Using Article Directories Effectively

In addition to permitting site links in the resource box, some article directories allow page links from keywords in the article body. There is also usually a box for categories or tags, which are essentially keywords used to attract readers. This box helps directories organize the articles and assists search engines with indexing. Effective use of a reputable article directory increases web traffic, which should boost sales.

Selecting an article directory is an important choice. The site should have a page ranking of at least five because search engines consider these authority sites. The directory should also have follow links, which means the search engines follow the backlinks contained in the articles. Search engines are constantly crawling these directories and indexing content. Linked sites will experience an increase in search engine rankings simply by being included in articles within the directory.

What Are the Best Article Directories

Ezine articles, Squidoo, and Hub Pages are three of the best article directories available. Ezine began in 1999 and currently features original, high-quality content from more than 440,000 expert authors. Ezine caters to millions of unique visitors and has more than 700 email alert lists and 100,000 RSS feeds that publicize new content to more than 100,000 permission-based publishers and members.

Established in 2005, Squidoo is a free, open platform that allows people to create web pages, called lenses, about a topic or opinion. Authors may add attractive features including images, video, and other multimedia content to their pages. When a Squidoo page does well, its author receives a royalty. Hub Pages is a place to share thoughts, opinions, reviews, tips, and advice. People publish content-rich Internet pages, earning money and recognition through a community ranking system.

Submitting articles to directories is a great way to increase traffic, get backlinks, increase exposure with target audiences, and improve search engine ranking. The process is free and requires only creation of original content that is useful to readers. By creating content and publishing it on Ezine articles, Squidoo, and Hub Pages, website owners enhance the online presence of their sites.

Google Penguin Update Clarified

The Penguin search algorithm is designed to be better at catching sites that violate Google publisher guidelines to improve search results ranking or that spam Google search results. According to Google, this update will affect approximately three percent of Google search queries. Sites that are believed to violate the quality guidelines established by Google will see their search results rankings decrease.

In Google’s words, Penguin is “targeted at webspam.” This includes intentionally-created duplicate content, loading webpages with keywords, low-quality link exchange schemes, and presenting different URLs or content to search engines and users. Though Google has long been engaged in the war against spam, it is implementing new methods of identifying spammers. Google webspam team leader Matt Cutts made it clear that Penguin focuses on webspam, not search engine optimization (SEO).

The Uproar and How to Work with Penguin Update

Webmaster and SEO reaction to Penguin has not been positive, despite Google saying that SEO is not a target. Early analysis reveals that link relevancy and diversity of anchor text may be key factors considered by Penguin. Link relevance and quality are critical to Google so sites should attract a respectable number of quality links from websites and domains within the same niche. Site owners should evaluate their link profile monthly and remove any low-quality links.

Anchor text should be diverse and big money keywords should be included in less than half of these links. Paid text links featuring exact match anchor text are considered spammy links. Linking anchor text must appear more natural in order to be unaffected by Penguin. Examples include “blog post,” “click here,” and the website title.

Site owners should also verify that unfavorable sites have not scraped their content and maintained internal links or linked to the originating site as credit. That bad seed can create rotten apples for a site owner. Copyscape is an excellent tool to identify duplicated content and site owners can request that Google removal any duplicating pages. Improving the authority of the domain, increasing the number of quality backlinks, and ensuring that the site is optimized will also help improve Google rankings.

How to Start a Blog

The process begins with finding a blogging provider. WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, and Tumblr are some of the most popular. These sites feature pre-made blog templates and simple publishing methods. Select a template, layout, and color scheme and personalize it by adding image, content, and features like buttons, reader comment boxes, and guest maps.

Set the blog to public so all Internet users have permission to read it. Create articles featuring relevant content and include the appropriate keywords. Publish these on the blog and encourage readers to leave comments by including a thought-provoking question or statement within the content. Comment on other blogs, adding your blog URL to the comment box so readers will visit your blog, increasing its visibility.

How to Create a Blog Network

Follow the instructions above to create a different blog for each aspect of the business, focusing on a unique set of keywords in each blog. Article content should vary from one blog to the next so readers will receive value from each blog in the network. If topics do not come easily, use the keywords as inspiration and develop a list of relevant topics to cover during the coming weeks, months, and years.

Create links from a blog to each of the other blogs and the company website. Links should not be reciprocal or the entire purpose will be defeated. For example, if you have four blogs, blog one should point to blogs two, three, and four but those three blogs should not point back to blog one. Each blog should point to the company website, but this site should never point back to the blogs. It is also extremely important not to merely stuff your content with keywords; it should be readable and informative content the readers will find useful.

Once you create a blog network and get into a regular routine, blogging will become second nature. It is a great way to share knowledge, opinions, and advice with people interested in what your company offers. As more people visit the blog and post comments, your company website will become more popular, increasing its position in the search engine results for relevant keywords. A highly visible website should receive more online traffic, increasing sales.

Old School SEO

Before you can understand the modern-day Google, you have to understand where it started. When websites began worrying about being ranked on search engines, there were no real guidelines for getting a site ranked. It made sense that if you wanted to have your site on the first page of a search engine for a specific word or term, you should use that term repeatedly in the content.

As little as five years ago, SEO services and web content writers were using keywords as much as five and six percent. When I first started my business, I had clients demanding this level of keyword usage. I actually refused this type of business because I had heard where Google was going and was more concerned about the future of our clients rather than gaining a quick ranking in the present.

So how bad was this type of writing and how bad were these websites? Imagine reading a page of 500 words that used a specific term between 25 and 30 times. How long would it take you to dismiss this website as a complete joke? Well, that is what site owners were doing and it was how SEO companies were promoting website optimization. They would simply beat people over the head with keywords.

In addition, trading links and/or buying links were very common practices. It is not unusual to see older sites with a huge blogroll on the sidebar leading readers to like sites. Site owners may have traded a link with another site or purchased the space to get a link for a specific keyword.

Article marketing was in its infancy in those days, but the same concepts were used. Look at older articles on directories and you may suspect your eight-year old child could write better. Most of the writing services used during this time were based overseas in countries like India where clients could get a 500-word article for 50 cents or less! Site owners did not care about quality. They wanted nothing more than keywords and content. It was probably this very practice that led to the massive change Google would soon undergo.

Another common practice in article marketing was the use of spinning programs. When coupled with automated blog commenting software, SEO services were able to create thousands of links with one article and one small paragraph. Unfortunately, many people were not very well educated on the proper use of these tools and it created content and comments that simply made no sense at all to the reader.

How the Panda Update Affected Search Engines

Over the last decade, Google became aware of how the system was being manipulated. As an Internet surfer, you can probably recall some experiences reading keyword-stuffed websites that did not make any sense. It would take you a mere five seconds to click off the site. It became frustrating visiting site after site that did not make sense.

To Google’s credit, the company actually listened to consumers complaining about the quality of websites occupying valuable real estate. Readers wanted better content and fewer ads. They wanted content they could understand and that was not keyword-stuffed. Basically, they wanted the content on the Internet to mirror the hard-printed material they had relied on for information for decades. It made perfect sense.

Google’s response was to create more intelligent programming that could actually break down content based on its meaning rather than keywords used. A term that was used regularly prior to the update was latent semantic indexing (LSI). In basic terms, LSI means having meaningful content that contains a vast array of synonyms versus having a page stuffed with only one keyword. In other words, LSI makes content more readable. Granted, this is a simplified description, but it gives you a general idea of the meaning of the term.

For example, instead of using the term “compare energy prices” over and over to get a website ranked for this keyword phrase, a writer now also has to use terms like “ways to save energy,” “ energy saving tips,” “ lower utility bills,” and “energy comparison.” This is actually a good thing for readers because the content has more meaning and reads much easier. However, it is disastrous for any site using old-school SEO techniques.

Internet Marketing Today

While the basic concepts of Internet and article marketing remain the same, the manner in which they are implemented has changed dramatically. Today, if you want content recognized and indexed by Google, it MUST read intelligently. If you want your site ranked, it may only have minimal ads on the homepage and must have relevant content that is NOT keyword stuffed. Quality has finally become more important than quantity.

When the Panda Update first took effect, article directories were some of the hardest hit sites. Ezine was hit particularly hard due the massive amount of low-quality articles it contained. While the site had strict guidelines, there were still loopholes and it was packed with articles from people who had little control of the English language. The site immediately went into panic mode and has become one of the most difficult sites on which you can get an article published, especially if you are doing bulk articles related to the same topic or niche.

Secondary directories have literally become a thing of the past. For a link to have power, it needs to be on a high PR site that is not filled with junk. It must also be a one-way link, as Google gives almost no credence to reciprocal or paid links. Since the programming has no way of knowing the difference, it makes its decision based on where the links are located on the site. Sidebars have become the danger zone for both the site receiving the link and the site presenting the link. Some advertising is okay, but a site that has sidebars loaded with nothing but keyword links taken out of context is bad news.

This has also allowed sites like Squidoo to emerge as true powerhouses in Internet marketing. Having the ability to integrate things like video, stores, and music into a secondary outlet helps build the strength of any site. Keywords with links on Squidoo are more likely to get a website indexed than they are on a secondary directory that allows any type of writing. This site, along with others like it, has changed Internet marketing because website owners must now be concerned with quality more than anything else.

Where is Google Headed in the Future?

From what I have read, Google plans to continue to evolve its programming to completely eliminate the junk publishing and black-hat SEO that was in place for so long. Quality of content remains a major focus, as does the number of sites to which any given site points. In all likelihood, your heart just stopped beating, so let me explain a bit further.

As I briefly touched on, Google wants to do away with an overabundance of paid advertising and is more interested in what readers find useful. While I do not believe directories will totally go by the wayside, I do believe they will have less influence on how a website is ranked. However, since sites will still need to publish links, site owners will have to look to other outlets and integrate very strong social media campaigns into their marketing strategies. Specifically, blog networks, Google +1, Twitter, and Facebook will play a vital role in site success.

Blogs are nothing new, but the manner in which they are used will change. I have long been an advocate of creating your own blog or blog network to help promote your website. If Google heads in the direction I think it is going, this will become more important than ever before. However, there is a trick to making this work properly. If it is mismanaged, it could spell disaster.

In essence, instead of having just one blog, a site owner may want to invest in as many as a dozen blogs. These blogs should be anchored around keywords related to the main site, and while they should point to the main site and each other, they should not contain reciprocal links. This is where the management aspect comes into play.

For example, sites A, B, and C all point to site D, but site D can never point to A, B, or C. This is exactly why having a larger network of blogs will prove more useful to a site owner. In addition, since the purpose of these sites is to boost the ranking of the main site, advertising can and should be kept to a minimum, which will only increase blog attractiveness in Google’s eyes.

What Kind of Content Do I Need?

Remember earlier when I mentioned five and six percent saturation levels as the norm? Well, get that number out of your head right now. As I stated earlier, less is now more. I have marked 2.5 percent as the danger zone, with a preference for total saturation of no more than two percent. Think about that…you are going from a six percent saturation level for only the primary keyword to an overall saturation level of under two percent. This is a pretty dramatic change, to say the least.

When writing for ranking purposes today, you must figure out how to get as many keywords into the article as possible in a meaningful way that is not considered spam. In order to do this, you MUST have control of the English language. This is why I believe outsourcing to overseas writers and overseas writing companies will begin to fall by the wayside. Simply put, the writing they do is subpar and will do far more harm than good if used on a site or in its marketing campaigns.

Readers today want useful information. After all, your website is your salesperson and must act as such. What I mean by this is that if you owned a Ford dealership, would you want your salesmen to merely say, “Buy a Ford” over and over again or would you want relevant and important information regarding the car? This is what your website or article needs to accomplish. It must hold readers’ attention and make them want to share the content. Why is this important? Because you need that article or webpage to find its way to multiple Twitter, Facebook, and Google +1 pages if it is going to help your website with Google.

So where do you go from here? When using SEO services, writing your own content, and marketing your website online, you must be more careful. Your content must use LSI concepts and be readable. By this, I mean it must be informative, entertaining, and considered sharable by the reader. If you are not sure how to do this, hire a reputable company that uses these concepts. Obviously, I would like to you to use my company, but regardless of whom you use, realize that if you are paying for junk, you are going to get junk back.

The days of mass publishing and keyword stuffing are gone. Google is evolving every day and if you fall behind, your site will end up on the last page of Google instead of the first page. Have your site built for the long haul and remain patient. If your SEO campaign is done properly, you stay up to date with Google changes, and you work those changes into your marketing campaigns as soon as they become relevant, you will continue to dominate in the rankings.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to dive deeper into old-school methods that no longer work and are actually harmful to your rankings as well as modern methods that I believe will survive the next wave of updates. Follow us on Facebook to make sure you do not miss a thing!

The Most Popular FREE Blogging Sites

Free sites for blogging offer entrepreneurs a no-cost way to enhance their business. However, not all sites are created equal so business owners should know which are best and how to distinguish one free site from another. WordPress and Blogger are most highly recommended by the experts and they provide bloggers with much control over features, posts, and commenting.

WordPress is well-organized and has a business feel to it, while Blogger offers a more highly designed, colorful interface. With WordPress, new bloggers should be prepared to devote time to learning about the available tools. Blogger offers the same tools but in a less intimidating manner. WordPress and Blogger both offer an wide array of free templates with which users can experiment. In addition, WordPress has a significant amount of premium themes through various vendors that can be purchased. Analytics functions are built into the dashboards of both sites.

More FREE Blogging Sites

Tumblr is the choice of many bloggers who post more design-based content than text. It is suitable for micro and beginning bloggers, but the highly-graphical interface could require some adjustment time. Despite this, the site is designed to get a new blogger posting within just minutes. Blog design and maintenance are simplified, so even inexperienced users will be able to post photography and artwork within a short time.

Posterous also features a short ramp-up time for new and microbloggers. Design and maintenance processes are simplified at the cost of some controls offered by WordPress and Blogger. A unique feature of Posterous is the ability to make blog posts from any mobile device, email account, or via text message. Posterous also syncs well with social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube as well as blogs managed on other platforms.

Online entrepreneurs should explore these free blogging sites and learn more about the distinguishing features of each. Creating an account does not require much more than establishing a user name and a password. After taking a test drive of these blogging sites, business owners will know which one best meets their needs.

Why Making a Website for Small Business is Important for a Company

In terms of business expenses, a website is a relatively small one. It costs $35 or less per year to obtain a domain name. Once the domain name is secured, it can be retained as long as the registration is kept current. The only other expense involved is for a Web hosting service, which costs as little as $4.99 per month or less. This is very inexpensive advertising for even the smallest business.

Incorporating the company website into other marketing efforts can actually save money. For example, a business can switch from creating a printed catalog to posting an electronic version on its website. This provides an unlimited amount of space and offers the ability to upload interactive media, such as videos featuring product demonstrations. When items must be added or removed from the offerings, this costs nothing to do online.

How Making a Website for Small Business Benefits the Target Audience

Prospects and customers are busy, so they cannot always focus on your business when you want them to. By creating a website, you offer convenience to this target audience. When they have free time, people can read about your company and what it has to offer. With a contact link, they can reach out to you any time of day or night. The Internet never sleeps, allowing you to drive traffic to your website 24/7.

A site that features quality content is the most effective. Think of the company website as your online salesperson. Provide customers with details regarding the business and each of its offerings. Include useful information about your products as services as well as tips for using these items.

Making a website for small business even makes it easier for customers to find your physical location when you include directions. When the store is not open, your company is still available to anyone wanting to shop online. Internet advertising is more targeted because site visitors are interested in what your company offers. Use this to reduce marketing costs while capturing new business.

What is Google Places?

Google released Places in September 2009 as a replacement for the Google Local Business Center. Places was positioned as a webpage for each place in the world. On the page, all relevant information about a location can be found, helping to connect people with the places they love. In the two and a half years since its release, Places has confounded many business owners.

A Google Places account is free and relatively easy to establish. A local business owner simply submits company profile information including contact details, videos, and photos. The account can be enhanced by highlighting promotions, posting live updates, and responding to customer reviews. Google verifies the account and crawls the Web to pull information regarding the business from sources like Yellow Pages and Yelp.

Using Google Places Effectively

Though a Google Places account is not difficult to establish, it must be maintained by an experienced worker if it is to generate paying customers. A business should register itself in a single category and should provide contact information in the same format as it widely appears on the Web. For example, if the business address is listed as 100 First Street throughout the Web, this is the address that should be supplied when establishing the Google Places account, not 100 First St.

The top seven rated businesses registered on Google Places appear at the top of the Google search results list for relevant keywords. To be included on this elite list, a company listing must have a score of 100 percent, created by citation building from other websites, customer ratings and reviews, a precise company description, photos featuring relevant keyword tags, videos, and 2D barcodes.

A company can get this coveted page one ranking if it works hard to maintain its score. Web users find, rate, and share places they patronize, providing local recommendations to others. Whenever they search for places on Google, they receive personalized recommendations, increasing the visibility of local companies using Google Places. Google Business Photos was recently released to complement Places, offering a 360-degree view of the interior of a local establishment.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is classified as an online pinboard that allows users to organize and share items they find on the Web. Consumers use pinboards to plan weddings, do interior decorating, organize meals, and much more. Business owners use Pinterest to connect with their target audience. By revealing common links, these virtual pinboards connect people throughout the world.

Not only can people create their own pinboards, they can browse pinboards that others have created. This is a great way for anyone to get inspiration or discover new things. The browsing feature is an excellent businesses tool because it allows prospective customers to find a product or service. By incorporating images and videos into its pinboard, a business provides prospective customers with visuals of its offerings.

How to Use Pinterest?

To get started with Pinterest, you must request an invite on the Pinterest website or from a current user. Then, connect through Twitter or register using Facebook Connect. If you know someone who uses Pinterest, you can request an invite from that person. The Pinterest website features a detailed help section covering everything from getting started to pin etiquette.

Each image added to Pinterest is called a pin. Pins can be added from websites using the Pin It button or they can be uploaded from a computer. Businesses should add the Pin It button to their company site because when pinned, this button will link back to their site. Pinterest users may add an unlimited number of pins to create a board about any topic.

The Hyperlink Defined

A hyperlink, also called a link, is a reference that online readers can follow directly. The link points to a relevant section of online content or to an entire online document. Each hyperlink has an anchor, which represents the location in the document from which the hyperlink is followed. The document that contains the hyperlink is called a source document.

Hypertext is text that features hyperlinks. When a reader follows these links, he or she is referred to as browsing or navigating the hypertext. Some hypertext features bi-directional hyperlinks so both ends serve as an anchor and a target. There are also more complex setups, like many-to-many links. The basic arrangement is all a novice content writer needs to know.

Why Hyperlinks are Used

Hyperlinks are used to reference glossaries, bibliographies, footnotes, tables of contents, and other reference sources. They may also be used to reference definitions, a product or service (this is what most website owners use to create backlinks to their site), or content featuring expanded information on a given topic. The link is usually displayed in a distinguishing way by the Web browser, such as a different font or color. Most graphical Web browsers display uncached links in underlined blue text and cached links in underlined purple text. A pointer in a graphical user interface may convert to a hand to indicate the presence of a link.

A Web URL that refers to a Web page or position on a page is the most common destination anchor for a hyperlink. If the link target is not an HTML file, the program needed to open the file may be activated. For example, a link to a PDF document will open Adobe Reader. Users who do not have this program installed must perform installation in order to access the link target.

Hyperlinks were key to the development of the Web because they link online information. The term originated in the mid 1960s, when it was used to scroll within a single document. Hyperlinks are now used to connect content throughout the Web. It is one of the primary tools used the SEO services industry to increase traffic and the site’s Google ranking. Though not all sites appreciate being linked to, the act of hyperlinking Web pages has become intrinsic to the online world.

Things to Keep in Mind When Learning How to Use Twitter

Though more than 65 million tweets are made on a daily basis, not all of them are effective, informative, or even logical. Establishing a relationship with prospects and customers using social networks like Twitter requires a unique approach. The process differs from traditional marketing because Twitter itself has unique aspects and businesses must know how to effectively use this tool to communicate with their target audience.

Companies new to Twitter should learn the best practices like retweeting, @ replies, and direct messaging. Keep in mind that if you include a URL in your tweet, it will count as 20 characters in the message. Even if you use a service like TinyURL, the programming still counts the URL as 20 characters. If you want to attract a specific audience, you might want to consider using hashtags in your tweet (we will publish more tips on this later).

Use Common Sense When Tweeting and Reap the Rewards

Rather than just tweeting for the sake of it, companies should use their 140 characters wisely. However, even the most enlightening tweets will not yield desired results if no one reads them. Tweets are publicly searchable but companies must first build a following from the target audience. Inviting everyone in the professional network to join Twitter and follow the business is a good first move. This can be done through company newsletters, email blasts, blogs, and website.

Employees should include a Twitter icon and link to the Twitter account in their email signature line and online marketing collateral. What they must always keep in mind is that social media like Twitter is about providing value and engaging in conversations. Tweets should contain information that the target audience finds valuable such as industry news and helpful advice or tips relevant to company products or services.

Followers must have a reason to remain engaged and participate. Conversational tweets encourage this, as do those that let the culture of the company and worker personalities shine through. A tweet that is witty, entertaining, or provides helpful advice is much more effective at increasing online presence than one that simply announces a new product or feature.