Month: October 2013

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Is Guest Blogging Dead? Part One

The way most SEO’s have been using guest blogging to build links has really been disavowed by Google and appears to be considered low quality content. Here’s how guest blogging particularly impacts websites that use this type of blog content and those that send out guest blog content to others to post.

Today we’ll talk about using guest blog posts on your own blog and Wednesday we’ll talk about situations where you are sending content out to others to post to their blog.

Posting Guest Blog Posts to Your Own Blog

If you have been soliciting guest blog posts to build free content and to try to create value for your blog, here are a few tips to consider before you continue using this type of content.

1. Verify using Copyscape Premium that the content you have been using as a guest blog post is actually unique to your blog. If when you run the post through the plagiarism checker and you see two, five, forty sites that have this same blog post, I would stop using content from this source.

2. Take a look at the keywords used in the post and in the bio block footer. Would Google consider them to be a good match with your website focus? Let’s say for example you are an attorney and got a guest blog post but the footer content and keywords talk about nutritional supplements. I would not use that content any more. You want the keywords and bio block information to be legal category keywords.

3. Take a look at the anchor text used in the blog post – that’s the keywords that are underlined and carry the hyperlink. Open the blog post in Word and see what site are you linking to in the post? Is is a quality site? Is it one you would like your own customers to visit? Is the site in your own industry?

Remember typically others that create and push out guest blog content are not interested in building their own author brand, they are trying to bleed off your search engine capital through a link back to their own website or to their own clients’ website.

Be careful and selective of what you use and how. Google will be evaluating who you link to and who links to you as part of the new organic placement ranking.

You’ll want to check out Matt Cutts full video on the topic of guest blogging in this webmaster video from the Google Web Spam department for more information.

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GMail and the Promotion Tab – What to Do and Know About It

If you are not a GMail user, you may be out of the loop when it comes to what happens to the nice e-newsletter you just sent out to your clients. With the new GMail inbox, your newsletter is now automatically sent to a tab in the inbox of users called the “Promotion” tab. For some website owners, this means that your carefully crafted message has just gone into “no man’s land”.

Although the promotion tab is not a junk mail folder, it is a place of less consequence and based on how heavily a user is entrenched with GMail, it may mean that your message is one of hundreds that may simply never be seen.

So what are website owner’s to do when it comes to getting your email message read by users of GMail?

1. Make sure your e-newsletter is interesting and provides value. Whether that be a special promotion or discount, to tips of real value to a reader, remember the following…

“Gmail’s filtering is smart, so once your subscribers engage with your email, the more likely they are to appear in the coveted “Primary” tab. Also, if your email subscribers are into doing a little up-front work, they’ll never miss one of your emails again. All they have to do is click and drag your emails to the correct tab, and choose to always filter those messages in that folder. ” Make sure to read this full article on this GMail issue as it is a good one.

2. Encourage your users to click in, and interact with your emails. You can even go a step farther and instruct users on how to move your mailings by drag and drop within the GMail interface to encourage them to put your e-newsletter in the “Primary” tab.

3. Make sure to use social media to point to e-newsletters you have done and archive them back on your website. This gives GMail users who may have missed your message alternative ways to find out about your news.

If you need help with your own e-newsletter program, we offer excellent writing services to make the articles and information you send out interesting and shareable. Find out more about how we can help you today.

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How to Opt Out of Google’s Shared Endorsements

I am not sure why we have to go down this path again, but we do. However this time it is not Facebook or Twitter that is using your name and face to sell services, but Google!

Plastered all over the home page of Google.com is a blue bar letting you know that in November Google will be starting to use any Google+ user’s information on +1’s, reviews, and comments in advertising around the Web to other people in your circle. Google calls this new brand of advertising Shared Endorsements.

For now, this really only impacts users who are on Google+, but I would not be surprised if eventually this will impact all users of Google. If you don’t want to share what you do and like in this way with others, you can opt out of this new program, and here’s how:

1. Visit this Google Page: https://plus.google.com/settings/endorsements?hl=en&partnerid=gplp0 you will need to login to your Google account.

2. Go to the bottom of the page where it says “Based upon my activity, Google may show my name and profile photo in shared endorsements that appear in ads.” and remove the check mark from the box. If there was no check mark you are fine.

3. Make sure to click save. Google will pull up a comment asking you “are you sure you want to do this?” click “yes” and you are good to go.

Facebook took a huge black eye months ago when it rolled out it’s own version of Endorsement Ads when it revealed what people had bought in ads embarrassing users who maybe did not want others to know that they had bought certain items. Why Google has decided to go down this same path, one can only guess.

I for one have already removed my name and I encourage you to do so too. We already share so much online I don’t want my name and image to hawk products to others I may know.

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Google Partners is Replacing AdWords Certified Partners

Announced on October 2nd in a YouTube livestream, Google announced that it is retiring its Google AdWords Certified Partner and Certified Individual program. Replacing these important programs is a new program called Google Partners.

Google AdWords Certified Partners will not be automatically grandfathered into the new Google Partner program. They will need to reapply for acceptance. But passing exams now is not the only hurdle to becoming a Google Partner. The prospective applicant firm must now prove competency in the AdWords accounts that it manages with Google rating performance on use of new strategies, frequency of account updates, value of the manager’s capability in changes enacted that will benefit an account, and customer service. Additionally Google Partners have a minimum ad management spend requirement.

We welcome these changes as Google tightens up on qualifications and helps consumers to understand the real value a Partner account manager brings to a professionally managed account. My firm is in the last stages of the approval process and I expect to have our Partner badge in the next two weeks.

With the previous Google AdWords Certified Partner program and badge expiring by mid November, make sure your account manager is staying abreast of these important changes that validate their skill level.