Search Engine Marketing Group

This Past Week in SEO (5/20/13)

Gerald Weber — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:24:34 +0000

Once you get a chance to go through them, be sure to leave a comment and let me know which link was the most useful to you!

Viral Content Buzz: Why Social is The New Backlink Find out nine different places where you can promote your website or blog, as well as how you can use Viral Content Buzz to promote your blog’s best posts.
15 Things You Need To Know About The #NewGooglePlus “Infographics will display in a nearly-useful size, A Hangout is now any form of group communication & You can now send money through Gmail/Google” are just three of the fifteen topics covered in this image and video rich post.
A Facebook Update In Real Life: If you’re in need of a good laugh, this 2.5 minute will do the trick!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvQcabZ1zrk
What should we expect in the next few months in terms of SEO for Google? Although 7.5 minutes may sound long for a YouTube video, since this one comes directly from Matt Cutts and addresses several important issues, it’s definitely worth watching the entire thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQmQeKU25zg
SEO Experts Interview: What’s the Hottest New SEO or Social Media Tool This Year? Ann Smarty, John Rampton, Ashley Moreno, Jon Henshaw, Alexis Grant, Viktar Khamianok, Tyler Shannon, Scott Langdon and myself all share the SEO or social media tool that we’re currently the most excited about using.
Penguin 2.0 and Future Google Updates Kev Massey covers several topics related to Google’s Penguin 2.0 update, including hacked sites, authority authors and result clusters.
5 Clever Ways Your Business Can Use Video to Drive Traffic Steve Young discusses how creating a parody, your own whiteboard animation and three other video strategies can help you drive traffic.
Klout Integration Pushes Human Powered ‘Expert’ Answers Atop Bing’s Search Results Greg Finn goes over Klout’s official entry into the social answers space, as well as the impact this integration will have on Bing.
Great Comment on “Repurposing Content: The Definitive Guide” If you missed this guide when it was originally published in January, bookmark and read the entire thing when you have some time. But even if you already checked it out earlier this year, be sure to check out the very thoughtful comment Eugene Farber recently left on the issue of “over-repurposing” content.
How To Add Google+ Comments To WordPress Easily Find out how to add Google+ comments to your WordPress blog by using code, code for the Thesis theme or one of three plugins. Also get Just Ask Kim’s opinion on how this type of commenting system will impact a blog’s SEO efforts.

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viralcontentbuzz.com. which is the free platform that helps bloggers generate REAL "social buzz" on their best content.

How to Deal with a Google Manual Penalty and What to Do Once It’s Been Removed!

Sandy Pardal — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:05:31 +0000

Google search penalties have become so frequent, right? The worst part about such penalties is that your site can face the heat even if it has a single page of spam. I’m sure you heard about the manual penalty levied on Mozilla. After Google detected user-generated spam, they sent Chris More (Web Production Manager at Mozilla) a notice about the manual penalty.

There are several cases like these.

It’s not just small business websites or blogs that face manual penalties from time to time. Even big brands around the globe are hit with manual penalties by Google. Though you make every effort (most importantly after Google’s Panda and Penguin release), manual penalties are sometime unavoidable. Many times, you won’t even be able to know why you got into trouble.

Google search penalties can be broadly categorized into –

Manual Penalties
Algorithmic Penalties

However, in both the cases you are sure to lose keyword rankings for some or all of your site’s content, which had good rankings earlier.

You may be ready to deal with a manual penalty by Google when you know the reasons (i.e. you get a notice). But what to do when you don’t have the slightest idea as to why your website was penalized?

It happens many times.

This is what you should do when you have no idea what’s gone wrong with your website or blog – go to Google’s Webmaster Central help forum.

If you are not sure what might have gone wrong with your website, the first thing to do is to figure out why you’re in trouble. According to Matt Cutts (the head of web spam team at Google), Google’s webmaster help forum has plenty of experts who will provide you adequate help. You can submit your site there are post your questions or ask for recommendations.

Many times, the answers that you get on the forum will be excellent, golden pieces of advice. However, sometimes these volunteers might not be able to cite the exact reasons as to why a site was penalized.

Though this is an excellent web forum to seek help, you should also keep your eyes and ears open before arriving at a decision.

Filing a reconsideration request is yet another way of collecting more details of the manual penalty imposed by Google. If you are not satisfied with what you are advised on Google’s Webmaster Central help forum, you can file a reconsideration request so Google itself can provide you more details. If you know the problems already, you can fix the issues first and then file a reconsideration request to get your site back into the Google search results.

After the Manual Penalty is Removed …
Since you already faced a manual penalty, you wouldn’t want to get into the same trouble again. Therefore, it’s important to take a microscopic look at your website and take the safer route.

Once the penalty has been removed, it’s high time to get the basic issues with your SEO fixed as quickly as possible. For example, your website’s internal architecture should be in order. The source code must also be clean. Duplicate or low quality content should be removed, even if it’s in the least quantity.

At the same time, you should quickly launch a link building campaign in order to generate top quality backlinks for your site.

Even if you were able to recover from a Google manual penalty first time, it may not be the same with a second penalty. Worse still, you may not be able to get rid of a second Google manual penalty at all!

Here is a short video where Matt Cutts talks about manual penalties vs algo updates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ES01L4xjSXE

Please feel free to share your opinions.Similar Posts:

free web builder. Online marketing comes to him as a deep passion. He likes to experiment with websites, track their performances and share his insights with readers.

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This Week in SEO (4/26/2013)

Gerald Weber — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 19:12:12 +0000

If you’re signed up to my weekly newsletter, you know what to expect from this post. If you haven’t had a chance to sign up for it yet, I’ve been using the newsletter to put together links to the best SEM & SEO content I’ve come across during the last week.

Since I’ve been really pleased with the feedback I’ve received about the newsletter, I decided to expand the format and publish the links & summaries here.

So without further ado, here are the six links you don’t want to miss:

How to Contact Google Whether you have an issue with Google+, a Google Business account, AdWords, Analytics, Webmaster Tools, GMail or even YouTube, Kristi Hines has put together an incredibly useful post that will help you get in touch with an actual human being at Google.

Will Multiple Internal Links with the Same Anchor Text Hurt a Site’s Ranking? According to Matt Cutts, “typically not.” To get the full scoop on this issue, be sure to watch his full video, which is just under two minutes in length.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ybpXU0ckKQ
Meet AdWords Keyword Planner – The New Google Keyword Tool and AdWords Traffic Estimator Mash-up! This post from WordStream provides lot of great information and tips about how to use Google’s new AdWords Keyword Planner. In case you haven’t heard of this tool, it combines the Google Keyword Tool and AdWords Traffic Estimator into a new interface to make it easier than ever to find keywords for PPC and/or SEO.
Getting the Most out of Facebook Custom Audiences In this post, the always informative Amanda DiSilvestro discusses the past, present and future of Facebook Custom Audiences. Throughout the post, she explains exactly how you can reap all the benefits this feature has to offer.
21 Things SMBs Can Do To Make Google Love Their Website This is a guest post that I actually wrote. Since I specifically targeted it at beginners, feel free to bookmark it or even print it out to use as a reference when you’re talking to someone about SEO/SEM for the first time.
Penguin 2.0: How Guest Blogging Will Be Affected As Neil Patel discusses in this post, while he has no doubt that guest blogging will remain a valuable online marketing strategy, he does believe there will be five significant changes to it. Those changes are social signals, author rank, devaluing links, devaluing sites and co-citations.

While we’re on the subject of guest blogging, I just wanted to share that we’ve expanded our guest blogging service to offer Silver, Gold and Platinum packages. This makes it easy to get exactly the type of posts you want based on specific metrics like domain authority, PageRank and “social signals”. If you’re interested in getting all the details and pricing info, shoot me an email and I’ll send them to you.

Once you get a chance to check out all the posts, be sure to leave a comment and let me know which one you thought was the most informative!Similar Posts:

viralcontentbuzz.com. which is the free platform that helps bloggers generate REAL "social buzz" on their best content.

What Do You Do Online?

Sean Valant — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:24:56 +0000

The mighty Internet. It has unquestionably changed life on this planet. I would wager that there has been no other single innovation that has impacted present generations as much as the simple idea of allowing computers to communicate with each other across the globe. Also, it allows myself and countless others to support ourselves and our families. All because computers can talk to other computers.

Anyone over 25-ish years old likely remembers pre-Internet life. Google was spelled “googol” and existed merely as a humble noun, not the mis-spelled noun/verb combo that we all know and love today. If you wanted to acquire new knowledge or information and lacked someone whom you could outright ask, your options were to either to crack open an encyclopedia or visit the library. Of course a visit to the library in those days involved a long walk in the snow that was oddly uphill both to and from the library. Barefoot. Shoes weren’t invented yet, either. Times were very odd in the pre-Internet days, kiddos!

Though I’d certainly give a shout-out to anyone who remembers playing Legend of the Red Dragon on a 2400 baud modem connected to a local area BBS back in the day, this post is actually not about the old days of the Internet. Rather, I’d like to discuss what people use the Internet for in the present day. We are speaking of a tool of immeasurable value. The Internet is phenomenal beyond words. As per my understanding, the Internet is made purely of magic and is responsible for not only the creation of gravity, but also magnets.

As human beings, one race sharing this planet, what do we choose to do with this most amazing technology? Mostly Facebook, apparently. Google, YouTube and Wikipedia are also high on the list of most-visited websites. Twitter, Yahoo, Amazon and eBay all round out the upper crust.

As for the most popular online activities, email is in the lead with “use a search engine” as a close follower. Get news, purchase a product and social networking round out the top 5.

Time is our most precious commodity. A lot of us spend a lot of time online. What are we receiving in exchange for this time? World news? Celebrity gossip? Perceived social acceptance? Products that we likely don’t actually need? …Profit? A level up in an online game? Eye strain, maybe? Epic collections of .mp3s or other media?

I love the Internet, likely you do as well. As with all beloved things, treat it appropriately. Consider your time, and how you spend it. Be sure you get a proper return on your investment, so to speak. Consider not only the quantity, but also the quality of the time you spend online. It is certainly not my place to discourage Internet usage, again it is my livelihood, but remain aware of the larger picture and the great, big wide world that isn’t on the web.Similar Posts:

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What’s New with Viral Content Buzz

Gerald Weber — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 01:33:15 +0000

I have to say that I’m quite proud to look back and see just how far Viral Content Buzz has come in a little less than seven months. But while we’re really happy with what we’ve accomplished, that doesn’t mean we’re going to sit back and coast. On the contrary, we’re happy to announce the rollout of a bunch of new features!

Since we’ve been gradually testing and adding some, here’s a look at everything we’ve added over the last few months, as well as our brand new features:

Pinterest Support: Share any infographics or other images that you want through Pinterest. This VCB post has some tips that Pinterest newbies will find especially helpful.
StumbleUpon Support: Just like Pinterest, we’ve now made it super easy to use VCB in conjunction with StumbleUpon. And as with all the sites we support, you have full control over exactly what you promote and share.
Bookmarklet: If you want to use VCB with a single click in Firefox, Chrome, IE or Safari, all you need to do is grab the VCB bookmarklet here. And if you’re on your iPad, you can get a bookmarklet for it here.
Scheduling Tool: This makes it really easy to control exactly when you want sharing to happen.
Customizable Dashboard: Easily switch between a traditional scrolling layout and a Pinterest-style layout that puts multiple stories on each row.
Labels and Folders: Under “My Projects,” you can use labels and folders to keep everything organized by topic, site, client or any other structure that you want.
Karma: Our one-liner for this feature is “the more approved posts you have, the closer you are to being a trusted member.”
Project Report: Easily see who shared what, and when they shared it. We’ve also made it dead simple to download and/or email a report.

Viral Content Buzz Labs

Last month, Ann published a post detailing what the Labs section of Viral Content Buzz is all about. While I highly recommend reading her post, we’ll go over a quick summary now.

VCB Labs is all about coming up with tools and resources to help content marketers. Currently, there are three free tools that anyone can use. They are:

Pinterest Analytics: Get stats for all images on your site that are being shared. This tool also provides features to help you encourage Pinterest users to share your images.
Activity Analyzer: Put in any URL (including an RSS feed link), and you can see detailed information about its performance on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon and Google+.
Twitter Chat Client: Makes it easy to start and engage in a Twitter chat simply by using our Twitter chat application.

That’s Not All

In addition to all the new features that are live and ready to use, we’ve got several more in the pipeline. Keep an eye out for:

Facebook Page support
Google Plus support
Being able to create & send multiple Tweets at once, and then they’ll automatically be spaced out based on the settings you choose (similar to Buffer)

Ann and I truly appreciate all the users who are helping to build VCB into an awesome platform, so be sure to let us know what you think about all the new features in the comments!

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viralcontentbuzz.com. which is the free platform that helps bloggers generate REAL "social buzz" on their best content.