Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner
I like to search Google ‘smart' as I expect most of my (and your) blog readers do as well.
When I search Google for a product type, I limit my search to articles posted within the last year.
The following graphic shows results for a recent search when I was researching water filter pitcher dispensers for our RV.
As a local business owner, it's not enough for your website to be listed in Google's natural search results. It must also show up in Google's business listings which are available through Search, Maps and Google+.
My friend Jo Gagné recently asked for my help to increase traffic to her business website, BodiesonPower.com (BOP). Bodies on Power is an award-winning fitness center here in Penticton, British Columbia.
To find out where her site placed on Google's listings, I did a search for ‘penticton yoga' and this is what I found…
That's right – nothing in the local business listings.
While her site did show up in the natural listings, I had to scroll well past the initial fold to find it.
That's not a good place to be when her major competitors all had their businesses properly listed on Google.
So, I set her up with a Google My Business listing in less than half an hour. Here's what I did.
That took me just short of an hour to complete. Shortly afterwards, the Bodies on Power website showed up in the local search and business listings on Google.
Now, when I search for “Penticton yoga”, Bodies on Power at least shows above the fold. YAY!
It also shows up on the Google Map.
Showing up on Google Maps is very useful, especially in a resort town such as Penticton where our population quadruples in summer and there are no doubt plenty of visitors who would want to drop in to a fitness class.
Better still, the Bodies on Power listing in natural search now includes a ‘local listing indicator' which appears alongside the business address and phone number, as well as links to Google Reviews and the Google+ page.
Last but not least, Jo's business now has a pretty Google+ profile that shows up beside her natural search listing.
The beauty of this is that for those of us who use Google Maps, directions to the place of business are just a click away.
So… now all we have to do is get Jo's webmaster to install a Google +1 button so her visitors can/will leave reviews, endorse the Bodies on Power content, and re-share Jo's Google+ posts across the web.
Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!
Cheers,
P.S. At the time of writing, the BOP website is under significant revision. Please do not comment about problems with the site. They will be fixed. 🙂
Oh boy, here's another example of Internet marketing spam / scam that I received as a blog comment…
Hello Web Admin, I noticed that your On-Page SEO is is missing a few factors, for one you do not use all three H tags in your post, also I notice that you are not using bold or italics properly in your SEO optimization. On-Page SEO means more now than ever since the new Google update: Panda. No longer are backlinks and simply pinging or sending out a RSS feed the key to getting Google PageRank or Alexa Rankings, You now NEED On-Page SEO. So what is good On-Page SEO?First your keyword must appear in the title.Then it must appear in the URL.You have to optimize your keyword and make sure that it has a nice keyword density of 3-5% in your article with relevant LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing). Then you should spread all H1,H2,H3 tags in your article.Your Keyword should appear in your first paragraph and in the last sentence of the page. You should have relevant usage of Bold and italics of your keyword.There should be one internal link to a page on your blog and you should have one image with an alt tag that has your keyword….wait there’s even more Now what if i told you there was a simple WordPress plugin that does all the On-Page SEO, and automatically for you? That’s right AUTOMATICALLY, just watch this 4minute video for more information at. Seo Plugin
Let's dissect this…
GREAT name and email address for a ‘professional' SEO service, eh?
Those are the easiest first clues to to spam blog comments.
Then, this scammer doesn't know how to use a blog comment form to save his (or her) life, or the English language for that matter.Yes, you can read through the text and make sense of what he is saying, but that doesn't negate the fact that the scammer isn't actually an SEO professional… or a professional who is competent in the English language.
The advice is completely bogus, i.e. ‘nice keyword density of 3-5%'. Duh. As always, my advice is to write for humans, not search engines. The search engines ‘get it' when you blog regularly about a consistent theme. They also ‘get it' when you try to write to an algorithm… to the point that you will be penalized for trying to manipulate your rankings.
There is no such thing as a ‘simple WordPress plugin that does all the On-Page SEO, and automatically for you? That’s right AUTOMATICALLY'.
Nope, sorry, I hate to burst your bubble, but there is not such thing as a plugin that does ‘all the on-page SEO.
REAL bloggers do their own on-page SEO by crafting titles, tags, heading tags, image alts, slugs and everything else manually to stay in Google's good graces.
Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!
Cheers,
I’d like to start by sharing a backlinking strategy that works even after Google Panda and Penguin updates, but before that there are some vital things that you must pay attention to.
As we all know, building links in a natural manner is more important than ever, right? So below are a couple of things that you must consider before building links;
Vary your Anchor text: Personally I would recommend that you vary your keywords by using secondary and tertiary keywords in the same market i.e. (forex trading tips, automated forex tips, forex signal trading) your primary keywords should be between 30-50% of the time utmost.
Do other several things on top of it for maximum results: Examples, you should guest post on popular blogs, social media marketing and video marketing. When you do the above, the backlinking strategy that am about to reveal will produce maximum results.
Ever since the niche site I created for the EBusinessReviews started to rapidly climb the ranks of Google and Yahoo search engines and eventually landing on the first page of Google. Since then people have been asking me, which methods I’ve been using to climb the ranks of Google. I’m going to explain the strategy I’ve been using.
The backlinking strategy that I’m using involves two layers of backlinks. I would call the layers as Anchor layer and indirect layers.
Anchor Layers
The Anchor layer involves of a few parts which links directly to your money sites. These include;
- Top web 2.o properties (Highly Recommended)
- Guest Blogs that are related to your niche (The Best and Super)
- Top Article Directory Submissions (Average recommended but don’t ignore it)
- Links from Linkvana.com (But be very careful with blog networks) Not recommended
Indirect Layers
Indirect layers, you create massive amounts of backlinks which link directly to your anchor layer. These links should not point to your moneysite, OKAY? The indirect layers consist of;
Let me walk you through the process:
Rule 1: Write 4 epic content
I love to have control of what’s written and what’s published online. At this point make sure you write 4 highly content which should be around 400-700 words in length. These 4 articles will be posted to your anchor layers as discussed above.
Warning: If you want maximum results, make sure you write epic content for the first layers, if you don’t do this, you’ll not get results.
Rule 2: Again write 2 original content for spinning
I know not everybody likes the idea of content spinning this is because some people view it as spammy and others view it as dangerous especially with the recent Google updates.
Personally I respect that, but to some extent am okay with this method, this is because when am spinning I’m making sure that the content I submit is perfect good and totally unique.
Rule 3: Submit the 4 original content to Anchor Layer
In this step you’ll be submitting the 4 original content to your anchor layer i.e. to
- Web 2.0
- Guest Blogs
- Article sites preferably Ezinearticles.com
- Squidoo.com or Hubpages.com
Make sure your target keywords link directly to your money site.
Rule 4: Indirect linking to your sites
In this step, you’ll be creating massive backlinks to your Anchor sites as discussed above. The tool that you should use is SubmitYourArticle.com this is because it’s proving to work quite well.
You’ll submit spun content to the said article submission tool for maximum results. To help boost the authority of your niche site, I would recommend you use SocialBookmarkingdemon tool.
Rule 5: As usual rinse and repeat
Any questions or comments?
Have you noticed the amount of traffic for your site dropping unexpectedly over the past week or so? Maybe your sales have suddenly seemed to have frozen and stopped coming in completely?
If so, one possibility could be that your site has been penalized by Google and, as a result, your site has become unranked and pretty much excluded from the search engine search result pages. And it should come as no surprise that if people online can’t find you, you won’t get many visitors or sales.
So how can you be sure that you’ve been penalized by Google? Well, if it was a manual penalty, meaning that your site was marked to be penalized by a person at Google rather than an algorithm, you’ll get a message from them, which makes things pretty obvious. However, if you haven’t received a message, it’s still possible that your site has been automatically penalized. Here’s how you can tell:
Whether you’ve been manually or automatically penalized by Google, you need to handle the situation in a professional, respectful, and honest way.
Take another look at your SEO strategies—could any of them be considered to be fraudulent or “black hat?†Review Google’s guidelines and see if there are any you might have overlooked. Try to discover why you might have been penalized if you were penalized automatically. Then get into contact with Google. Sometimes, the penalty can be lifted if everything is handled well; however, other times the penalty can be permanent. Whatever happens, be respectful and as honest and forthcoming as you can be if you hope to save both your site and your reputation.
In the future, to prevent being further penalized by Google or any other search engines, stay up to date with their rules and familiarize yourself with blackhat SEO techniques so that you know what practices to avoid. Sometimes ignorance may be your only fault, but alas it does not make you innocent.
Best of Luck!
What's YOUR name?
Are you proud of it?
Then SHOW your pride and make sure that is part of everything you do online.
OK, taking a step back, I agree that there are many instances in which you would want to use a pseudonym to work online — and in that case, be proud of your pseudonym and make sure you rank for that!
In either case, make sure you RANK for whatever name you choose and make sure that the rankings MATTER.
For example, here are the sites and social media accounts for which you SHOULD rank on Google IF you are marketing yourself correctly:
Those are BASIC accounts. Sign up for them, if you haven't already.
Below is an example of how I show up in a search for Rosalind Gardner (without quotes) on Google.
The only way you can get there is by using your name on your blog and anywhere you post comments as well as joining and posting to social media accounts under your name.
Be proud of it – whether it's your real name, a pseudonym or a company name – USE it!
BTW, if you haven't already done so, register your REAL NAME or Company Name at Bluehost today!
Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!
Cheers,
Today's post is by guest blogger, Olga Ionel.
SEO is a term that virtually everyone has heard. In simple terms, SEO is the utilization of specific techniques to optimize a website in order to gain and maintain maximum visibility and ranking. This concept is useful for anyone who wants to develop a wide readership for their site, but is particularly beneficial for companies that are seeking to promote their products and services through Internet marketing.
Whether you want to utilize SEO to bring attention to your company’s website or for the purpose of driving traffic to your affiliate marketing blog, an effective strategy is important to developing an SEO campaign that will help you to achieve your professional goals.
Planning is an essential aspect of running any business. It is next to impossible to handle the various responsibilities and obligations of a company without properly planning these activities and how they will be fulfilled. When it comes to SEO your company’s strategy will be focused on the various SEO activities that you would like to utilize, and how each of these will be implemented.
Search Engine Optimization is not just one activity, nor does it require only one form of application. It is important that you determine which SEO techniques would be most appropriate for your particular internet presence and the most powerful way that you can use these techniques in conjunction with your promotional strategies.
There are three core aspects of any SEO campaign. Your strategy for developing your campaign should be balanced among these aspects, with attention given to optimizing the techniques to your niche and your audience.
The appearance of your site is the foundation on which you will build the rest of your strategy. Internet spiders, the software that explores the World Wide Web in order to build an index of the words that are used on individual web pages, cannot detect things such as images, videos, or Flash media, so the way that your site looks will make little impact on the results of the crawl. The look will, however, make a tremendous impact on the impression that your site makes on your visitors.
Once a visitor has found your site it is important that they are compelled to stay on it. Your design choices can greatly influence the traffic that your receive and maintain. One way to optimize this design is by using WordPress themes. These make developing an attractive, well-organized site simple and user-friendly.
Your primary SEO strategy will begin with keyword placement. The spiders will crawl your site in order to gather the words that you use, as well as information on how you use them. These keywords will be the frequently-used search terms as are related to your niche, and should be strategically integrated into your content in order to be picked up by the spiders, but also appreciated by human readers.
Creating valuable content is essential to the success of your site, regardless of the main goal of the site, and must read naturally and comfortable, not as if the keywords were forced into the text. The most effective SEO strategies involve creating distinct, unique pages for each primary keyword that you wish to highlight on your site. This content will be what draws in the traffic and encourages the readers to stay and explore your site further.
The second aspect of your SEO strategy will be using links to direct greater volumes of traffic to your site. The spiders will also be able to find these links and follow them to each of your pages, as well as to other related sites, thereby increasing the validity and visibility of your site so that it can be ranked higher in the results. It is crucial that you choose SEO linkbuilding tactics that are ethical, rather than linking to unrelated sites or spamming your links throughout the Internet with no real purpose.
Participation in blogs, forums, and other interactive online communities is an effective way of building valuable links to enhance your SEO campaign.