Skip to content

Georgijevic Developer Team

Georgijevic Developer Team

Galleries

The Top 10 Tips for Loving (Or Living With) Google’s Penguin — A SEO-News Exclusive

by
Featured Article Picture

Never before (except perhaps in the baneful reviews of the box office bomb Happy Feet Two), have penguins been so universally despised as in the latest iteration of Google’s algorithm modifications. If you thought Farmer had ploughed you into the ground and Panda had eaten your most successful shoots, the Penguin will ice your SEO efforts and freeze your income. To beat that Penguin into submission apply these tips:

It’s All About Quality – Even though there has been more than enough public discussion about what constitutes quality and depth in writing articles, it’s very obvious what constitutes poor quality and shallowness. Any spun or transparently rewritten articles are going to attract the full wrath of the Penguin From Hades, so make sure that your content is eternally fully unique and well-written.

Limit Your Links – Too many links within a page are a clear trigger for Penguin’s bots to kick you down to Antarctica so keep the number of links to an absolute minimum and always integrate them logically and in a reader-friendly manner within your text, never in a list of links plunked into a sidebar.

Keep Your Links High Up – Above the fold is the critical place for links to be placed as they bear the most weight as well as attract the most reader attention. Penguin appreciates high up links and is not so kind to those which are dumped into a footer or at the end of an article.

Drop the Dropped Domains – One of the old standby SEO strategies is to pick up dropped domains to benefit from istorical links or PR and Google’s little polar bird is completely up to speed on this ploy so avoid it like a Penguin plague.

Never Stop Validating – Ensuring that your site is completely free from validation errors and each page is of a strictly limited file size to ensure easy loading is critical to keeping that tuxedo-wearing little bird happy and chirping away… if Penguins chirp, that is.

Stop Worrying About Negative SEO – Only in the most extreme cases do you have to be concerned about one of your rabidly vicious competitors setting up a few thousand links pointing to your site overnight to get Penguin to target you. Not only is it a whole lot of work for very little result, but the Googleplex has very few birdbrains so they’ll see through that.

Fry Up Your on Page Spam – Hawaiians believe that fried Spam is delectable, so go ahead and fry all the spam you currently have. That equates to: hidden text, keyword stuffing, thin content, cloaking, paid links, link spam, and the rest of the naughty black hat stuff which is nothing more than rancid canned meat product that is toxic to Penguins.

Bad Link, Bad, Bad Link – Come on, you know which of your links are nasty, so just go ahead and kill them now. Keeping them alive on your pages will do nothing but cause the evil Penguin Penalty to rear its ugly head from the snow and ice.

Know When to Start Over – Perhaps your current site is so riddled with Penguin Pathogens that it just may be at the unrecoverable stage. In these fairly rare cases you might be better off to just can the entire site and start completely fresh at a new URL. If you do take this extreme step, ensure that you are not carrying over any of your old calamitous habits, as well as not a single iota of any text or image content from the dearly departed site.

File the Google Feedback Form – If you think that you have been penalized by the Penguin through no fault of your own don’t listen to the paranoid hyperbola on the various SEO forums and go ahead and file The Form. There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that filing The Form will “out” your site so file with no fear and confront that rascally Penguin.

You can live happily with Penguin. Just try not to mind the ammonia odor!

How to Use Yahoo Answers for Massive Traffic Generation

by
Featured Article Picture

Yahoo Answers can be an integral part of your SEO strategy – you just need to know how to use it.

Using Yahoo Answers has two guaranteed benefits: it will help you establish authority in your niche and give you highly targeted traffic – in other words, people willing to pay for your product or service. Another benefit? If you provide high-quality, authoritative answers, these answers may appear at the top of the SERPs.

How Yahoo Answers Works

The Yahoo Answers system is easy to use. People ask questions and you answer them. It’s that simple. A link to your website appears at the end of your answer. Yahoo Answers users who find your answers helpful are likely to click on your link to see what your website offers.

You must have a Yahoo account to make use of this forum. Once you have created an account, go to Yahoo Answers and search for questions that pertain to your niche. The search function uses keywords just like a search engine, so try looking for the keywords you target on your website. You can also search by category, but finding relevant questions using this method can be tedious.

Using the advanced search allows you to choose only ‘open’ questions. ‘Closed’ questions are those that have already been voted on, therefore, even if you did answer, your response could not be rated. You can also use advanced search to look for questions by date. If it’s a recent question, you can be the first to answer it.

Once you find questions in your niche, read them carefully. Put thought into your answers. Make sure your responses are well-written and professional to ensure the questioner will choose your answer as the most helpful. Good answers will also receive thumbs ups, Facebook likes and comments.

Getting To Level 2

When you first start using Yahoo Answers, you can’t leave a clickable link. You can submit your URL in text format, but don’t expect anyone to use it. If it’s not easily clickable, people will move onto something else.

To leave a clickable link, you must have progressed to Level 2. The only way to get to Level 2 is to answer at least 250 questions. Yes, it sounds like a hassle, but it’s not hard and will be worth it in the long run.

You can elevate your answer quotient by answering questions in any category – they don’t all have to be relevant to your niche and they don’t have to be voted the best to get to Level 2.

If answering random questions does not appeal to you, hire someone from Fiverr.com – a global marketplace offering tasks and services online – to answer questions for you. It is important to ensure the person you hire, doesn’t leave any obnoxious, spammy or worthless answers, however, because he or she will be using your account.

How To Level-Up Even More

What if you don’t find enough questions in your niche? What if you have answered them all? Simply create several accounts and ask questions in your niche. Then, log in as yourself and answer them. If you are not cautious, however, your account could be suspended for misuse. Outsourcing would be wise, as those you hire will have different IP addresses than yours.

You can use content from your website to come up with questions for posting. Simply look at your articles, blog posts, etc., and take any statement to turn into a question.

Tips On Using Yahoo Answers

* Once you are at Level 2, don’t go all over the map answering questions. Stick to your niche. The point is to build authority in your topic.

* If you are going to answer in multiple niches, create multiple profiles.

* Use keyword research to find or create questions. Look for low competition keywords because Yahoo Answers questions show up in the SERPs.

* Don’t stop with Yahoo Answers; check out Answer.com, AOL Answers, and Amazon’s Askville as well.

The New Google Patent to Stop Spamming? — A SEO-News Exclusive

by

For quite some time, Google has been battling spammers. There is a constant quest by sites both small and large to be ranked #1 for a particular keyword or subject. As the internet keeps expanding and becoming more popular, there is even more of a need to be on the first page for sales, information or whatever it is that your site promotes. As the need to become #1 increases, so do those who use “spammy” or “black hat methods” of improving a site.

A recently discovered Google patent document identifies how web sites are reacting to current link best practices. You can find the document here. I’m assuming most of you won’t be reading the whole document, so I’ll do my best to sum it up.

Basically, the major points of the document are how Google will be making page rank changes in the future and how these changes will affect the SERPs. Those sites that do make changes whether it be linking, on-page or other, will have to wait while Google decides if the changes were for legitimate content reasons or for rankings. During this process Google will move their rankings (most likely lower) and see how the site reacts to these changes.

Here is a quote from the document that discusses this:

“When a spammer tries to positively influence a document’s rank through rank-modifying spamming, the spammer may be perplexed by the rank assigned by a rank transition function consistent with the principles of the invention, such as the ones described above. For example, the initial response to the spammer’s changes may cause the document’s rank to be negatively influenced rather than positively influenced. Unexpected results are bound to elicit a response from a spammer, particularly if their client is upset with the results. In response to negative results, the spammer may remove the changes and, thereby render the long-term impact on the document’s rank zero. Alternatively or additionally, it may take an unknown (possibly variable) amount of time to see positive (or expected) results in response
to the spammer’s changes. In response to delayed results, the spammer may perform additional changes in an attempt to positively (or more positively) influence the document’s rank. In either event, these further spammer-initiated changes may assist in identifying signs of rank-modifying spamming.”

This is apparently the new way that Google will weed out spammers, mostly link manipulators. Previously, there would be almost an “instant gratification” reaction to positive or negative moves within the rankings. For example, when penguin and panda updates hit, sites were instantly punished or rewarded. This type of behavior will no longer be typical and it may take longer to figure out exactly why a site is doing well or poorly.

Source: http://www.seo-news.com/the-new-google-patent-to-stop-spamming-a-seo-news-exclusive/

7 Reasons You Should be Participating in Internet Marketing Forums — A SEO-News Exclusive

by

Here are 7 reasons you should consider being an active participant in Internet marketing forums. Each of the reasons is a valuable step in the entire process of becoming a successful Internet marketer. If you can master the entire process, you will have a distinct advantage over your competition in all your future ventures.

1. Copy Other Successful Marketers and Their Techniques

The number one reason is copying those that are already successful. This may sound unethical, but it’s simply researching what works. What better place to find what’s working than from those already succeeding? This doesn’t mean go to a website and download their pictures or copy their text! It means reverse engineer their strategies and then use that knowledge to form your own.

2. Ask for Tips, Advice, and Learn from Other Marketing Forum Participants

Always ask questions! You will get bad advice, advice that borders on good, and then that one hidden gem which will make you understand what your goals are just a little bit better. Be careful, there is often misleading advice mixed in with the sincere. Always remember that internet marketing forums are filled with your competition! Not everyone will be there to help you.

3. Make Friends and Form Partnerships with Marketing Forum Participants

Making friends is an ideal way to gain information on how to be a successful marketer. Through internet marketing forums you can make friendships and form partnerships. You’re many times more likely to get credible information from a friend and partner than you are a stranger or competitor. If you can’t beat them, join them!

4. Stay Current with the Latest Developments in Your Industry

Are you up-to-date with the latest trends in Internet marketing and SEO? Do you know exactly how to deal with the latest Google update? It is impossible to stay on top of trends by yourself. You need to be connected. An Internet marketing forum is an ideal venue to find out the most recent news in your industry.

5. Learn How to Start Your Own Forum

I use a web hosting company for one of my websites. I noticed that they run probably the most popular web hosting forum online. It is not obvious that they are the owners, however there are links to their service. How convenient having everybody interested in web hosting, flocking to your web hosting forum for more information. If you want to dominate your niche, it might be a good marketing strategy to start your own forum in your niche. By participating in a good marketing forum you can see how they are run and get an idea on how to run your own forum.

6. Having Fun!

Participating in online forums can be fun and even addictive! You are learning the latest news, getting questions answered, asking questions and engaging in friendly online debates. Blogs like this one are great, but they generally tend to be more one way conversations with a few comments. Forums allow you to start the conversation. You have an equal voice with the person who started the post. Forums are generally much more interactive than blogs which usually translates into more fun!

7. If for No Other Reason, Get Back Links From Your Forum Signature

The final reason and the most obvious reason is to get a few back links. Put the link to your website in your signature and make a few posts every day to keep that link out there for search engines and visitors. Building back links can be difficult, so if you can get a few for free, go for it!

Source: http://www.seo-news.com/7-reasons-you-should-be-participating-in-internet-marketing-forums-a-seo-news-exclusive/

Now It’s Even Harder To Get First-Page Google Rankings

by

It seems like the chances for sites to get their content into organic Google search results is continuing to decrease. In a recent article, we looked at some of the recent changes Google has made to its algorithm, including things to make it better at natural language, give it a decreased dependence on keywords, and giving users more direct answers, and therefore not having to direct them to other sites as much.

Have Google’s results pages gotten better or worse? Let us know what you think in the comments.

This, alone, makes a lot of webmasters uneasy, and highlights the need for sites to diversify their sources of web traffic. Google only wants to get better and better at this. Google wants to deliver the best user experience possible, and users want to go on about their business as quickly as possible. This is easier to do if Google can provide the answer itself. Lost traffic, however, could be an unfortunate side effect for content providers.

Wait, didn’t there used to be more search results on this page?

Now, there’s a separate, but related topic being discussed by the webmaster community. Google appears to be showing less organic results for SERPs that contain a result with its sitelinks feature. You know, the ones that look like this:

Sitelinks

Specifically, for many SERPs that display these kinds of results, Google is now showing only a total of 7 organic search results (that’s regular results, not including any universal search results that might appear):

Seven Organic Results

There has been discussion about this in the WebmasterWorld forums over the past couple weeks. “Google wants to get people to their answer quickly, and if the query has a history of being too ambiguous, they certainly have the ability to measure that and throw a tag to change from the normal SERP. Just as there was QDF (for query deserves freshness) they might have something like “QDD” or query deserves disambiguation,” said forum admin Tedster.

Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land shared a statement from Google about the matter, saying, “We’re continuing to work out the best ways to show multiple results from a single site when it’s clear users are interested in that site. Separately, we’re also experimenting with varying the number of results per page, as we do periodically. Overall our goal is to provide the most relevant results for a given query as quickly as possible, whether it’s a wide variety of sources or navigation deep into a particular source. There’s always room for improvement, so we’re going to keep working on getting the mix right.”

So this may be an experiment, but a lot of people are getting SERPs with fewer organic results, from fewer sites. It doesn’t bode well for organic SEO. It does seem to make sitellinks more important than ever.

Dr. Peter J. Meyers, President of User Effect, has put out some research at SEOmoz, finding that Google is showing way more SERPs with less than ten results than ever before, and for the most part, these results have 7 results a piece. Here are a couple of graphs he shared:

SERPs with less than ten results

null

“SERPs with 7 results were an anomaly prior to 8/13, with the system tracking a maximum of one (0. 1%) on any given day. On 8/13, that number jumped to 10.7% and then, the following day, to 18.3%,” he writes. “Almost one-fifth of SERPs tracked by our data now have 7 results.”

You can read his article for more about the methodology, and his additional findings.

There has been some talk about this phenomenon being related to brand queries, but as Sullivan points out, there are plenty of examples of non-branded queries where this is happening, where the results contain one with sitelinks. It just so happens that a lot of brands do have sitelinks.

Taking Advantage Of Sitelinks

So, how do you get Google to display sitelinks for your site? Well, unfortunately, it’s not that simple. It’s pretty much up to Google.

“We only show sitelinks for results when we think they’ll be useful to the user,” says Google in its help center. “If the structure of your site doesn’t allow our algorithms to find good sitelinks, or we don’t think that the sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user’s query, we won’t show them.”

“At the moment, sitelinks are automated,” Google adds. “We’re always working to improve our sitelinks algorithms, and we may incorporate webmaster input in the future. There are best practices you can follow, however, to improve the quality of your sitelinks. For example, for your site’s internal links, make sure you use anchor text and alt text that’s informative, compact, and avoids repetition.”

If Google is showing sitelinks for your site, but you don’t like certain links it’s showing, you can demote those links, telling Google not to consider it for a sitelink candidate. You can do this in Webmaster Tools. Go to the “For this search result box” in “Sitelinks” under “Site Configuration”. You can demote up to 100 URLs, but Google says it may take a while to be reflected in the search results.

But that’s about as much control as you have over it right now. At least Google is hinting that it may give webmasters more control over sitelinks in the future. If sitelinks are having such an impact on SERPs these days, perhaps sooner rather later would be a good idea.

But back to the point at hand…

Search has been moving further and further away from the classic “ten blue links” format for years, but now Google is clearly giving you fewer opportunities to just rank on the first page in organic links than it used to, at least for a growing number of queries (and who’s to say that number won’t continue to grow?).

This probably means that you’ll need to put more focus on getting into Google’s other types of results more than ever, depending on what types of results Google is showing for the queries for which you want to be found. That could mean optimizing for image search, Places, YouTube, Google News, or of course paying for AdWords ads and/or Google Shopping results.

Interestingly enough, as Google wants to get users answers more quickly (and directly in many cases), the company still faces pressure from publishers who actually don’t want Google benefiting from their content without paying them. It seems pretty backwards, when you consider all of the sites who just want to show up in the results at all.

You and Me: Google-Free?

by
What Would a Google-Free Website Look Like?

Seems the death-to-Google feeding frenzy is upon us. I’ve seen the hate escalate to fever pitch over the past few months, and I’m sure you’ve seen a bit of fury yourself if you’ve spent any stretch of time in webmaster forums lately. Jenna summed up the reasons for the rage in her most recent post: The Anti-Google Movement is Gaining Momentum. In it, Jenna pointed to Tadeusz Szewczyk, an SEO pro who has a newly Google-free blog called SEO 2.0.

This guy, oh man… this guy. In a nutshell, he protested Google by banning the search giant entirely from his blog. I visited the links Jenna included in her article, and I ended up killing a smooth hour on his site. I was hooked by his unabashed fearlessness and his anti-Google sentiment: articles with titles such as Giving All Your Great Content to Google For Free is Suicide and Why Peer-to-Peer SEO Beats Influencer Ass Kissing kept me reading for much longer than I’d comfortably like to admit.

I went on to visit sites run by this guy’s like-minded peers – did you know there’s a whole underground movement  dedicated to SEO sans Google? I guess I had an idea, but seeing it in action?

Wow. Powerful stuff.

If you’re a search marketer, think about all the time you’d save if you didn’t have to do so many things each day to keep the Google gods happy.  Think about how much liberty you’d have with your website! I, like all of you, have come to consider Google’s rules as the rules of the Internet at large instead of something I’m doing for Google specifically.

Google’s rules are so deeply imbedded in my brain that I now consider them standard website-building techniques.

That’s why I want to step back for a second, in light of Jenna’s post and all that I read on Szewczyk’s site and others, and dream with you about what we’d stand to gain if we completely eliminated Google from our marketing strategies.

Here’s Your Control Back

I can think of some things right off the bat that would make my life a heck of a lot easier if I cut Google from my marketing strategy. How about you?

Let’s start with my favorite: Google PageRank. The reason we’re all so preoccupied with PageRank is because it gives websites the link juice (read: lifeblood) they need to rank well in the SERPs.

Why?

Because PageRank is the measure of how much Google trusts your site. More trust, more lift in your SERP position. Imagine not having to worry about this metric ever again. Why would you care about whatever “score” Google gives your site if you’re not worried about ranking in the first place?

You wouldn’t.

That’s just the beginning. Now let’s talk on-page mandates. No more fretting over awkwardly-placed keywords in your otherwise great article titles.  No more using CTRL+F to count the number of times you mention “sky blue baseball cap” in a document. No more checking H1 tags for LSI keywords. You could just write. Imagine that.

And nofollow tags? You don’t need no stinkin’ nofollow tags!

Clearly, this wouldn’t be a license to write gibberish. You should still use language – and stick to topics – that people in your niche will know, recognize, and want to read. However, here’s another fun fact – you would never have to worry about Google possibly tagging your site as “adult” and blocking it from searches if you use curse words in your content. Of course, dropping F bombs all over the place is not in the greatest taste, but the point is that you won’t have to censor yourself to please G.

Backlinks would also be a huge weight off your shoulders. You’d worry about your backlink profile far lesswithout Google in the picture. With all the talk of negative SEO and reports of emailed threats demanding money for link removals, this may sound awfully appealing to some webmasters. Again, you should still monitor your backlinks from time to time if you indeed decide to set Google free, but there would be no more obsessive logins to your Google Webmaster Tools account or futile nervous emails to spammers in remote countries begging for removal of a wayward link.

P2P SEO: Loving This Concept

Let’s be clear: I’m not talking about banning Googlebot completely from your site like Szewczyk did. That, to me, is extreme. However, if you’re into that sort of thing, by all means, don’t let me stop you.

I’m discussing what not caring about Google would look like.

If you build your site for people, and it gains popularity – it will inevitably begin ranking in Google naturally, with no SEO help from you.

Google wouldn’t be the primary thing you’d think about when building your site, but if you rank, great. Extra traffic never hurt anybody. With all the algorithm changes that we’ve experienced in the past year and a Penguin refresh just around the corner, shifting your focus may not be a bad idea.

I’m really digging the concept of peer-to-peer (P2P) SEO that Szewczyk and others have been writing about recently. It’s not actually “SEO” at all; more like anti-SEO. It’s about ditching the search engines altogether and marketing by leveraging the traffic of your peers.

P2P SEO is very similar to what we’ve been exploring here on Site-Reference for quite a while now: building up your network and marketing through community-building in your niche. It’s starting to emerge as a much more viable long-term strategy than traditional search marketing.

Now, for your viewing pleasure, Szewczyk’s take on the technique:

SEO 2.0: P2P SEO

Bottom line: I feel a shift in the tide coming soon. Seriously. The feeling here and elsewhere toward Google is just… changing. For the SEO world, on a macro level, I’m really interested in seeing where this goes. On a micro level, I’m applying these techniques and focusing on Google much less with my own websites going forward.

We’ll see how it goes.

9 Penguin Safe Ways to Dominate Search for Your Keywords A SEO-News Exclusive

by

It may take some time and work to rank your new website for your desired keywords. However, by leveraging OPPR (Other People’s PR) you can actually have your website represented in multiple positions throughout the first several pages of search relatively quickly. The recent Penguin update has penalized sites which were “over-optimized.” For example, did you hire somebody to get you 4000 forum profile links which all have the exact same keywords? Then your site might have been affected negatively by Penguin. Google is looking for natural link building from quality original content. Every suggestion here involves creating original high quality content on highly ranked platforms which Google just loves.

1. Write Guest Blog Posts for Quality Blogs With Real Readers

Having a high quality, unique, article published on a first-rate relevant blog that has real readers with your links is about the best SEO there is. When you get wind of the next Google update no matter what cute animal they name it your heart will not skip a beat. You will know that your content and links are the best quality there is. Actually you should be overjoyed when Google performs its next update. It will probably eliminate the spammy competition and rank your high quality articles even better than before! You can look Google in the eye and say “make my day!” Here is a list of 9 high traffic blogs that accept guest blog posts.

2. Create Short Quality Videos With Your Keywords in the Titles and Description and Upload to the Top Video Hosting Sites

I am amazed at how well YouTube and Dailymotion videos get ranked on Google. I am not sure how much they will help the actual ranking of your main site because of all this ‘”no follow” business but people still can find your website by clicking the link in the description below the video. I suggest uploading your videos to most of the major video hosting sites. Here is a list of 35 video hosting sites with their PR ranking that I actually use. Also, make sure you have a reasonably keyword rich description and definitely put your keywords in the title. I also suggest putting a call to action in the video itself giving viewers an excellent reason to click the link in the description below. You should definitely take advantage of YouTube’s PR 9 ranking and start filling up search results for your keywords with YOUR videos.

3. Create a Facebook Fanpage With Your Keywords in the Title

I found this out by accident. I had created a Facebook fanpage for my classified ad posting serviceand when I searched my keywords it was outranking my own website. It was not really fair since my main website actually had the most relevant information for the searcher, but it seems that the domain Facebook.com has more pull than classifiedsubmissions.com. Facebook fanpages really seem to jump to the top of search results. They generally pick up the keywords in the title. So make your Facebook fanpage with your desired keywords in the title. Then put a description of your website with a link in the about section of your page. Put some good relevant content, videos and pictures on the page as well.

4. Create a WordPress.com Blog and Fill It With Unique Keyword Rich Relevant Content

I am not talking about downloading the famous WordPress software and starting your own blog on your own domain (this is good too.) I am talking about going to WordPress.com and creating a blog based on your keywords to be hosted on the domain WordPress.com. WordPress.com has a whopping PR9 ranking. It is almost impossible to create a PR9 domain with your own domain name. So from a PR standpoint it is probably better to run a blog on WordPress.com than even on your own domain.

There is a reason WordPress.com is such a highly ranked platform. They do not accept junk content. Your content should be unique, relevant, informative and not just a sales pitch. Do not do what I did at first and hire somebody from Fiverr.com to create 20 WordPress.com blogs and populate them with different versions of a spun article. Most of the blogs were deleted so it was a complete waste of time. I picked one that stuck and started developing real, well-written, original content about my subject with my keywords. Just manually set up one WordPress.com blog and add unique quality content bit by bit.

The result for me has been that my WordPress.com blog posts bounce around between the first and third pages of Google for variations of my keywords. Up until very recently they have been outranking my main site. Hint: make sure you include your well researched keywords in the name of your blog and in the title of your blog posts.

5. Create a Blogger.com Blog and Fill It With Unique Compelling Content

Blogger.com also has a PR9 ranking with Google. Try doing the same exercise you did with WordPress.com. But remember, do not just copy and paste content from your WordPress.com blog onto your Blogger.com blog. You need original content on both platforms. You can, however, have both blogs linking to each other and of course to your main website. One advantage of Blogger.com is that you can embed your autoresponder subscription forms in Blogger.com posts. WordPress.com does not allow you to do this. In addition Blogger.com accepts adult content with some caveats.

6. Create A Squidoo Lens

Squidoo is a place where you can create content rich websites called lenses. Unlike Blogger.com and WordPress.com these are not blogs. You create your content pages using modules. They have text modules, video modules, Amazon modules and more. Squidoo lenses can take a little more time to create than a blog post, but they get highly ranked in search and they also receive traffic by other members searching Squidoo itself. Squidoo has a ranking of PR7. Again you must use quality original content or your lens will not even get published. Because of these high standards Squidoo lenses generally rank very well in search. It is free to create a Squidoo page and you should use your keywords in the title and throughout the body of your lens. Do not keyword stuff just use your keywords naturally and relevantly throughout your lens.

7. Create a Hubpage

Hubpages are a similar concept to Squidoo. Hubpages have a PR ranking of 6. I have had a harder time creating Hubpages. Despite some of my best efforts to create quality content I have had some of my Hubpages deleted and even one of my URLs banned. Hubpages thought my site was too commercial. However, if you succeed in publishing your Hubpages, they can serve as yet another way searchers can find your website through searching your targeted keywords.

8. Upload Your Content to Content Sharing Sites

Sites such as Scribd and Mediafire are some of the highest traffic sites in the world. You can upload your PDF documents to document sharing sites and benefit from having your documents with your keywords and links on ultra high traffic sites. Not only do you get traffic from people directly searching these sites, but these sites actually get highly ranked in Google search since they have very high PR. Here is a list of 25 content sharing sites ranked by Alexa and Page Rank.

9. Answer Questions on Yahoo Answers

Yahoo Answers may not give you do follow links, but real people look for real answers to questions on this site. Search for questions related to your industry and give thoughtful relevant answers. Leave links back to your website incorporated in the responses. When people are searching for answers related to your industry they will find your answers and links to your website. The goal is that every time somebody uses search for your keywords, that all roads will lead to your website.

My next step would be to promote all these properties which feature your original articles and links. Of course submit them all to your various social media outlets. In addition you can cross promote. Take your videos and put them on your WordPress.com and Blogger.com blogs. Put links to your Blogger.com and WordPress.com articles in the descriptions of your videos. Put links to all articles and upload all videos to your keyword targeted Facebook page. Of course, all properties should have relevant links back to your main website. You get the idea. The results will be that you should have multiple listings on the first several pages of search for your keywords on various high PR properties. Nobody can guarantee you a first place permanent listing but, if you have multiple, unique high PR quality properties all leading to your website, you are multiplying your chances of success.

The rankings change everyday. However, if you have a number of high PR, high quality properties all competing for your keywords you could have your Squidoo page in first place one day, then your WordPress.com blog, then your YouTube video on top the next day. Having multiple links coming from relevant high PR sites going to your main website can only help increase the rankings for your main website as well.

Here is a case study applying these techniques to my website classifiedsubmissions.com. The keywords I am going for are “classified ad submission service.” Here is a screenshot from the first page of Google. Keep in mind these rankings change every day but I still see the same sites bouncing back and forth in the top positions.

3 Strategies to Google-Proof Your Business

by
How do you escape the clutches of the next major algorithm change? Can you really become immune to downgrades and penalties?

No, I don’t have a “get out of jail free” card for you that promises to shield you from future updates. And there aren’t any magical formulas to stay safe, but there are some killer strategies to grow your business outside of reliance on Google.

I have done tons of research since the newest updates and after listening to webmaster’s comments, watching the forums, and following Google around like a lost puppy, I have come up with three strategies I believe are essential to growing a business in this new “post-spam” paradigm.

1. Go lateral – Uniqueness

We have discussed this topic in previous articles, but I want to continue to highlight it because I believe it is vitally important.

You face millions of competitors and all are vying for the first 10 spots. If you do the math, your chances are not that great. That doesn’t mean you can’t rank for keywords and acquire some great traffic. With a good dose of effort, great rankings are attainable. But, it’s important to extend your strategies beyond just trying to rank.

Many of our readers have overcome their hurdles and landed some decent rankings. I applaud you for your effort. But to maintain those rankings, Google is forcing us to think about our business APART from ranking. It seems counter-intuitive but there is some truth to it.

We must build laterally. What do I mean by that? Instead of focusing on the vertical movement of higher or lower rankings, think about reaching across the aisle and connecting with your customers/readers/audience. You may do that already, but have you made it the main priority OVER Google rankings?

To connect with your audience and stand out from your competition, you must create a unique selling point.

If your customer visited 100 of your competitors and came to your site next, would they have a different experience? Would you offer something slightly different?

Your unique selling point doesn’t necessarily need to be a high-cost membership program or rewards system, although those are effective. If your budget is low, consider re-framing what you offer to make it appear unique.

For example, I offer content writing services just like thousands of other writers online. But, I found a targeted niche and created a clever catch phrase to appeal to clients. Instead of just being a content writer, I also offer “content makeovers.” This small change, though my services are similar to others, are offered in a unique package to attract clients…and it works!

If you put your creative thinking cap on, I am sure you can put a unique spin on your offerings and cleverly attract more business. Think about your sales process from start to finish and brainstorm ideas at every level. Your unique selling point is something Google cannot touch, because even if you lose your rankings, your customers will remember you because you are different.

2. Stop focusing on the numbers

2,000 Facebook likes? 15,000 Twitter followers?

How many numbers are circling around in our heads at any given time? Too many!

Metrics are important and I would never tell you to stop testing. But, all too often we become “number maniacs” and focus more on growing them instead of the value we are adding to our customers.

So you acquired 1,000 more visitors to your website this month…did it result in any more sales? Any more leads? If not, you may be too focused on the numbers.

Along with measuring metrics, ensure your offerings match your level of effort you invested to increase your numbers, so when they start to rise, you will get real results and increase your profits.

3. Stay Present – Be Honest

Believe it or not, I use this mantra in every area of my life. It speaks to me because staying present in current reality helps us to look past our emotional reactions and devise strategies to overcome our challenges.

I read a lot of emotional backlash in the Google webmaster forums. Irate people are looking for answers to their website woes trying to lash out at Google because they are so angry. Now I understand why they are upset…most people would be if their traffic suddenly vanished.

But, imagine if these webmasters used this fiery passion to devise new strategies to please their customersand to take a look at why their site was downgraded. They could use this energy to come up with solutions instead. Approximately 90% of the people who lash out in the forums soon realize they have shady backlink profiles.

Have you ever used questionable tactics in the past? I know I have. I have placed articles with links attached in article directories and blogs for the SOLE purpose of acquiring links. And if one of these sites was downgraded, I would understand why.

Some websites were innocent and still experienced downgrades. And this is an unfortunate side effect of Google algorithm changes. But I bet that most of the sites that claim they are innocent can find a few instances where things could have been more customer-focused rather than link-focused.

Conclusion

Can you become completely Google proof? No, but you can tip the scales in your favor.

Is SEO still a viable online marketing strategy? Yes. It is still alive and well, but it is finally becoming exactly what Google meant for it to become.

The very name “search engine optimization” denotes optimizing a website for the search engines. We used to think optimizing meant manipulating to achieve higher rankings. Yet, Google never saw it that way and now its algorithm reflects that ideal. There are techniques you can implement that will help Google find your site and know exactly what it is about, but any type of manipulation could result in a downgrade.

 What do you think? How do you feel about Google and the backlash against it?

Source: http://site-reference.com/articles/3-strategies-to-google-proof-your-business/

Improved Attacks, Improved Defenses: Defeating Security Issues with Good Development

by

Some websites are so poorly designed that they constitute serious security risks to visitors. There are a multitude of different attacks that hackers can use to exploit such websites. Cross scripting, for example, is a tactic that has been used over and over again to download malicious code onto people’s computers without them knowing it. Download links might be redirected to something that installs a virus on a user’s computer in some cases and, in other cases, however malicious they may be, the attack strategies used by hackers are really quite clever. It’s important to know when you’re out of your league.

Why Professionals Matter

Preventing your website from becoming a security risk requires skill and knowledge. Unless you do have professional web development skills, it’s unlikely that you have the requisite tools to find security holes. In the same way that an accountant can recognize signs that indicate somebody is embezzling, a skilled web developer can recognize signs that a website might have security holes in it or that it is actively posing a security threat. By utilizing the skills of a professional developer, you can oftentimes remedy existing security problems and prevent new ones for manifesting.

Validating Code

One of the very understandable and common ways that developers will check a site to see if it has been programmed correctly is doing what’s called validating code. This checks the website code to make sure that it conforms to current development standards. If it does not, it may not only pose a security threat but it may also reduce your chances of being indexed by the search engines for the keywords that apply to your content.

Developers can go much deeper than this. For example, developers are generally aware of common security exploits and will check the website to make certain that they aren’t vulnerable to such exploits. A skilled hacker could insert a frame into your website that’s too small for you to see, for example, but a developer would recognize the code when they see it.

Limiting Access

One of the concepts that go into designing a website from a security standpoint is the concept of giving every user the least possible access to do what they need to do. For example, nobody but the actual administrator of the website should ever have administrative privileges for a website. Programmers set up privileges on websites and good programmers can make sure they’re set up right.

Links

One of the biggest security holes that people unknowingly create on their own website comes from not being discerning enough about the links that they put on their site. This can happen in many ways. Perhaps you have a blog section where you don’t moderate comments and people put up malicious links on the comments section. Perhaps you start randomly adding links as a search engine optimization strategy and don’t take into consideration that you may be referring visitors to sites that are downright dangerous.

Having a professional take a look at your site will generally reveal if you’ve made any of these common mistakes. Correcting them can meaningfully increase the overall security of your website.

Your Hosting

Talk to your website developer about what type of hosting is best for your intended usage. In some cases, you may be able to get away with having a virtual hosting account but, in others, it may be better for your site if you have your own dedicated server. Your developer will be able to explain to you the benefits of the different server packages available and which has the appropriate level of security for your site.

Source: http://site-reference.com/articles/improved-attacks-improved-defenses-defeating-security-issues-with-good-development/