How to Protect your Site from Google’s Algorithmic Changes

The constant changes to how Google ranks search results means you need to take steps to protect your site from Google’s algorithmic changes. Instead of searching for quick fixes and following the latest trends, it’s best to elevate and take a long-term approach to your search engine marketing approach.

Content Really IS King

Content on your site needs to be relevant and contain your targeted keywords. The web is changing. People are over-saturated with low quality content and are now looking for highly informative, highly engaging content. Additionally, they are now becoming visual consumers and want their information and news to be delivered with lots of eye candy and multi-media. So instead of churning out lots of low quality articles or descriptions, focus on creating a few high quality pieces with a variety of media that your audience will genuinely value.

Remove Unnecessary Web Pages

When searching your site on Google click on the link that is at the bottom of the last page to see omitted search results. This can show you duplicate content you need to remove. Make sure you clean up all 404’s and if you have pages that have moved, use 301 redirects from the old pages to the new pages.

Check for Duplicate Content

Google does not like to see too much duplicate content or it can penalize your site in search results. Use CopyScape to determine if you have duplicate content indexed. Perhaps others are stealing your content or your shopping cart is creating multiple pages. If this is the case, you canonical tags in order to indicate to Google what is the primary URL for each of the pages.

Create an Account with Google’s Webmaster Tools

This will allow you to see how Google is indexing your site, set your primary URL, see 404’s and other crawling errors, etc.

Promote on Social Media

Social Engagement is now a ranking factor with Google. The engines are trending towards seeing all users as content publishers via their social channels and are tracking how a user engages with sites. Pages that are highly liked on Facebook, re-tweeted, and +1’ed will rank better. Create active social channels where you are engaging with others and encouraging others to engage with your content. In the long-term, creating active channels will help you with the popularity contest that has become SEO, and will keep your site performing well.

Check All Your Backlinks

Links to your website or web pages that have been added to questionable sites can harm the ranking of your site on Google. Use tools such as LinkDetox.com to look at your backlinks and see which ones are “toxic”. Once you’ve identified toxic backlinks, start a campaign whereby you contact those sites owners and request them to remove links to your site.

Additional Tips:

Try to keep users on your site as long as possible. Use plugins where your users are shown other relevant pages so they will read more than one page.

Establish an editorial content and publish content consistently. Try to create multimedia content at least once a month: Infographics, videos, webinars, white papers, and tutorials.

Invite contributors so you can gain content from other sources

Most importantly, stay clear from buying links, blog link networks, and other link schemes. It’s better to build slowly and surely, than to accrue penalties that can be impossible to remove. Slow and steady wins the race!

About author: Marcela De Vivo is a social media & seo consultant with Gryffin Media, focusing on topics related to Social SEO and internet marketing. She writes about tools to set up a successful internet presence, from hosting reviews to social media tools and strategies. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions about your site’s marketing strategy!

Start Blogging and Manage Your Debts – 5 Ways to Make Money

There are now tons of people who are trying to make money with blogging. Why? It’s because it is a very flexible job and it helps a lot of people to manage their debts. Some are even quitting their real jobs for blogging because it is less stressful and the profit is actually good and sometime better. Whether you are looking for ways to earn part-time, or if you are looking for a real job, give blogging a try and maybe you’ll get to manage your debts and improve your credit score and credit report in the long run.

Here are 5 ways to get you started with blogging

• A lot of people use Adsense on their blog because it really has a great effect with people and it helps them a lot with money-making. Affiliate programs are also helpful with blogging, although they won’t earn you as much compared to other rackets, they do add up if you have a lot. Some of the things that you can add-on your blog are WordPress theme, 123 of Digital Making and some e books sites. What’s good about this is that they are made off high quality and some bloggers sell it themselves. Customers also sign up on the sites and are often grateful for the recommendation.
• Another thing you have to do is to figure out what you’re good at (marketable skills) and work on improving it. You can choose to work as a writer, editor, designer and many more.you can look or freelancing jobs online, but before you do that, it may be best to start working on your portfolio first to let your future customers have an idea of what you’re capable of and to showcase your skills. You can even use your own personal blog as an online portfolio. Also, don’t forget to spread the word, it is good to start off with your friends and family so that they can give you helpful comments on your work therefore you’ll be able to improve it.
• Selling ad space is another thing quite related to blogging. If you already have a blog, you can have a customized package offer advertisers. Take note that for you to earn in selling ad space, you must have a high valuable content. That is why it’s best to start working on your blog as early as possible to earn more followers because advertisers are looking for blogs that have a lot of traffic in them.
• Get-paid to programs are also a form of blogging but it does not pay as much but it does build up. Answering surveys fall in to this category, also, there’s no need for cash expenditure.

Earning the extra money will help you pay for your debts and you’ll be less worried about spending all your salary. Start blogging now and finish off your debts faster.

This is a guest post from Shimpy who is a financial blogger and shares financial tips on how to manage personal finances, free credit check and credit monitoring. In her spare time, she also writes about social media marketing

How to Increase Web Traffic for Free

Search Engine Optimization or SEO as it is called is the most popular means to increase online marketing and improve business. The best way to direct traffic to your website is through meaningful SEO content that needs to be catchy, precise and relevant.

Though it costs quite a bit of money to divert traffic the SEO way, there are several tricks in the trade, following which you can increase the flow of traffic towards your website. The great thing is that there are several ways to increase web traffic free of charge. Let’s take a look at how greatly you can increase traffic and subsequently increase your presence and business online.

• The first thing you need to do is to design a website that is attractive, and it is important that the website needs to be user-friendly and easily navigable. Ensure that the navigation to various pages is quick and easy. Once you have this in position, you also need to make the website search-engine friendly. Contact various popular search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, MSN, etc and ensure that your website is listed, as this helps improve page rankings. Use appropriate keywords in the content, and correct html tags to enable search engine algorithms to classify your website accordingly.
• You are bound to have affiliates in your online marketing endeavor. As they work in tandem, it pays to give due coverage to the directories the affiliates are associated with. This increases free traffic and improves business on a mutual basis. It’s not just affiliates, you can have links that lead to other websites who are not your direct competitors. It is a great idea to exchange notes and ideas with other site owners and maintain a healthy relationship. This helps you keep abreast of the latest happenings.
• Forums are the hottest spots where there is a lot of activity. People discuss hot topics and you will be able to pick up a thread that leads to more traffic and business. There are a lot of questions posted on forums and if you are informed enough to have the answers, you get noticed immediately. While answering any of the questions, you can leave behind a link and expect traffic following you without a fail.
• Similarly there’s a whole lot of people blogging on the web. You can easily locate current blogs on topics related to your site and business. Sharing views and ideas with like-minded people by leaving meaningful comments at the appropriate blog sites will certainly increase traffic. Your comment needs to be approved and get accepted after which it will remain permanently on the site.
• Perfect the art of creating good content. Use appropriate keywords at strategic places and have the keywords well-distributed. The very idea behind a keyword is that people initiate searches based on regularly used words. When such words perfectly fit into the content to make sense, the link is established and regular traffic is ensured.

There are several classified advertisement sites that offer to post your advertisements free of charge. The sites like craigslist, freeadvertisingforum, gumtree and adgridwork offer free services that you should take advantage of.

You could also join the free safe-lists where people have agreed to send and receive emails even if they are promotional in nature. There is no threat of being targeted as a spammer as people featuring in the list have voluntarily agreed to receive emails.

Ryan Larkin is a freelance writer who writes about Technology, Social Media, SEO, Etc. Currently writing for www.broadbandproviders.com - the leading provider of best value broadband internet.

What’s Good for the Blogger Is Good for the Blog

As we were preparing this weekend’s posts—which all deal with topic of productivity and the blogger’s lifestyle—I was reminded of a blogging truism that many of us seem to forget.

For the blogger who’s taking their blog and their readership seriously, what’s good for us is generally good for our blog.

Conversely, what’s good for our blog is generally good for us.

This truth isn’t just helpful when it comes to feeling motivated, inspired, and creative—it can also help us stay on track. Keeping this in mind helps me align my blog with my life—and vice versa, making my blogging a sustainable part of my life as a whole.

What’s bad?

Some of us might be tempted to take that as an excuse to avoid the tasks we don’t like doing. Of course there are always blogging tasks we don’t enjoy—for me, it’s the accounting. But what’s good for my blog—staying on top of the accounting—is also good for me (since my blog pays my bills!).

This philosophy isn’t an excuse for forgetting about things we don’t like doing. Instead, it’s a call to action to tackle them and make sure they’re as successful as they need to be. I hired an accountant, which has been good for me, and helped sustain my blog!

And what’s good?

But what about the tasks we do want to do? If I’m considering a new business idea or strategy, and find that I’m feeling weighed down or burnt out by it, that can tend to impact my life beyond blogging as well as my blogging itself.

When that happens, I’ll go back to the new idea I’m working on and try to find the real problem—is there some aspect of the plan that needs to change? Should I consider another idea instead? For me, there’s no reason in pursuing an idea that I’m not enjoying, or that’s taking more out of my life than it’s putting in.

It’s not just me who feels this way, though—this weekend we’ll hear from three bloggers who have made blogging a part of their lives, and have let their lives enrich their blogging too.

Karol K will reveal the 7 habits of highly inefficient bloggers … which is based on his own experience, as well as the lessons he’s learned from those around him. As he shows, these seven inefficiencies can make your life as a blogger a lot harder than it needs to be. Fortunately, they’re all pretty simply fixed.

Jon Rhodes will show us how he’s making the most of his full-time blogging lifestyle—and what that has meant for his blog. If you need a breath of fresh air—and fresh inspiration for your blogging—don’t miss this piece.

Jefferson and Michelle, a husband-and-wife blogging team, will let us in on some of the advantages of blogging in partnership—with your significant other! Again, their story proves that if you’re serious about your blog, what’s good for it will usually prove to be good for you, too.

Every day, we see the work we put into our blogs, but we may not be so quick to look at what our blogs contribute to our lives. The fact is that if we don’t see the relationship as symbiotic and mutually beneficial, we probably won’t continue with our blogs.

What aspects of your life are good for you and your blog? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

Darren Rowse

(He is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School.)