Search Engine Optimization

The Perfect SEO Strategy For 2013

by on January 21, 2013

SEO strategy

When Creating An SEO Strategy Use Quality Information

When I frist started doing search engine optimization a bit over four years ago I didn’t really have an seo strategy.  And to be quite frank I really didn’t think I need one at the time.

But as I grew within in the industry I learned that mapping out the processes I am going to implement with my seo techniques was just as important as the techniques themselves.  Because without a plan we are just spinning our wheels and getting lucky.  And we don’t want to depend on luck, we want to depend on skill.

So you go out and buy a course or two on search marketing.  Or you talk to an seo consultant in hopes of learning seo basics.  And you notice something that all of them have in common.  They all tend to contradict each other.  And at the same time they all say the same thing.

  1. SEO strategyBuild a website
  2. Put content on it
  3. Get links
  4. Rankings increase
  5. Traffic builds
  6. Make money

If it was really that simple everyone would be doing it though right.

The fact of the matter is that Google and Bing are waging war on marketers online.  But not just any marketer.  They are targeting the lazy ones.  The ones that are looking for a payday by any means necessary.  And they are getting really good at it.

Take Google for example.  When they released the Panda and Penguin updates they manage to all but shut down thousands of websites.  Which in the eyes of someone who is trying to build a website based off high quality content is a good thing.  All of those sites that were able to build thousands of backlinks using automated tools are disappearing slowly.

And the content on a majority of those sites was really thin.  Borderline garbage in my opinion.

So The Guru’s Are Teaching A New SEO Strategy

What is happening now is that all the people who made all of those courses are changing their tune.

They are trying to tell you that content is the new seo.  And to be quite frank that is a bunch of horse crap.

High quality content has always been at the cornerstone of search marketing and always will be.  But the courses of old were sold based on one promise.

To rank your site with the least amount of work possible.  They were marketing to Homer.  And he doesn’t want to work all that much.  After all making money online is supposed to be easy right?

But the fact of the matter is that high quality content coupled with a solid link building and social media presence have always worked.  And today they will continue to work.  And in the future, they will work as well.

Follow This SEO Strategy For 2013

  1. work smarter not harderPick a domain name:  If you already have one that is great but if not take a couple things into consideration.  First, what is your product?  What is your service? Are you trying to create a brand around a company or you?  Second, exact match domains still work.  Anyone that tells you different was building crappy sites that Google hated.  I and several other successful seo’s are still using them with great results.
  2. Optimize your website for success.  Remember to use the meta tags properly.  The title tag is by far the most important.  The description tag should have your keyword in it as well, but use this as an ad to get the click.  The keyword tag is still used by Bing.  But they are looking at it to find spam sites.  So if you use it only add relevant keywords and not garbage.  Also, make sure you enter your site into Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics.  I know, I know, the scary Google is watching your site and could be mean to you.  This is alarmist B.S. spewed out by those who are using spam techniques to promote their site.  Besides, if you site is made available to spider, they have all that data anyway.  So why not see how they view your site.
  3. Create high quality content.  This is the hardest part for lazy people.  So they pay for articles, or they use PLR content on their websites.  Guess what, it doesn’t work for the long term.  And even if you do get traffic it won’t be long before the search engines shut that off.  Take the time to write some good stuff.  Or if you like video, create a video blog.  Just make sure its yours and not some garbage you copied from the net.
  4. Syndicate your content on social media sites.  Now noticed I said syndicate and not spam.  You have to take the time to write a good description of what value your social media followers are going to get from your site.  Don’t just run around dropping your link like some idiot.  I hate those people.  And all they manage to do is wreck good traffic sources.  Just ask the folks over at Empower Network who have to cloak their links now to get their stuff onto Facebook.  Its not because the site is bad, or that the offer is bad (I am a member by the way).  Its because all the people that joined figured that spamming the net was a good way to go.  They didn’t bother listening to the training on how to properly market.  And if they did, they sure as hell didn’t implement it.  Thus they ruined the reputation of the product.  Don’t like them PLEASE!!!
  5. Build links to your content from other sites.  Ok, this is where your common sense is going to have to kick in.  You can still use blog comments to get backlinks to your site.  They do still work, but they are looked at in a different way.  You need to comment on sites that are actually related to your content.  Those that say it doesn’t work anymore were just leaving comments everywhere.  So leave your comments on related sites.  And do guest posts on sites that are looking for content.  Not just any ole blog or website will do though.  Chose some that are in your market.  And already have traffic.  This will help increase your branding, your traffic, and your rankings.
  6. Rinse and Repeat.  Stick to the basics and what is working.  Shiny objects are there for one thing.  To get your money.  Keep it in your wallet unless you are ready to move on to another marketing method.  Don’t buy something just to buy it.  Chasing magic buttons will never make you money.

In conclusion….

I know that I was a little in your face on this post.  And quite frankly its because sometimes we need it.  I know I do.  There is nothing better then having someone care enough about your success to forgo worrying about your feeling.  Straight talk is where its at.  This is your business after all.

I hope you enjoyed the content and if you have any questions, like always, leave a comment and ask.  And be sure to opt-in to my mailing list and get more content that can help you along.

Clint Butler

P.S. If You Need A System to Help You Get in Front of More Prospects (and even profit from people that DON’T want to Join. Click Here to See What I Mean

Practicing Quality Search Engine Optimization Techniques

by on November 9, 2012

Do Search Engine Optimization Techniques Work Today?

Over the years since the rise of search engine’s like Google and Bing there have been a lot of people making money through the use of search engine optimization techniques. Each of these tactics, either white hat or black hat, have all had the same purpose. To rank your site higher in the search engines and get free targeted traffic.

However in the last year Google has begun a more targeted approach at finding those people who have become masters at ranking sites. By implementing such targeted updates like Penguin and Panda they have all but killed SEO as we know it. This isn’t to say search engine optimization is dead, but that its changed significantly.

Because of this the days of creating websites using search engine techniques that are considered over the top is over. Webmaster’s and seo’s need to take into account the user more than ever because that is what Google is doing. Remember Google’s end goal is to end search. They want to provide the most relevant content the first time in order to increase the values of their service. So when you are writing content you need to be able to do just that.

Search Engine Optimization Techniques For Quality

SEO Techniques Roulette wheel

Sometime SEO is like playing roulette

The first thing that you need to do is ensure that your are running your content through an editing process. This could be nothing more than making sure your spell checker is turned on in your word processor. I personally use the one that is built into my operating system, so it checks my content as I am writing it.

If my personal computer has the feature, its hard to imagine that Google does not. As such grammar and spelling could be considered when deciding how to rank your web page.  Doing so will also ensure that your bounce rate is really low.  Bounce rate is simply the amount of time that a reader spends on your site after finding your content.  Its important that this is low because it shows that your site is providing valuable content that people enjoy reading.  If you have a high bounce rate, Google knows that your content is not fulfilling its side of the deal and will stop ranking your site for that particular keyword.

The next thing that you need to check on is your about page. This has become ever increasingly important since Google has implemented knowledge graph information into their algorithm. In short, its looks at all your content around the web and determines your expertise in the subject. The more content you have on a subject all over the web, the more of an authority you are. This all starts at your about page, so don’t ignore it.

Don’t over optimize each article of content on your site. Under the old rules, search engine optimization techniques required that you have a keyword density of 3-5%. Today its more like 1-2% and no more. This is because Google caught on to recommendations to saturate your content with your keyword. Now, simply putting your keywords at the beginning and end of your articles is more than enough.

Sprinkle synonyms throughout your content.  That way your content will rank for more than just your chosen keyword.  Its is conceivable that your content can get ranked for several different keyword terms when using this method.  This will increase the return on the time that you invested in writing your works.  And overall the traffic that the search engines are sending to your content.

The final tip I can suggest to you is to put content on your site. Under the old way of doing things having five pieces of content may have been enough to rank a whole site, no anymore. Today, your site needs to have diversity of content related to the subject. And you need to be posting to it regularly. This isn’t to say you need to post on it everyday however, once a week should be fine. Just remember, old search engine optimization techniques no longer work the way that they used to. But SEO is far from gone and if you ignore it, you stand the chance of missing out on a lot of valuable traffic.

Is The Google Disavow Tool For You?

by on October 17, 2012

Is It About Time?

Ever since Panda and Penguin all but destroyed a ton of businesses that were relying on search engine optimization there have been a lot of people trying to figure out how to fix the damage.  Tons of people were going around trying to delete links that they had created.  And a bunch of others have been tirelessly been sending notices to sites trying to get their links removed.

Matt Cutts announced at PubCon yesterday that Google has finally added a Disavow Links tool.  SEO’s have been calling for this tool ever since Bing added theirs back in June.  So is it time to start discarding links?

Here is the Matt Cutts Google Webmaster Help video on Disavowing Links:


Whereas Bing’s user friendly tool simply asks you to submit a page or domain that you don’t like, Google’s comes with multiple warnings and is marked as an ‘Advanced Tool’.  But really its pretty simple to use.

From Google Webmasters Blog

In Matt’s video, he also says you should be emailing webmasters multiple times with link removal requests before using the tool to disavow the last few links. He has obviously never tried to get hold of the owner of a spammy links directory…

If you’ve done as much as you can to remove the problematic links, and there are still some links you just can’t seem to get down, that’s a good time to visit our new Disavow links page. When you arrive, you’ll first select your site.


You’ll then be prompted to upload a file containing the links you want to disavow.

The format is straightforward. All you need is a plain text file with one URL per line. An excerpt of a valid file might look like the following:

# Contacted owner of spamdomain1.com on 7/1/2012 to
# ask for link removal but got no response
domain:spamdomain1.com
# Owner of spamdomain2.com removed most links, but missed these
http://www.spamdomain2.com/contentA.html
http://www.spamdomain2.com/contentB.html
http://www.spamdomain2.com/contentC.html

In this example, lines that begin with a pound sign (#) are considered comments and Google ignores them. The “domain:” keyword indicates that you’d like to disavow links from all pages on a particular site (in this case, “spamdomain1.com”). You can also request to disavow links on specific pages (in this case, three individual pages on spamdomain2.com). We currently support one disavowal file per site and the file is shared among site owners in Webmaster Tools. If you want to update the file, you’ll need to download the existing file, modify it, and upload the new one. The file size limit is 2MB.

One great place to start looking for bad links is the “Links to Your Site” feature in Webmaster Tools. From the homepage, select the site you want, navigate to Traffic > Links to Your Site > Who links the most > More, then click one of the download buttons. This file lists pages that link to your site. If you click “Download latest links,” you’ll see dates as well. This can be a great place to start your investigation, but be sure you don’t upload the entire list of links to your site — you don’t want to disavow all your links!

When Should you Use the Tool?

According to the advice about you should only use the tool if:

  • You have received an unnatural links warning
  • You have tried to contact the owners of low quality/spammy links to your site multiple times with no response

However, as with any announcement like this from Google it’s likely that Webmasters who aren’t ranking number 1 for their target keywords will ignore the official advice and there will be a rush to get as many links disavowed as possible.

So here is what I am going to tell you.  If you know that you were hit by Penguin and you know which links are hurting you then use the tool.

When Shouldn’t you Use the Tool?

If your not sure you should use it, then leave it alone.  Plain and simple.  Most people should not need to use this tool.

It will be very tempting to do a complete purge of your links and try and get everything disallowed.  Especially if your not ranking high in the search engine.

Think before you act or you might shoot yourself in the foot.

If you’re on page 1 for a target keyword, you might do much better by building some new strong links rather than submitting a giant list of links you don’t like to Google.

It can take quite a while for Google to consider your disavow links, so if you submit a list and lose rankings, it will then take weeks to correct the problem.

Links to Avoid/ Remove/ Disavow

If you’re an active SEO you should be aware of these anyway, but as a refresher here Google’s guidelines on links:

  • Bought or sold links – including in exchange for goods or services
  • Link exchanges/ reciprocal links
  • Link wheels
  • Blog networks
  • Automated link programs
  • Low quality/ unrelated/ SEO link directories and bookmark sites
  • Links embedded in widgets
  • Blog and forum comments that don’t provide value
  • Footer/ sidebar links across entire sites and networks

Most of the above tactics have worked in the past and some report that they still do. However, these are the sorts of links Google hate so if you or somebody on your behalf has been building links in this way, and you are sure that it is having an adverse effect on your rankings then Google’s Disavow Links Tool may just become your new best friend.

What About Somebody Disavowing My Links

Google has stated that they have taken negative SEO campaigns into consideration.  They claim that their algorithm is more that capable of handling negative SEO campaigns.  Now, I follow tons of SEO forums and really I think negative SEO was something created to scare people.  The “what if” crowd created the term and now a lot of people are afraid of it.  Can it happen?  Sure it can.  But if your practicing good business and monitoring your webmaster tools anything the gets by Google should be easy to spot.

In conclusion, I want to reiterate that if you are not sure if you should use the tool, then don’t.  You can potentially hurt your site beyond repair.

But if you are positive your previous linking campaigns were picked up by Google.  And now your site has just tanked.  And you have done everything else that you possibly can to fix it.  Then give this tool a shot, after all your rankings already suck so what do you have to lose?

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Social Media Karma Really Effects Your Search Engine Rankings

by on September 29, 2012

Social Media Cannot Be Ignored!

Ever since the launch of Google+ I have been telling people that they need to build links to their sites on the social media networks.  As a matter of fact I created a whole search engine optimization strategy around the big social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Digg, and Stumbleupon.  My strategy was designed to really read between the lines and know that Google was going to take the opinions of real people into account when ranking your websites on the search engines.

But since I am not a big named “guru” a lot of my cry’s went unheard.  But those who did listen were able to whether the Panda and Penguin storms without too much trouble.

The reason I suggested building these links were actually two fold.  One, you can get a lot of traffic from sites like Facebook and StumbleUpon.  Heck, with a bit of creativity you can get thousands of visitors from these sites.  And you don’t have to pay a dime, which is nice.

Second, the social media websites are popular on the net and your more likely to get a better link value in Google’s eyes when your linking on the social media sites responsibly.  Oh yeah, and third if you get people to share you links on them as well it increases your reach that much more.

Social Media Search Engine Optimization Hits The Mainstream

These days you can go to a site like the Warrior Forum or some Facebook mastermind groups and not here about someone selling methods on how to use social media websites as a search engine optimization tool.  As a matter of fact I think there are over a hundred different products in the Warrior Special Offers section on the subject.

And that is not to infer that they are bad, as a matter of fact a lot of them are pretty good.  But lets face the fact, there are some really smart people working for Google who can figure out the ins and outs of these “tricks” and plug the loopholes that were there.

But everyday there is a new product launch or free ebook that is waved in front of you trying to get you to buy the latest thing when really all you need to do is apply a bit of common sense in your marketing on the social media websites.

Social Media And Its True Impact

Ok, let me first apologize for the low quality of the appearance of the infographic below.  Its original size was much small and when I stretched it out to make it more readable it fuzzed it up a bit.  But you can read it now, so that’s a good thing.

Don’t let the fuzzy however, hinder your grasp of the valuable information it contains.  Social media websites are now, and will always be, a valuable part of the search engine landscape.  So don’t be too lazy to sign up for at least Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN, and StumbleUpon.

And don’t use the excuse that you can not manage all of them.  Once you get them set up you can have a really good presence on all of them with only ten minutes of time invested a day.

social signals

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Google+ For Your Business Is A Must

by on September 23, 2012

 Is Google+ Good For Your Business?

Since its launch a while ago there have really been two camps on the value of Google+.  One side loved the new social media site for the its format and how it was directly tied to the users Google account.  There was another camp out there that really expected more.

This second camp directly compared Google+ to Facebook and for some reason felt that Googles site should somehow be the same as Facebook.

But the real marketers of the world saw something else happening when it was launched, and that was the use of social sharing as a method of determining search engine rankings.

Ever since the launch of the +1 button I have been telling anyone that would listen that they need to embrace it if they had any chance of increasing their rankings in the near future.  Some listened, some didn’t.

Google+ is The Next Big Thing, Eventually

And after Panda and Penguin were launched those that didn’t really paid the price for it.  Their sites were smashed to little bits because they didn’t see the writing on the wall or they just didn’t take action.

Even my site here, which I really didn’t backlink all that much anyway, took a pounding.  I went from 300 unique visitors a day to around 30.  Not to mention for some reason spammers found my site and really targeted it which lowered my bounce rate.  This hurt my ability to rank as well.

With all that being said I eliminated almost all linking to my site with exception of social linking to help recover and it worked.  For awhile.

Now, I am doing a better linking campaign and working on bringing traffic from the social media sites rather than the search engines.  One way I do that is to create pages on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+.

In this infographic you’ll learn some ways that Google+ will help you build your brand and your business.

Google+ For Business

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SEO Trends In 2012

by on August 19, 2012

What Is Happening To SEO?

There have been many changes to search engine optimization this year.  Bing has been integrating Facebook into their search results.  And the search powerhouse Google is changing its rankings monthly now.

This is causing great concern to those that are trying to get free referral traffic.  And there are many seo company businesses that are failing because they cannot adapt.

But that doesn’t mean that you should try to find some other way to market online.  As a matter of fact, its a good thing.

Its good because now your high quality content will not have to compete as much with low quality sites.  But there in lies the key.  Your content has to be of high quality and your going to still need back links.  But now, your backlinks need to be more diverse and of higher quality.

Why So Many Changes?

Ever since the advent of search engines and online marketing there have been people who learned how to game the system.  There was everything from keyword stuffing to massive backlinking programs.  These wwere all designed for the sole purpose of gaining a greater ranking in the search results.  More specifically, to get a site on page one.

Unfortunatley in the early days it was really easy to do.  And it didn’t matter if the site was even worth a darn.  As long as it was on page one for a great search term people could make money hand over fist.  But that left a bad search result for the consumer.  And people were beginning to get frustrated over the fact that they had to filter through these bad sites in order to get the right information.

So engines like Bing and Google began optimizing their programs in order to do one thing.  End search.

Meaning they wanted to be able to provide a service that resulted in the user finding what they wanted the first time.  After all if a search engine couldn’t do this then what good are they?

Thus updates like Panda and Penguin are needed in order to combat the marketers.

So What Now?

This infographic helps to detail the major trends in the industry that have taken place.

It would do you well to pay attention to the different aspects of search that are changing.  If only to be able to adapt as new changes are rolled out by Google.  This will make your online marketing efforts more effective.

SEO Trends in 2012

Clint Butler

P.S. If You Need A System to Help You Get in Front of More Prospects (and even profit from people that DON’T want to Join. Click Here to See What I Mean

Google Penguin: More Good than Bad?

by on June 9, 2012

With Google Penguin, Google hopes to get a handle on violators of its Webmaster Guidelines. The aim is to decrease search engine rankings of individual websites that abuse regulations by duplicating content, using keyword stuffing, or participating in link schemes and cloaking that have the potential to enhance rankings. These methods are referred to as “black-hat” SEO techniques. Many small to medium sized businesses have been dramatically affected by the update. The first update went live this year on April 24th. The following month, Google updated the algorithm with Penguin 1.1. The latest version would allegedly affect less than one-tenth of a percent of English web searches.

Google Penguin fights Keyword Stuffing Content

Over-optimization of SEO articles is a common practice. The sole purpose of these articles is to hit high in search engines and it’s not unusual to use any method such as keyword stuffing in order to succeed. Google wants to “level the playing field” and its main focus with the Penguin update is on web spam that is frequently generated through over wrought, SEO content and material that can flood the typical search.

The one type of material that can look to be hurt by Penguin is content produced by non-English writers which can be extremely low quality, over optimized, difficult to read and filled with duplicated keywords, synonym free content.

Google Penguin Links: Natural and Unnatural

Links are vital; they help us find what we need. On the opposite end, it helps businesses lead us where they want you to go. Without links, the Internet is no more than a stack of papers without any method for streamlining and accessing information. Google wants to guide you to the logical next step in the search for information. Penguin will technically look for building links that are based on satisfying results, not manipulation. Manipulation is essentially building links to take you where someone else wants you to go, which can often have no relevance to your initial search.

Avoid Low Quality Links

Natural links was the original idea behind Google. Through links, a subject was deemed worth ranking, allowing the user to link to it naturally. Yet, in a bid to outrank everything else, ways were to found to fill material with not just natural links, but an increasing number of spammy, or unnatural, links.

Avoid Paid Link

Google Penguin isn’t necessarily used to block anything. It wants to wean out unnatural links like paid links using keywords as anchor text; comment spam; guests posts used solely to get a link back to one’s own site; and, lastly, links flagged for malware, spam issues and sites that focus on porn or drugs.

Poor Quality

At the end of the day, Google Penguin will have a prominent effect on exact-match domain usage, or rather, overuse; both inbound and outbound use of keyword stuffing; extremely aggressive exact-match anchor text links and, of course, duplicate content, poor quality SEO material and blog spamming.

What Now?

Google Penguin is increasing the value of strong links and pruning the weak and unwanted to produce top notch and better analysed content to give the user better SERPs. This is a good thing and actually won’t disturb the traffic of anyone that’s providing legitimate SEO material in the first place.

Warranted Concern

Not surprisingly, a number of businesses are unhappy. Content writers are concerned as well, but there is no need to panic. Placing effectiveness and quality above links and cheap production is more crucial than ever and will probably need to be with each subsequent release that strengthens a search engine’s ability to differentiate material.

There are still plenty of active tools to be found that can be used for the benefit of correct and original optimized material. They provide Internet marketing solutions with dedicated staff promoting quality content. Seek them out and Google’s Penguin will not affect your production in the least.

Google Penguin Doing A Dance On Your Site

by on April 28, 2012

Google Penguin Expanding On Panda

If you like you me you are doing a lot of search engine optimization of your sites in order to attract free traffic to your site.  Last year when Google Panda was rolled out I really wasn’t affected all that much because I didn’t depend on article marketing or some other spammy method to get back links as a primary method.  But when Google Penguin came out my site was hit pretty good and the overall traffic for my site dropped pretty quickly.  In addition, Google launched an update to Google Panda and that hit me again.

To tell you the truth though I am not all that worried about it because I know that I am doing right when it comes to my SEO techniques.  I concentrate very heavily on making sure that my on page SEO is fully optimized but not over-optimized.  And 90% of my backlinks are either social media or natural backlinks with only a few “low quality” backlinks thrown in for diversity.

The key to surviving the Google Penguin and Panda 3.0 (I just gave it that name) is to ensure that your always doing the right thing when it comes to getting quality links to your site.  As well as ensuring that your not spreading around bad quality content on the net and pointing it at your website.  With a little patience your sites ranking will return and more than likely stronger than they were in the first place.

What The Heck Is Google Penguin?

If you read the SEO blogs like I do you already know, but just in case, Chris Crum from Webpronews.com put together this information.

In case you haven’t heard the news, the official name for the Webspam update Google launched this week, is reportedly the Google Penguin update. Google’s Matt Cutts even tweeted a picture of a stuffed Panda hanging out with a stuffed Penguin. How cute.

Now, we don’t know exactly what all Google takes into account with the Google Penguin update. But Google made it pretty clear that it’s about targeting those violating its quality guidelines. Here’s an exact quote from the announcement:

In the next few days, we’re launching an important algorithm change targeted at webspam. The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines.

There wasn’t this much apparent clarity with the Panda update. There was (and frankly, still is) a lot of speculation about how to survive Panda. Google did release a list of questions that webmasters should ask themselves related to how Google assesses quality, but it wasn’t completely black and white.

Luckily, Google lists exactly what the quality guidelines are. In other words, Google tells you exactly what not to do.

There are 8 “specific guidelines”. They are (verbatim):

1. Avoid hidden text or hidden links.

2. Don’t use cloaking or sneaky redirects.

3. Don’t send automated queries to Google.

4. Don’t load pages with irrelevant keywords.

5. Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.

6. Don’t create pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other badware.

7. Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

8. If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.

Some of them are more black and white than others. For example, avoiding hidden text or hidden links seems like a pretty obvious thing. Just don’t do it. The duplicate content one is a little different. What does Google consider “substantially duplicate content”? How much is too much?

Beyond the specific guidelines, Google also lists 4 “basic principles”. These are:

1. Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”

2. Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”

3. Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

4. Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.

Google provides plenty more guidelines and elaboration on the quality guidelines in its help center.

Of course, none of this is new. It’s just that now Google has a better way to enforce them (or at least, it hopes it does).

The fact is clear though that several sites where hit, like mine, that were unjustly hit by the update and if you think you were wronged you can go to this Google Panda complaint form and request that the Google Penguin team check it out.

Use Google For Your Inbound Network Marketing

by on September 11, 2011

In are haste to rush to the internets top site, Facebook, we as network marketers have forgotten about the inbound network marketing tools that Google provides us.  Its not that we don’t know or about them (or maybe it is), its that at times we get tunnel vision and fail to realize that there are other games in town that we need to be prepared to explore when we have come to master the method we are currently employing.

What is inbound network marketing?

First, I believe that I owe you an explanation of what I mean by the term inbound network marketing.  As you may or may not have been aware of, traditional marketing techniques of network marketing have hit the back burner, thus resulting in the establishment of a stale an ineffective method of reaching consumers.  As a result of this change in the marketing environment, you need to shift your focus to to attract people who are actively searching for your product online.  This is where inbound network marketing comes in to play.

Inbound network marketing describes the challenges your customers are facing on a day to day basis, and what types of solutions to their problems that they are looking for.  I know you have heard this before from the “guru’s,” they have all told you that you need to solve people’s problems, provide them solutions.  Inbound network marketing as a result takes advantage of the way people communicate on the internet and conduct research.  You as a business owner need to take advantage of this and tap into search engines, blogs, and social networks to provide answers where your target audience is searching.

Google tools for marketing.

1) Google Adwords:  So we all know that Google PPC is probably the one advertising system that can make you loose your shirt in about .03 seconds if you don’t know what your doing.  But, if you take the time to learn this tool, you can bank everyday.  To be simple in my description to those that are unclear, this tool allows you to create ads and target specific keywords.  As people search those keywords, the ads appear in the search results or on other people’s websites as part of their display services.  I want to warn you again, but not scare you off, Google Adwords costs can get out of control if you don’t know what your doing so buy a course and at the very least read their step-by-step guide.

2) Google Documents for inbound network marketing are awesome because you can use it to interact with your customers or prospects.  This service will provide you with free online documents that can be accessed from anywhere and the most powerful option is that they can be shared with your team and edited by them as well if you wish.  Think of the possibilities this presents if you working together to promote the same company or funded proposal, you can collaborate on ads, techniques etc. etc.

3) Google Keyword Tool:  I probably should have started off with this tool because keyword research is the most misunderstood aspect of marketing online, and it is the most important if your doing search engine marketing.  On a site like mine, this really isn’t a big deal for the site itself, but if I was targeting my company, the Numis Network, then keyword research becomes very important.  I could do a whole training on keyword research so I won’t delve into it right now, but don’t ignore this tool.

4) Google Alerts is a free tool used by marketers to monitor brand names, industry terms, or your competitors website.  Play with this one, I use it to monitor technology news to keep abreast on the latest news.  Plug in your companies name into a Google alerts and you can stay up to date on what other people are saying about your company.

5) Google News for inbound network marketing is yet another whole training in and of itself.  My recommendation is to daily, do a search for your company.  Find out the latest news about it or network marketing as an industry, doing this will provide you some great content to write about.

6) Google reader is a free tool that helps you stay up to date with what’s going on in your industry.  It’s a great tool for coming up with content ideas and engaging with your community in industry related conversations.  Use Google reader to subscribe to your favorite blogs rss feeds and instead of running all over the net, they are all in one place.

7) Google Places should be used by you to get your business found on local search results on both Google search results and Google Maps.  This will increase your visibility, get you more traffic and best of all its a free traffic source.

8) And finally I am going to end with Google +, here is my Google Plus Profile, and this service is Google’s attempt to answer the popularity of Facebook.  Its a new social network that can drive traffic to your site via social media and search engine traffic.  As of the last time I checked, Google+ is missing a business pages feature, but as I understand the information coming out of Google HQ this option is slowly going to become available.

Ok, so I know there a lot of tools that I detailed to you, but don’t get crazy and think that you need to get all of them employed right this very moment.  If your doing Facebook marketing are your primary method stick with it, don’t let your inbound network marketing efforts get sidetracked.

But remember that Google is offering some great free inbound network marketing tools that you can employ and overcome that number one object we hear everyday and we ourselves use, I can’t afford to buy the tools to get started.

Regards,

Clint Butler

P.S. If You Need A System to Help You Get in Front of More Prospects (and even profit from people that DON’T want to Join. Click Here to See What I Mean

Strategy for Internet Marketing Laid Out

by on September 11, 2011

There are a large amount of people doing small business internet marketing who run some unprofitable websites or internet businesses with no short or long term strategies. Some people do not have any goals, while some seem to jump from one make money online ’business opportunity‘ to another.

Some internet marketers treat their internet marketing business like a hobby, and yet expect to earn some good checks from it because they truely don’t know the large amount of work that is involved in an online business

To succeed online, you need to apply some strategic internet marketing techniques.

Depending on your interests; it is a good idea to engage in a business that has a long term potential, which means that you will need to have long term goals with the business.

Strategic marketing is not randomly buying some cheap recycled 300,000 email leads or guaranteed hits.

Strategic marketing is also not about pointlessly placing banner ads all over the internet.

Strictly relying on free classified ads or surfing for traffic will also not bring you any guaranteed long term success. Yes, these marketing tactics mentioned above may work in some instances for some business types; but they can’t be considered as strategic marketing campaigns just by themselves.

So, what is strategic internet marketing?

Strategic online marketing is basically about having a promotion plan that employs effective and proven marketing devices to get high converting results for your internet marketing business.

You mast use a list of selected marketing plans that are effective; and you must make sure that you perfect your skills in these strategies in order to make them effective.

The first thing you will need to do is to establish your advertising budget. You must establish how much can you spend per week or per month.

Every promotion for your business must have a purpose and it is critical to track the results of each and every advertisement. Tracking your ads means that you can then identify the strategies that are bringing the best results for your advertising dollar.

After you have identified the ads that are working, you can allocate more money towards those. By tracking your ads, you can also find out which ads are not working, or which ones need adjusting.

The key to strategic internet marketing is to constantly improve your marketing strategies, by making them more effective.

You must track your marketing campaigns and ads otherwise you are simply ‘operating in the dark’ and this will not bring you any success in marketing.  You are simply throwing your money away.

So, which marketing strategies actually work?

There are several proven marketing strategies that can guarantee you success in online marketing if you apply them consistently.

1) Writing and submitting articles

Article marketing is an effective and cheap way of promoting your business. Writing articles builds your credibility and also drive plenty of targeted traffic to your site, all for free.  Remember when writing that spun articles are not nearly as valuable as unique content so never use spun articles on your own site.

2) Pay per Click Advertising (PPC)

PPC is the fastest way to get traffic to your website. However, to make this strategy successful and cost effective for your business, you must educate yourself about keyword selection and bidding for your keywords.  If you don’t take the time to properly learn PPC, it can become the fastest way to loosing a lot of money.

3) Start Your Own Ezine

This is most likely the most powerful marketing technique on the internet.  Having your own list of subscribers to send a newsletter to on a regular basis is a powerful way of expanding your business.  In order to effectively use this method however, you are going to have to be able to provide a consistent amount of quality information.  The easiest way to accomplish this is by getting people in you market to write for you.  There are tons of people out there who would love the opportunity to write about any subject you can think of, its only a matter of seeking them out.

4) Viral Marketing

Another very popular and effective marketing strategy for your business. You can give ‘stuff’ away that people can use and put links to your web site in it.

Information is a powerful tool in marketing. Give people rights to share the ‘stuff’ with their friends and email lists.  In the long term, this will build a lot of traffic to your website.  This information can be in the form of an ebook, a video series, your imagination really is the limit.  These days a lot of marketers are creating applications for the iPhone and other smartphones.  For a relatively small investment whose to say you can’t do the same, thus driving traffic to your offers or your list.

5) Linking

One way or reciprocal linking is critical to your online success. This tactic takes time to develop, but it is well worth your effort. Search engines assess the importance of your web site by the number of incoming links pointing to your site. You can build one way links by articles writing and submitting and also participating in relevant forums etc.  You can also do blog commenting on high PR blogs in your niche, this passes on a backlink to your site.  Just remember, don’t fall into the trap of using some software to cheat the system.  No, Google isn’t everywhere, but eventually the spider will catch on and your ranking will pay the price for it.

6) Search Engine Optimization

This is another long term marketing tactic for your business. Your pages must be fully optimized for the search engines. The most inexpensive and targeted traffic you can receive will come from high search engine rankings.   This strategy plays right in line with link building, which is considered off-page SEO.  By following a few simple rules and guidelines you can get your site ranked for tons of keywords even if your only optimized for one.

Stop taking your internet marketing business aimless and start to apply a solid strategy that will guarantee you success and wealth.

Regards,

Clint Butler

P.S. If You Need A System to Help You Get in Front of More Prospects (and even profit from people that DON’T want to Join. Click Here to See What I Mean

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