best way to beef up your backlink profile at this point. That’s probably why it seems like everyone is jumping on the bandwagon in an attempt to wrangle as many backlinks from high quality sites as possible.

The frenzy has left us with a sort of “market saturation” situation. Regardless of the niche, well-known bloggers and site owners are now dealing with inboxes full of guest post requests every day – and they’re starting to shut off. Some are even charging hefty fees for what they’re calling “sponsored posts”. Yes, this is a paid link situation, but that’s a conversation for another day.

Today, I want to focus on ways in which you can bypass responses of “no” to your guest post queries by building relationships with other bloggers in your niche. More than that, though, I want to reveal to you how to get leaders in your niche to come to you asking for guest post contributions.

I’ve talked about the power of community-building frequently over the past few months (check out my posts here,here, and here, for example), and for good reason. The practice will hand you the virtual keys to the kingdom if you’re serious about growing your site, and once you’ve become a force to be reckoned with in your niche, pitching guest post queries will quickly become a thing of the past.

Write Great Stuff

It doesn’t matter how much you schmooze with others in your niche, if your website doesn’t have killer content, there’s no real incentive for other webmasters to want you writing stuff for their sites. When you pitch a guest post query, the first thing the site owner will do is check out your website. If your content leaves something to be desired, you’re unlikely to receive further contact about the deal (unless it’s a paid post situation, in which case it can get pricy in a hurry).

Even worse, if your site is full of articles with terrible grammar, atrocious spelling, or even just plain lack of insight and creativity, you’re setting yourself up for disaster. Whatever’s on your website is what your peers will expect on theirs, so make sure your content is killer. Here’s a little help with that.

Network, Network, Network

When you’re working to build your website, creating a supportive community should be high on your list of priorities. Why? Well, once you’ve found the key players in your niche, you can leverage their traffic by way of guest posts without needing to email site owners cold.

Instead, comment on their posts. Make your presence known. Reach out by email, Twitter, or any other venue to establish and nurture a real relationship. Then, when it feels right, reach out and ask about guest posting on the site. Once you’ve been accepted into your community, you’ll be surprised how many people will say yes.

Promote Others Like Crazy

It’s the golden rule, and it works: you need to give in order to receive – selflessly. It’s vital to establish relationships with others in your niche, yes, but for optimal results, consider taking it one step further. After you’ve made connections, begin looking for ways to help your fellow webmasters with their own site promotion efforts. For example, try tweeting a handful of their posts each week. Create a “best of” piece with dofollow links to posts you enjoyed within your network.

Are you good at something – website design, SEO, plugin support? Seek out some small task you can perform for website owners and offer to help. You may have the chance to ask for a guest post as repayment. Think creatively and maintain a helpful mindset instead of an opportunistic one. This will allow you to come from a genuine place, and other webmasters will appreciate that. In fact, you’ll likely begin to see other websites linking to your content naturally in acts of reciprocity for all your kind deeds and support, so the need to guest post will eventually lessen as you network more and more.

Funny how that works, right?

As an aside this week, I’d like to point you to a new Google Webmaster Help video that was uploaded to YouTube on October 9. Ironically, the video tackled guest blogging for links. Here’s the stance taken by Matt Cutts, which I’ve summarized in my own words:

Guest blogging Is good (yay), but low-quality guest blogging is bad. Cutts specifically points to 200-300 word articles on low-quality websites. Keep your content rich and make sure you choose websites that are sporting some PageRank to host your guest posts. Remember Google judges backlinks based on the quality of the sites they come from, so make your choices count.

Google approves, everybody! That means an onslaught of new guest post seekers will be stalking the ‘net over the next few months – you can take that to the bank. Site owners will be guarding their space on the Web like jealous lovers, so community-building is now the primary strategy going forward if you want to get the backlinks that count.

So what are you waiting for? Start connecting!

Source: http://site-reference.com/articles/how-to-score-guest-post-opportunities-out-the-wazoo/

Panda, Penguin, and EMD – Making Sense of the Chaos

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Written by Nell Terry on October 9, 2012 in General, SEM, SEO

I’m really starting to wonder if the engineers at Google have been sleeping in shifts this past week. I wrote about the EMD update last week, and one day later, I discovered that a Panda update had rolled out directly before the EMD algo. Google didn’t announce the change until after the fact.

Then, on October 5, we got yet another Penguin refresh. According to Search Engine Roundtable, a little chronology can really help you understand how it all went down:

 

There’s wild speculation that Google sprung the updates on top of one another in order to throw ambitious webmasters and SEOs off the trail of changes in the SERPs. Part of me sees where they’re coming from; staying ahead of bad guys who are out to manipulate the rankings at all costs must be frustrating.

On the other hand, it’s more frustrating for legit webmasters who employ above-board SEO practices to see their site slapped as well. These poor souls are the real victims when sweeping changes are made across to board, and there’s nothing to do but regroup when you fall through the cracks. Let’s look at what happened with these updates so you can learn how to insulate your website from the inevitable changes that will follow in the future.

Panda and the EMD Update

Search Engine Roundtable broke the news that Google finally announced a Panda update had been working its way through the index since September 27. Matt Cutts did point out in an official quote that it was a noticeable change:

Google began rolling out a new update of Panda on Thursday, 9/27. This is actually a Panda algorithm update, not just a data update. A lot of the most-visible differences went live Thursday 9/27, but the full rollout is baking into our index and that process will continue for another 3-4 days or so. This update affects about 2.4% of English queries to a degree that a regular user might notice, with a smaller impact in other languages (0.5% in French and Spanish, for example).

However, Cutts glossed over the fact that the change would be quite massive across the board. The issue for many webmasters with EMD domains right now is that it’s difficult to decipher whether their sites were hit by the EMD algorithm or mauled by the new Panda changes.

The EMD algorithm supposedly took care of the websites Panda’s filter couldn’t detect. Of course, the domain name itself is the primary characteristic of websites that the EMD update is targeting, but that’s not the onlyfactor. Plenty of high-quality, established websites out there bear full- or partial-match domain names, and (in theory) they should be safe from this algorithm. It’s the low-quality, thin, ad-laden sites with poor content that will get the axe this go-round (again, we hope).

Sound familiar?

These on-site issues are exactly the kinds of things that Panda deals with, too. That’s why it’s so interesting that both updates rolled out simultaneously. It seems to be a move to deliberately keep SEOs chasing their tails, and – if you are a member of any number of popular webmaster forums – the strategy seems to be working verywell.

The Penguin Refresh

Penguin, as you’re likely well aware, is an algorithm specifically engineered to target off-page issues. A website’s backlink profile is the object of this algo’s affection, and those with links from low quality or spammy sites suffer a massive hit in the SERPs every time it updates.

Matt Cutts also offered up a few Penguin update details in a series of tweet discussions as the algo change was rolling out on October 5. His first tweet announced a Penguin data refresh, and he noted that roughly 0.3 percent of English-language queries would be “noticeably affected.” Follow-up tweets mentioned that the refresh would affect a small number of search queries in a handful of other languages as well.

Here’s the cool part. Up until now, we had no idea what the term “noticeably affected” actually meant. Cutts shed some light on this language by answering the tweet of Rob Watts, a UK-based SEO. The exchange follows:

 

In effect, the conversation boiled down to the following scenario: a #10 result in the SERPs swapping out with a different website wouldn’t be very noticeable. On the other hand, any of the top five (“above the fold”) results switching places would be considered noticeable. That puts these little announcements in perspective, so now we can get a bit of a visual to go alongside the numbers.

Although the Penguin update in late July came with the warning of more jolts to come, this one seems to be relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. It’s a promise of things to come, however – expect many bigger Penguin waves to roll in over the next few months.

I also think we will continue to see new algorithms and updates regularly from here on out. SEO is not dead, far from it, but you’ll need to have a thick skin and a real knack for evolving if you plan to do the Internet thing for the long-haul.

It can be done, but remember – when in comes down to ranking, everything hinges on the quality of your content and the strength of your backlinks. Everything else falls by the wayside.

Source: http://site-reference.com/articles/panda-penguin-and-emd-making-sense-of-the-chaos/

Google Penguin Update: This Person Has A “Huge Recovery” Story

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Google has been pushing major updates left and right in recent weeks, and plenty of webmasters are feeling the effects for better or for worse. In late September, Google announced the EMD update targeting low-quality sites with exact match domains. Later, we found out Google had also rolled out a new Panda update around the same time. Business owners who saw their referrals from Google decline had enough fun trying to dig through that and determine which update they were actually hit by (this should have been easier for those who did not have exact match domains).

Before the dust settled on those updates, Google went on to announce a new Penguin data refresh on Friday, after months of anticipation. So far, we have not seen many recovery stories, but we have seen one. We also haven’t seen a whole lot of people claiming to have been hit by the latest refresh (though there have been some). We have, however, seen plenty who have been working on trying to recover from previous Penguin launches, but have not been able to please the algorithm this time around.

Have you seen changes from the latest Penguin data refresh? Let us know in the comments.

When Google’s Matt Cutts tweeted about the Penguin refresh on Friday, he said it would “noticeably” affect 0.3% of English queries. He later tweeted that the refresh would be completed that same night. That means that the effects of the refresh should have already been felt by any webmasters affected.

There has been at least one reported recovery from this round of Penguin. Marketer Donna Fontenot claims that she has one client that saw a “huge recovery”. Here are some comments she made on Twitter:

Donna Fontenot
@DonnaFontenot

Google Penguin Update 3 Released, Impacts 0.3% Of English-Language Querieshttp://t.co/fX6n7byr (OMG! It’s about time!)

Marie Haynes
@Marie_Haynes

@DonnaFontenot Seriously! I’m surprised only 0.3% of queries are affected. Hoping we’ll hear of some recoveries.

@Marie_Haynes I can tell you that one client that I’ve been helping deal with Penguin saw a huge recovery now that Penguin finally ran again

Additionally, Fontenot has been talking about the recovery in the Cre8asite forums (via Search Engine Roundtable). There, she writes, “Long story short, they needed to get rid of excessive footer backlinks, links that looked like paid backlinks (and some were), etc. The really tough part? Getting the client to be patient and wait for another Penguin update to roll around so we could determine if the efforts were going to help or not. Six months later. SIX MONTHS. To a client, six months of waiting is forever.”

“No one got those terrible links for them,” she says later in the thread. “They accumulated the links themselves over several years. But I can attest that they didn’t go out and get new links to get out of this penalty. They strictly went through a huge process of getting rid of backlinks that looked like possible suspects for a penguin penalty.”

She admits that she was concerned (while waiting for Penguin to roll out again) that she was having her client get rid of too many backlinks, adding, “What if I had them remove links that were actually helping rather than hurting? Then, when Penguin waddled back through, even if the penalty was lifted, it was possible that they wouldn’t recover because now they would be missing links they needed to keep their rankings. Luckily, that didn’t happen.”

While in this case it may not have happened, this is still a legitimate concern for those trying to clean up their link profiles. From what we’ve seen and heard, there has likely been a great deal of overreaction when it comes to sites getting rid of backlinks. Many sites spent time and effort getting rid of links that they would have otherwise liked to have kept, but elected not to in the off chance that they could be hurting the site in Google. More on all of that madness here.

It seems fairly likely that following Fontenot’s story, people will continue down a similar path. Still, there are some out there that doubt her story. Alan, commenting on the Search Engine Roundtable post, says, “No offense but there are a lot more non-recovery stories than recovery stories…Unless I see proof I won’t believe her.”

Another reader adds, “I agree, I would like to see some proof. A ton of people got rid of links and never recovered. If it was that easy we would be seeing recoveries all over the forums. That is not the case.”

While we’re not holding our breath, perhaps Fontenot will put together a case study about the recovery for the benefit of other webmasters and SEOs. Here’s what she said about that when asked about the possibility on Twitter:

@Marie_Haynes Hmm. Maybe. If I can find some time. That ever-elusive time. :)

The fact that footer links are the main component of Fontenot’s claimed recovery case is interesting. As you may know, Google recently updated its webmaster guidelines. One of the new changes is the addition of “widely distributed links in the footers of various sites” to the “link schemes” section of the Quality Guidelines section.

Keep in mind, the Penguin update is specifically aimed at targeting sites violating the quality guidelines. This is the exact quote from Google’s original announcement about the update, which Cutts also linked to in his latest announement: “The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines.”

Back in May, we reported on another Penguin update recovery story, which also apparently had a lot to do with footer links. Read that story here.

In the forum thread, one member, Dr. Marie, writes, ‘Donna, yours is the only recovery I have heard of so far. I am thinking that sites who have excessive footer links pointing at them can recover because in many cases they can get the footer links removed and therefore remove a huge percentage of links. But, for sites that have participated in widespread article spam with links pointing back at their site the task for removal is way too huge. Plus, the webmasters who host these article sites are less likely to respond to requests for link removal.”

Member Jonbey adds, “When people have these footer links etc. are they usually pointing at the homepage? I was thinking for any links pointing at internal pages you could just change the URLs of those so that the links point to 404′s instead.”

Fontenot’s response to that was, “Jon, in my client’s case, yes, the footer links generally all pointed to the home page.Some of my client’s main phrases (very competitive btw) actually ended up even better than before Penguin. Instead of being #2 or #3, for instance, some are at #1 now. And in case you were interested, Penguin had originally moved their rankings down into the 50′s, 60′s, 70′s, 100′s, and below. So it was a major fall, and now a major recovery.”

What do you think?

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/google-penguin-update-marketer-claims-client-recovered-2012-10

50 Google-Loving Content Tips to Create Traffic-Worthy Content

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Every webmaster knows Google loves content, but many don’t know exactly how to create, market and dispense content so it makes an impact and increases traffic.

To aid our Site-Reference readers, I compiled a list of 50 content tips to help you at every stage of the process.

Whether you own a large 1,000,000 page website or you are the sole owner of an online business, you will find something in this list to take your content marketing to the next level.

OK, here goes…

Topics – Where and how to find an idea for a content piece

1.  Google Trends – Hot topics always sell.

2. Alltop – Curates the top blogs by category. Use them for inspiration.

3. Bag The Web – Create “bags” to collect and organize content from the web. Search other users’ bags by keyword to find specialized content.

4. Netvibes – Content organization system. Organize hundreds of RSS feeds from your favorite blogs into categories and view the newest news from one easy-to-use interface.

5. Monitor Twitter conversations – Use a #hashtag with a specific keyword to search for what people are talking about. If you find an interesting conversation, screen capture it.

6. Use Google’s autosuggest feature to discover the phrases for which people are searching.

7. Be ready for inspiration – Ideas always come at the most inopportune times.

8. Google Alerts – Let Google send you keyword-related posts directly to your inbox as they are published.

9. Facebook News Feed – Subscribe to industry leaders and news sites, and create an Interest list.

10. Blog comments – Browse through your readers’ comments and your competitors’ blog comments. If you see a trend, you hit the jackpot!

11. Stumble Upon– Find stumblers who are interested in your topic and monitor what they “stumble.”

12. Ask your audience – If you have a large customer base, ask them what topics interest them. Take surveys or polls.

13. Personal – Don’t forget that you are always learning. Your audience may not be as skilled in your topic so what you deem as insignificant may actually be a great topic.

14. Quora.com – Ask questions or search for conversations in your industry.

15. Research your market – Glean from what has already worked.

 

Looking for ways to create and publish your content? Here are some ideas…

 

16. Myths and Misconceptions – Dispelling common industry myths is a great way to position you as a leader.

17. Infographics – Take a hot topic and create an infographic. Or use pre-researched data and create an inforgraphic about it. Credit the original source of the data. You may just score yourself a valuable link as well as increased exposure.

18. Top 10 lists, Top 50 lists, Top 37 lists – Yes, lists still work. You are reading this one, aren’t you?

19. Q & A series with industry experts – Interviews with expert sources. Find sources on HARO (Help A Reporter) for free. I love this resource and use it regularly to find experts.

20. Live Webinars – If you are brave enough.

21. Case studies – Any customers doing well? Chronicle their growth.

22. Your Mistakes –This one is hard especially for perfectionists like me, but sharing your past mistakes with your audience is a way to connect with them and also teach them valuable lessons.

23. Gratitude – Thank your audience for their support. Share with them some of the top social conversations and comments from your profiles, giving thanks to the original posters.

24. Tips and tricks series, How-to articles, tutorials

25. Local Events – for brick and mortar stores

26. Industry FAQs – Compile the important industry questions into one piece of content.

27. Staff Spotlights – Who are the people working for your business? Highlight their day-to-day lives. People love behind-the-scenes content.

28. Customer spotlights – Who are the people purchasing your products and services? Highlight some of your brand ambassadors.

29. Contests – A good way to generate buzz.

30. Industry complaints – List complaints and how you solve them

31. Article or blog Series – Link content pieces together

32. Best Practices – List the best practices for using your products.

33. Predict the future – Show yourself as an expert in your industry by making future predictions that may affect your audience.

34. Repackage your best content – Have a few winning blog posts? Create a video about them and re-purpose them in a new and interesting way. Content can be repurposed as long as it is still useful to your audience.

35. Freebies – Give away free stuff.

36. Post of the year – A clever name can make all the difference. Just make sure your content backs it up.

 

Content and Engagement Tips

 

37. Use your brand personality– Don’t be a robot. Develop your unique brand personality and stay consistent with it throughout your content.

38. Use images – Images connect with readers and establish a connection

39. Use the Senses – Content is more than just blog posts. Think videos, podcasts, webinars, slideshows, Powerpoint presentations, images, infographic, ebook, charts, etc.

40. Create an editorial calendar – Don’t leave your content marketing to “whenever you get to it.” Make yourself accountable to a schedule by setting deadlines.

41. Share information your audience can USE – Make your content USEFUL.

42. Track your results – If you don’t know what is and isn’t working you will never be able to replicate success.

43. Vary your content – Change up your method of publishing content, but ensure whatever you publish is relevant and valued by your audience (See #39 )

44. Know your Audience – If your audience is comprised of last-minute brides, don’t publish a long ebook or drawn-out webinar series. Think about their needs.

45. Create marketing personas – Know whom you are targeting intimately.

46. Don’t expect every content piece to go viral right away – It may take some time to gain popularity. Try to stay consistent and measure your results as you go to determine the sweet spot for your audience.

47. Don’t pre-judge! When brainstorming topics, get your ideas on paper and don’t judge what is coming out of your brain. You can always refine it later. When you stop judging your ideas, the creative flow happens easily and you will be surprised by what you come up with.

48. Readability – Your content must be easy to digest and not read like a novel. Think short paragraphs, bullet points, bolded headlines and underlined phrases. Use images to break up large chunks of content.

49. Ask questions – Questions engage readers and beckon people to answer.

50. Drum roll please…the last tip is to remain CONSISTENT. Repeating a content task will only make you better. Practice makes perfect.

 

Source: http://site-reference.com/articles/50-google-loving-content-tips-to-create-traffic-worthy-content/