Google Panda and Content Farms

Web content was the main buzz in the SEO world in 2011, mostly due to changes in the Google algorithm updates known as ‘Panda.’

When these changes began on February 24, 2011, many website owners woke up to find their Google search engine rankings had nose-dived and their traffic from Google had ceased. Loss in traffic means loss in income.

Panda was originally known as the “Farmer” algorithm change because significant Google ranking changes occurred in so-called ‘content-farm’ sites. Famous URL’s such as Suite 101, eHow, DemandMedia, EzineArticles, Squidoo, HubPages, and Yahoo’s AssociatedContent were hit hard by Panda.

Google’s Panda evaluates the quality of the content found on all pages of a website. Because content farms are notorious free-for -alls which attract many amateur writers, those sites were hit the hardest.

Google engineer Amit Singhal posted this advice on the Google blog:

“One other specific piece of guidance we’ve offered is that low-quality content on some parts of a website can impact the whole site’s rankings, and thus removing low quality pages, merging or improving the content of individual shallow pages into more useful pages, or moving low quality pages to a different domain could eventually help the rankings of your higher-quality content.”

Content farms scrambled to react to their changes in search engine ranking throughout 2011, as Google made more than a dozen adjustments to Panda.

The notorious site, eHow.com, has made no recovery in Google rankings and traffic as 2012 begins. Suite101, EzineArticles and DemandMedia are still on a downward spiral since the first Panda rollout. Squidoo.com has recovered about half of the traffic it lost when Panda began.

AssociatedContent, acquired by Yahoo in mid-2010 for over $100 million, has taken the drastic measure of taking down the website and launching a revamp as Voices.Yahoo.com. The new site was launched on December 1, 2011, by uploading content from the original site, minus 75,000 pages of culled content. The URL change was made with this announcement from Yahoo: “Only content that meets our revised submission guidelines will be accepted moving forward.”

HubPages.com reacted to Panda by putting its authors on individual subdomains. This suggestion was actually recommended to the company by a Google employee. The subdomain concept puts the onus of poor quality content on the individual author. According to Alexa traffic graphs, HubPages has only recovered about a third of its pre-Panda traffic with this tactic.

Google sought to increase the quality of its search results by implementing Panda. And there are websites that have benefited from Google Panda. The mega article site Wikipedia, for instance, has experienced a marked increase in traffic.

As 2012 begins, Google Panda is still on the radar of website owners and internet marketers in the daily quest for high rankings on Google search engine results.

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Writer Fox is a Web Content Writer, providing Web copywriting information, services, and SEO help for writers and for webmasters. Writer Fox writes content to engage, secure trust, convince and push to the desired action. Read more about Google Panda and steps to take.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Social Apps: The Devil in Disguise?

Social Apps: The Devil in Disguise?

Social network applications are leaving an open door to our most personal of details.

Tending to the crops on your virtual farm, finding out who views your profile and sharing your favourite movie trailers may seem like harmless ways to use social networks but oblivious users are accepting application requests without considering who they are allowing to access their personal data.

Having ‘apps’ connected to your Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter profiles provides an open-door for the third party behind the app to access your profile and all of your personal data within.

UKFast technical director Neil Lathwood explained the risks that this security flaw poses for social networkers: “Having all of these apps to entertain us is great, but many people do not realise that by using these apps they are effectively inviting people to use their personal data in whichever way they want. We really need to start considering the consequences of having all of our data readily available to unknown third parties.

“Facebook acts as a narration of our lives and with the introduction of the new Timeline feature, more people are filling the gaps in their profiles, adding illnesses, significant events and employment details to name a few. This information is incredibly valuable to identity thieves and cybercriminals.”

As revealed by UKFast’s security experts last year, the information that we share on social sites provides cybercriminals with the clues that they need to guess passwords and break into online accounts – from social media to online banking.

Lathwood continued: “With Facebook predicted to pass the 1 billion users mark this August, the site is a prime target for criminals to mine data from. Users must be more savvy with whom they are sharing their personal data or risk cybercriminals accessing more than just their Facebook or Twitter accounts.”

Facebook launches its latest innovation this week – Timeline Apps – which has caused further security concerns. The permissions protocol linked to the apps, ‘frictionless sharing’ says that apps only need initial approval to post on your timeline and profile. This means that the app can continue to make posts on your behalf without asking for permission.

UKFast has issued the warnings as part of the build up to European Privacy and Data Protection Day on January 27, an annual event designed to raise awareness of data protection and online security.

Lathwood said: “Data Protection Day is the perfect time to raise awareness of the risks that we inadvertently take online. We can monitor the apps that have access to our profiles using websites such as http://mypermissions.org/ which take you directly to the permissions page of the site where you can manage these apps.”

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UKFast is one of Europe’s fastest-growing technical companies as ranked by Deloitte and the Sunday Times Tech Track. In the last year CEO Lawrence Jones has been named North West Entrepreneur of the Year, while his team has collected the Greater Manchester Award for Innovation. In addition to being listed as one of The Sunday Times best companies to work for, UKFast also won the UK IT Awards Employer of the Year in 2010.

Previous accolades include being named the ISPA UK’s Best Hosting Provider four years consecutively. UKFast has over 400,000 web domains on its network and over 4,000 clients across all industries. Clients include Virgin, Microsoft and UKTV. UKFast is a member of the Cloud Industry Forum.

For more information about UKFast visit: http://www.ukfast.co.uk

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

10 SEO Search-Ranking Myths

SEO myths become larger every year. Some are based partially in reality, and others have spread because it’s often difficult to prove what particular SEO action caused a resulting search engine reaction.

For example, you might make a change to something on a page of your site, and a few days later notice that your ranking in Google for a particular keyword phrase has changed. You might naturally assume that your page change is what caused the ranking change. But that’s not necessarily so. There are numerous reasons why your ranking may have changed, and in many cases they actually have nothing to do with anything that you did.

Mixing up cause and effect is one of the most common things new SEOs do. If it were affecting only their own work, it wouldn’t be so bad, but unfortunately, the clueless often spread their misinformation to other unsuspecting newbies on forums and blogs, which in turn creates new myths. It’s always interesting to see how people are so willing to believe anything they have read or heard without ever checking it out for themselves.

Myth 1: You should submit your URLs to search engines. This may have helped once upon a time, but it’s been at least 5 or 6 years since that’s been necessary.

Myth 2: You need a Google Sitemap. If your site was built correctly, i.e., it’s crawler-friendly, you certainly don’t need a Google Sitemap. It won’t hurt you to have one, and you may be interested in Google’s other Webmaster Central Tools, but having a Google Sitemap isn’t going to get you ranked better.

Myth 3: You need to update your site frequently. Frequent updates to your pages may increase the search engine crawl rate, but it won’t increase your rankings. If your site doesn’t need to change, don’t change it just because you think the search engines will like it better. They won’t. In fact, some of the highest ranking sites in Google haven’t been touched in years.

Myth 4: PPC ads will help/hurt rankings. This one is funny to me because about half the people who think that running Google AdWords will affect their organic rankings believe that they will bring them down; the other half believe they will bring them up. That alone should tell you that neither is true!

Myth 5: Your site will be banned if you ignore Google’s guidelines. There’s nothing in Google’s webmaster guidelines that isn’t common sense. You can read them if you like, but it’s not mandatory in order to be an SEO. Just don’t do anything strictly for search engines that you wouldn’t do anyway, and you’ll be fine. That said, the Google guidelines are much better than they used to be, and may even provide you with a few good tidbits of advice.

Myth 6: Your site will be banned if you buy links. This one does have some roots in reality, as Google likes to scare people about this. They rightly don’t want to count paid links as votes for a page if they can figure out that they are paid, but they often can’t. Even if they do figure it out, they simply won’t count them. It would be foolish of them to ban entire sites because they buy advertising on other sites.

Myth 7: H1 (or any header tags) must be used for high rankings. There’s very little (if any) evidence to suggest that keywords in H tags actually affect rankings, yet this myth continues to proliferate. My own tests don’t seem to show them making a difference, although it’s difficult to know for sure. Use H tags if it works with your design or content management system, and don’t if it doesn’t. It’s doubtful you’ll find it makes a difference one way or the other.

Myth 8: Words in your meta keyword tag have to be used on the page. I used to spread this silly myth myself many years ago. The truth is that the Meta keyword tag was actually designed to be used for keywords that were NOT already on the page, not the opposite! Since this tag is ignored by Google and used only for uncommon words in Yahoo, it makes little difference at this point anyway.

Myth 9: SEO copy must be 250 words in length. This one is interesting to me because I am actually the one who made up the 250 number back in the late ’90s. However, I never said that 250 was the exact number of words you should use, nor did I say it was an optimal number. It’s simply a good number to be able to write a nice page of marketing copy that can be optimized for 3-5 keyword phrases. Shorter copy ranks just as well, as does longer copy. Use as many or as few words as you need to use to say what you need to say.

Myth 10: You need to optimize for the long tail. No, you don’t. By their very nature, long-tail keyword phrases are uncompetitive; meaning that not many pages are using those words, and not that many people are searching for them in the engines. Because of this, ranking for long-tail keywords is easy – simply include them somewhere in a blog post or an article, and you’ll rank for them. But that’s not optimization.

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Learn more juiciness like this at: http://www.dougburson.com/. Tola Ajayi is a writer by trade and he enjoys writing on a wide range of topics.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

The Best Blog Platforms and How to Use Them Successfully

The Best Blog Platforms and How to Use Them Successfully

Blog marketing is a wonderful way to connect with your audience, to provide valuable and useful information to prospects and customers, to sell your products and services, and to drive traffic to your website. However, before you begin to blog or even start to set one up, you have one very important decision to make. Which blogging platform will you use? Here are a few tips on how to use blog platforms successfully.

The Big Three and Beyond

A blog platform is essentially a product which a blog or website is based on. In many cases they’re the service you use to host and publish your blog. In the blogging world, there are three big players with a host of smaller platforms. The big three are:

* Blogger, now owned by Google
* Typepad
* WordPress

There is also MoveableType.org, which is an open source publishing platform. Another is Joomla, which offers blogging capabilities but is considered more of a website platform than a blogging platform. There are many other website hosts which offer blogging functions; however, they’re not traditional platforms.

When you choose a blogging platform, you’re looking for a few key ingredients. You’re looking for:

* Ease of use - If you have to jump through hoops and read a 1000 page manual to get a blog up and running, you’re not going to want to do it. Intuitive interfaces and easy to find information are essential.

* Functionality - It needs to be user friendly for your customers and prospects, and that means easy to navigate and easy to use.

* Features - You want your blog to be able to do what you want and need it to do, including sell products and services, host contests, take feedback and so on.

* Price – Always a consideration.

* Customization - You want to be able to make your blog look and feel exactly like you want it to without a ton of work, time and money.

* Reputation - You want a platform that’s going to be around for years and years to come so you don’t have to switch your blog to a different platform.

Before you choose a blogging platform you’ll want to spend some time determining what you want your blog to accomplish. If for example you want to optimize your blog for the first page of the search engines, you’re going to want a blog that is easy to optimize and maybe has search engine optimization plug-ins. This means making a list of your requirements before you even begin comparing blogging platforms.

Another important thing to consider is where your blog is going to be hosted. TypePad and Blogger are both hosted blogs, meaning your URL will be http://www.yournamehere.typepad.com/.

The same is true for Blogger. WordPress gives you the option. You can host your blog on WordPress or redirect it to another host so your URL is whatever you want it to be.

Read everything about your blogging platform before you go through the work to customize it and set it up. Some hosted blogging platforms do not allow advertising, for example, and if that’s something you want to do, then you’ll need to consider those restrictions before you sign on.

The good news is that blogging is free and unless you hire a professional designer to customize it then your start-up expenses are nominal. (There’s a $10 fee to redirect a WordPress blog to another host.) Choosing your blogging platform just takes a little time and research.

Happy blogging!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Article by Adam Bauthues. And now I would like to give you free instant access to a secret blogging video, that shows where I do all of my blogging and why. Visit: http://projectmarketer.com/empower.php today, or come by my Blog to see it in action at: http://www.EmpowerNetwork.com/kadmon.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Success Tips for Affiliate Marketers

Success Tips for Affiliate Marketers

Every affiliate marketer is looking for the successful market that gives the biggest paycheck. Sometimes they think it is a magic formula that is readily available for them. Actually, it is more complicated than that. It is just good marketing practices that have been proven over years of hard work and dedication. There are tactics that have worked before with online marketing and is continuing to work in the online affiliate marketing world of today. With these three marketing tips, you will be able to able to increase your sales and survive in the affiliate marketing online.

What are these three tactics?

1. Use unique web pages to promote each product.

Do not lump all of it together just to save some money on web hosting. It is best to have a site focusing on each and every product and nothing more. Always include product reviews on the website so visitors will have an understanding on what the product can do for those who buy them. Also include testimonials from users who have already tried the product. Be sure that these customers are more than willing to allow you to use their names and photos on the site of the specific product you are marketing.

You can also write articles highlighting the uses of the product and include them on the website as an additional page. Make the pages attractively compelling and include calls to act on the information. Each headline should attract the readers to read more or even contact you. Highlight your special points. This will help your readers to learn what the page is about and will want to find out more.

2. Offer free reports to your readers.

If possible, position the free reports at the very top side of your page so they they simply cannot be missed. Try to create autoresponder messages that will be mailed to those who input their personal information into your sign up box. According to research, a sale is closed usually on the seventh contact with a prospect. Only two things can possibly happen with the web page alone: closed sale or the prospect leaving the page and never to return again. By placing useful information into their inboxes at certain specified period, you will remind them of the product they want later and will find out that the sale is closed. Be sure that the content is directed toward specific reasons to buy the product. Do not make it sound like a sales pitch.

Focus on important points like how your product can make life and things easier and more enjoyable. Include compelling subject lines in the email. As much as possible, avoid using the word free because there are still older spam filters that dump those kind of contents into the junk before anyone reads them first. Convince those who signed up for your free reports that they will be missing something big if they do not obtain your products and services.

3. Get traffic that is targeted to your product.

Just think if the person who visited your website has no interest whatsoever in what you are offering, they will be among those who move on and never come back. Write articles for publication in ezines and e-reports. This way you can locate publications that are focusing on your target customers and what you have put up might just grab their interest. Try to write a minimum of 2 articles per week, with at least 300-600 words in length. By continuously writing and maintaining these articles you can generate as many as 100 targeted readers to your site in a day. Always remember that only 1 out of 100 people are likely to buy your product or get your services. If you can generate as much as 1,000 targeted hits for your website in a day that means you can made 10 sales based on the average statistics.

The tactics given above are not very difficult to do, if you think about it. It just requires a little time and an action plan on your part. Try to use these tips for several affiliate marketing programs. You can end up maintaining a good source of income and surviving in this business that not all marketers can do. Besides, think of the huge paychecks you will be receiving…

Don Jeffre

Affiliate Marketing and Home Business

Affiliate Marketing and Home Business

Many of us dream of being our own bosses. The lure of big money and flexible work hours is quite attractive. However, many are afraid to venture out on their own. They fear that they do not have the capital required to get a business started or they do not want to loose the security of their day job.

The solution could be starting a home business. The truth of the matter is that you can start your home business with no money at all. Ask yourself this, do you have a spare room or space in your house. Do you have a computer with an internet connection? Do you have a phone line? If you have these three things you have the essentials of an office from which your home business can be made. Affiliate marketing can be a great way for you to get started in your home business. Affiliate marketing will provide you with the opportunity to sell either a product or a service. With low capital and little space you may want to concentrate on services.

Once you have made the decision, you need to evaluate your skills. What services can you offer and what skills can you bring. Many people start of with affiliate marketing programs from major search engines. If you are good at website design, you could register your page with someone such as yahoo publisher. This way your site will get traffic with the help of the search engine, Yahoo. If yours is a sales website, your traffic could translate into increased sales.

The other thing you can try to do is attract traffic to other sites. Retail sites such as Amazon and EBay have affiliate marketing programs. If you can generate traffic and increase sales then you make money. Both programs offer ways to increase revenues through links and blogs. These are usually free and worth using. Remember, the more you make the more they make.

Finally, your site can make money in another way. When it is posted on sites such as yahoo publisher or Google ad sense, there will be ads placed. Whenever a visitor clicks on an ad you make money. The more clicks the more cash. The operators take care of all the advertising costs and placement. They also try to place appropriate ads to your page. If you’re selling rare books ads for fish food are not likely going to get clicked.

If you want to start working for yourself but feel you do not have the money then you’re wrong. If you have a computer and space to put it then you have all you need. You can also start you home business and work it around your job. You can gradually commit more time as your home business grows.

If you have tired of your job and really want to work for yourself then stop making excuses and do it. Though affiliate marketing programs and selling services, you will find that having your home business is easier than you think. All it takes is time and a commitment to succeed. By taking adamantine of the affiliate marketing programs that are currently available, you can make money and improve your own marketing skills. Remember, you can always expand into other areas and venture out totally on your own later. Right now, get marketing and get clicking.

Don Jeffre
Sales Leads

Tips For Creating Powerful Headlines That Sell

Tips For Creating Powerful Headlines That Sell

You have mere seconds to capture a prospect’s attention. One of the single most powerful tools you have to accomplish this task is your headline. There are several keys to a compelling, and selling, headline and a few tips to help you get the job done.

#1 Tap into Your Prospects’ Emotions

According to psychologists our buying decisions are based first and foremost on our emotions. Use headlines which offer your readers a strong emotional benefit or reaction. Some possible emotions are:

For example, The 20-Minute Step that Will Make You a Business Genius taps into readers’ desires to feel smart and powerful.

Other emotions you can tap into are a desire to feel:

1. Attractive
2. Sexy
3. Assertive
4. Confident
5. Energetic
6. Pampered
7. A sense of belonging
8. In control of their own destiny
9. Wealthy
10. Proud
11. Respected
12. Safe

#2 Make it Active

To compel it’s important to use active language - language that shows movement and commands attention.

For example, “Stop Your Sugar Cravings Today With This Simple Step,” is a fine headline however it doesn’t command action nor does it really tap into any emotions. However, “Conquer Your Sugar Cravings With This Simple Step.” Conquer is an active and emotionally powerful word. Readers receive the benefit of feeling powerful and in control and it commands action.

#3 Let Your Reader Know They’re Important

The word YOU is a very powerful word. It let’s your reader’s feel as if you’re talking to them specifically and interested in solving their problems, issues and helping them achieve their desires. Instead of using I, Me or We in your headlines, use You. Using the headline example above compare the two options

“Conquer Your Sugar Cravings With This Simple Step.
“Conquer Sugar Cravings with Our System”

People want to know what’s in it for them and when they can assess that information in the headline, they’re going to be compelled to continue reading your copy and making a purchase.

Here are three more ideas for powerful headlines:

* Make a promise - Earn $1000 a day
* Make it newsworthy - New program guarantees you’ll earn $1000 a day.
* Ask a question – Do you want to ensure your financial future?

Three Simple Steps to Write Headlines That Sell

So now you have some ideas about what types of headlines sell, how do you begin to write those powerful headlines?

Step One – Get to know your audience intimately. What are their hopes, dreams, desires, and problems? Understanding your audience will help you create an emotional and powerful headline directed specifically at your audience.

Step Two – Determine how your products or services are going to make your prospects’ lives better or solve their problems. For example if you sell fitness equipment and your audience struggles with feeling attractive then you can create a headline that highlights a specific benefit your fitness equipment offers to solve that problem.

Step Three – Write ten to twenty, yes twenty, possible headlines. Not only will this give you practice writing compelling headlines, it’ll help you hone in on that perfect headline. And if you think you have a few winners you can always test them for conversion rates to find out which headline is more effective.

Marketing and copywriting experts consider your headline to be the most import element of any effective marketing piece. Take the time to craft a compelling, and selling, headline and you’ll reap the benefits for years to come.

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