Connecting Your Blog With RSS, Social Media and Email

Before you start creating a ton of content for your blog, just hoping for random people to start stumbling upon your site, it’s important to put the right tools in place to get it noticed. A big part of this is working to connect your blog to the major social networks, as well as a better way to connect with your readers through e-mail and RSS.

Don’t know how to do this? Don’t know the deal with RSS and why it matters? Don’t worry: we’re here to help you out with that too.

RSS and E-Mail Subscriptions

What is RSS and what is with all this talk of feed readers? RSS, most commonly understood as Really Simple Syndication, is a family of web formats that are used to publish frequently updated work, as would be the case with blog entries. By offering an RSS feed, readers are notified when there are new posts on your blog and they are able to read these new articles through services like Google Reader.

The good news is that WordPress will automatically generate an RSS feed for your blog and this can be accessed at http://yourblogdomain.com/feed. The bad news is that this feed can be somewhat limited in its functionality and that’s why we recommend that you sign up for a free account with Feedburner.

By allowing Feedburner to manage the RSS feed on your blog, you are able to know exactly how many people are subscribed to your feed, as well as other useful tidbits of information. You should promote your RSS feed on your blog as it helps to grow a loyal readership.

Even for people who don’t use feed readers (also known as aggregators) like Google Reader, RSS has immense value. That’s because Feedburner also allows you to offer e-mail subscriptions. When someone signs up for your e-mail updates, he or she will get an e-mail message when you have a new blog post. This encourages repeat readership and brand loyalty.

A Facebook Fan Page

Every blog should have a Facebook fan page. Note that this is distinctly different from your standard Facebook profile page, because a fan page is not associated with a person; it’s associated with a brand or product. In this case, that would be your blog.

While you are limited to the number of friends you can have on Facebook, you are not limited to the number of fans you can have on a Facebook page. It also helps to separate your personal life from material that is directly (and only) related to your blog.

You can even syndicate the RSS feed from your blog through your Facebook fan page. Check out Facebook applications like Social RSS and RSS Graffiti to do that.

A Blog’s Twitter Account

Twitter is a great way to stay connected and engaged with the readers on your blog. Every blog should have a Twitter account. This way, readers can interact with you in real-time, helping you “retweet” your blog posts, promote your contests, and all sorts of other wonderful things.

Just as you can syndicate your blog’s RSS feed through e-mail and Facebook, you can also do this with Twitter. There are many different ways to do this. There are WordPress plugins, like WordTwit, that offer this functionality, as well as online services like SocialOomph and Hootsuite.

Other Networks and Services

As much as we love our own blogs, not everyone has the time to visit each blog they enjoy every day to find the latest content. That’s why RSS, Facebook, and Twitter are such powerful channels for staying connected with your readership.

Depending on the nature of your blog, it may also be worthwhile to connect your blog with other social networks too. Flickr is great for images, YouTube for videos, and so on.

Be sure to do “cross promotion” with these accounts too. Actively promote your Facebook and Twitter profiles on your blog, and actively promote your blog on your Facebook pages and Twitter accounts too. This greatly helps to strengthen and reinforce your blog’s brand, lending itself to greater success.

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Google and Facebook Removed Objectionable Content After Delhi Court Order

Google, the internet giant told a Delhi( India) court that it had removed the objectionable content  from Google India local search, You Tube and Blogger on Feb 06, 2012.

Facebook also produced its compliance report before the court after getting an ultimatum. Google and Facebook are among 22 social networking websites who had got warning from a Delhi court to remove some sensitive and objectionable content including images which are offensive to Hindus, Muslims and Christians.

After complaints from few private petitioners, the Delhi court ordered the social networking sites to develop a mechanism to block or remove these sensitive information.

Google spokeswoman Paroma Chaudhry said, Google review team has looked at the content and removed from the Google.co.in domain and also from You Tube and Bloggers.

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Social Media – How to Manage Social Media for Better SEO and Search Engine Ranking

Social media plays a vital role in SEO, and leveraging this component will result in higher Search Engine Ranking for your blog or website.

This is an era of social media war.

There are plenty of social media platforms available and by managing them intelligently, you can optimize( SEO ) your blog or website for better search engine ranking.

Facts About Social Media and SEO

1. Do you know – Your tweets & posts in the Twitter/Facebook with a link to your website contribute nothing( ZERO ) towards your SEO efforts. Simply b’cos they have NoFollow attributes, which prevents passing of link juice to your website. Of course they definitely help to drive traffic( referred ) to your blog or website but, due to NoFollow attribute they don’t help in Search Engine Rankings.

2. Your profile in the social media, where you mention the URL of your domain actually sends a strong positive signal to search engines. B’cos it is DoFollow in most social media platforms. Due to DoFollow attributes, it passes link juice to your blog or website, which helps in search engine ranking.

3. If your tweets or posts in the Facebook or comments in other social media sites are interactive in nature, I mean you are getting re-tweets, likes on your Facebook fan page, comments to your tweets or posts etc. then, it sends a positive signal( although weak ) to the search engines and help your website in search engine ranking.

How to Manage Social Media for Better SEO ?

1. List of  Top Social Media Sites where you can signup and promote your blog for better SEO.

LinkedIn  Facebook  Twitter  Digg  Reddit  StumbleUpon  Delicious  Wikipedia  Flickr  Meetup.com

2. Social media profile page and SEO

Your Social media profile page is the place which contains DoFollow attribute links to your blog and sends a strong signal as well as link juice to your site. So, describe your social profile with your main keywords( meta keywords of your website ) for better SEO benefit.

3. Make a Twitter sub-page on your website for better SEO

Make a Twitter sub-page like www.your domain/twitter, to pass maximum link juice to your website or blog.

4. Optimize your images in Flickr. Add multiple tags with a descriptive title for your images. Geo-tag the image, if it is location specific.

5. Always reply to the comments on your blog, to continue the thread for a meaningful discussion to send a positive signal to search engines.

Conclusion

Use of Social media for SEO is different from use of Social media for driving traffic to your website. By following the above mentioned points you can pass the link juice to your site, thereby sending a strong positive signal to the search engines for better SEO and search engine rankings.

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14 Viral SEO Tips for YouTube Videos

Do you SEO your YouTube video to make it viral?

Do your YouTube videos appear frequently in the Google vertical search (video search)?

Yes, video-blogging is the latest online avenue being tapped by the webmasters all over the world to get tons of traffic.

Data suggests that more than 600 million unique visitors visit YouTube per month, which has become the No. 2 search engine on the web. And, if you are not optimizing your YouTube videos, then you are definitely missing a serious traffic for sure.

Actually, videos are binary files and can’t analyzed by the search engines properly, if sufficient metadata is not provided.

Without much ado I am telling you the 14 most important SEO tips to optimize your YouTube videos for a viral effect.

SEO of YouTube Videos

1. Metadata: Always provide the best possible metadata (title, description and keywords) in your YouTube videos.

2. Link-back: Always link-back your videos to the original content on your site or blog, which should be clickable with a complete URL.

3. Compelling content: Create compelling videos for viral effect. Even an instructional video on – How to SEO YouTube video is compelling to someone who needs the information.

4. Video quality: Quality is King in YouTube! Quality always comes before quantity. If your video is visually substandard, no matter how useful it is, nobody is going to watch it. Leading to a dead end.

5. Branding: Produce videos within your niche which represent your brand to the masses.

The aim should be, if the video goes viral, it should be helpful to your brand and your site/blog as a whole.

6. Searchable: Use the word ‘ Video ’ in the metadata on a regular basis. B’cos people always suffix the term Video in their search phrase.

7. 5 mins to famous: You video should be 5 mins or less in duration. If it exceeds 5 mins, your visitors will be bored.

8. Great title: Title plays an important role in convincing a visitor to watch the video.

Make sure, your title is keyword rich and should not be more than 62 characters (Prescribed YouTube limit).

9. Nice thumbnails: Many You Tubians decide whether to watch the video or not by simply viewing the thumb nails of the videos.

Make high resolution and good looking thumbnails to lure your visitors.

10. Ratings: Allow your users to rate the video. By getting higher ratings, not only search engines will place it higher, but also your visitors will like to watch it.

Each rating sends a +Ve signal to both YouTube and Google for higher search engine placement of the video.

11. Watermark: Always put a watermark at an appropriate place of your video to indicate the origin (site or blog). It will help in a great way if your video goes viral or copied by other sites.

12. Keywords: Always use proper keywords in the video file name and URL, as YouTube gives more importance to it while ranking.

While naming a video file, don’t use any stop words like ‘ and ’ or ‘ the ’ etc.

13. Anchor text: Your link-back text (Clickable) to the original content should contain appropriate keywords or anchor texts. YouTube and Google  give more importance to keyword rich anchor texts while ranking videos.

14. Voice recognition technology: YouTube and Google are indexing/ranking videos by hearing the voice content on it. This is called Voice Recognition Technology (VRT).

So, produce videos which are keyword rich and related to your niche or topic for better use of Voice Recognition Technology.

Make a short YouTube video (2 to 3 mins), optimize with the above 14 SEO tips, and check how high it is ranking in the YouTube search. Then get back here to make a comment.

If you have any YouTube optimization tips, please add it via comment.

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Top 5 SEO Myths (Mistakes)

Search Engine Optimization is a culture. It’s not a means to over-night success.

In small & medium companies, even in large organizations – there are lots of misunderstanding about SEO among their marketing team. Company heads & their employees think – hire an SEO specialist, tighten the nuts and bolts, and get an overnight success. SEO is not like that.

SEO is like a culture. It should be instilled in all the employees of a company to get the results in online as well as offline world. It starts from the fine-tuning of online property of the company to the offline branding by their marketing team.

I will tell you the top 5 (most common) SEO mistakes or myths among digital marketers in present times. Let’s start with the commonest first…

1. SEO is an online activity

Most of the marketers and company owners believe SEO is confined to online medium only. But in reality, it is well extended to every sphere and every activity associated with the company or business.

Most of the online links can be acquired by attending, organizing and interacting with other influential people in various marketing forums, workshops and expos.

Same way, you can get great citations, mentions and press coverage rooting from the offline world. And branding, the most important component of SEO is not limited to online only. A company’s activities in the offline world, like charity, road shows, flash-mob, billboard advertising, etc. carry the brand forward.

2. Social media signals improve SEO

Majority of the online marketers believe social media signals play a big role in search engine optimization. And they madly run after Facebook likes, Tweets & Re-tweets, and Google +s.

It’s a proven fact that more number of likes & tweets don’t help a web-page to rank higher in search engines. Yes, more number of social likings and sharings indicate the content is of high quality and liked by the readers. Thereby, spending more time on the page. And “time-spent” is an important ranking signal in Google’s search engine ranking algorithm.

Example: This monsoon, it’s raining like cats & dogs. And majority of the people in the town have bought yellow raincoats. This doesn’t mean – most of the people have bought yellow raincoats, so it’s raining like cats & dogs. It’s merely a correlation, but certainly not the causation. And we’re good at correlating correlation with causation.

So, social media marketing augments your SEO efforts. It’s a component of SEO. But social media signals don’t help content to rank high in search engines.

3. SEO Plugins do magic

It’s one of the commonest mistake done by bloggers. WordPress is one of the most successful CMS (Content Management System) in present days. Along with bloggers, lots of small and medium business owners also run their online portal using WordPress. There’re a number of SEO plugins available in WordPress repository.

The problem is – webmasters install these SEO Plugins in their blogs and websites, forget about it, and hope, it will do all the SEO work for them. In reality, SEO Plugins don’t do any magic on their own. After installing you’ve to configure it according to your needs, then every time you publish a piece of content you’ve to fine tune it with different features of the plugin.

The point is – you’ve to dedicate some time to your SEO Plugin with every piece of content publication. It will not do any magic on its own.

4. Long formats rank higher

Content marketing has gained a tremendous momentum in recent times. Whether it’s publishing blog posts on own company blog or guest blogging on other authoritative blogs; digital marketers are doing it in large scale to acquire prospects, customers, and search engine optimization.

There is a false belief that – the more content (word counts) your blog post contains; the higher will be its ranking in search engines. With the introduction of Panda algorithm and In-depth article section in SERPs by Google, this belief has become more deep among bloggers and online marketers.

In reality, Google ranks only high quality content at the top of the search results; irrespective of word counts. A high quality blog post with 700 words can easily outrank an ordinary post with 1500 or 2000 words. So, Google always looks for quality, not quantity.

5. Ranking @ top 3 spots is everything

It’s OK to rank at the top 3 positions of Google search results. But, many a times, ranking at 5th or 7th positions also get more clicks than top 3 positions.

It’s because – the title tag & meta description of the article. An article with a great title tag and a complete and catchy meta description, ranking at 5th position on Google search results can get more clicks and attention than an article at 1st position with a dull or boring title and meta description.

Again, ranking at the top of search results is not everything for a company or website. It’s the conversion which matters the most. The content should’ve enough potential to transform a visitor in to a prospects, and then in to a loyal customer.

Finally, for a company – Customers & revenues matters the most; not the top spots in Google.

SEO is a fast changing field. Search engine rules come and go. You’ve to keep yourself up-to-date and away from all the above mentioned SEO myths or mistakes to get a sustainable & long-term results for your company.

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Don’t Make Your Blog A CRAP… For The Sake Of CONTENT

1,000s of new blogs come up, and 1,000s die everyday in blogosphere.

It’s natural. You can say “it’s business as usual.”

Just think a bit – Why a blogger blogs?

Every action in the world is associated with a motivation. Even the breath you’re taking right now. And the act of reading blog/blog-post which you’re doing now is also associated with a clear motive. But most of the time our motives are subconscious in nature.

The answer to my above question is broadly like this: A blogger blogs 1#Either to maintain an online diary to fulfill his passion for blogging Or, 2#Hope to earn some money by blogging.

When blogs become crappy?

This happens to those bloggers who are extremely ambitious and jumped into the blogging band-wagon with a single motive (reason), that is – to earn huge amount of money by blogging.

The problems with these type of bloggers are – they have a very short-term goal. And want to make big-bucks with a very short period of time. And even overnight!

Their all blogging actions are motivated by money only.

They do hard labour on their blog. Everyday, day & night. Finally they make their blog famous and reputed. And make themselves a well known figure in the online world (at least in bloggers community).

One fine day they discover they are earning only few peanuts every month. From Google AdSense to affiliate sales, and from other sources. They still continue blogging for another couple of months. And finally they give-up!

It’s absolutely their decision to decide whether to continue or quit blogging. But it hurts – When highly famous & established bloggers fill-up their blogs with crappy posts in the name of content. Once in a week, or even once in a month.

They loose all their reader base. They don’t get more number of blog comments which they were getting in their heyday. Because people feel cheated. Moreover they even ask for money when somebody wants to guest post on their blog (to some extent it’s OK).

Filling your blog with useless posts and adding a section like – “How to make money” is the worst thing you can do to your blog.

Do you know – lot of blogs get hit by Google Panda only for publishing off-topic blog posts. Or, publishing topics like “How to make money online?” Many a times they recover from Panda penalty by simple removing the money making section (category) or deindexing/ deleting off topic blog posts.

The solution: If you’re really busy in your life – don’t publish at all. Instead of filling your blog with crappy posts. That way your readers will understand your problem. At least they will not dislike your blog.

The problem doesn’t end here. They buy even more domain names and produce a fleet of blogs; with the hope of dominating the blogosphere. And finally they fall flat. This also happened with Darren Rowse of Problogger.net– one of the legendary blogger of our time. In his initial days he had 2 blogs. But he made another 28. A total of 30 blogs within a couple of years. All his blogs failed miserably. Except the initial 2 – that are Problogger.net & Digital Photography School.

Final thoughts: Stick to your main blog and publish quality content. If you’re too busy in your life don’t post at all; instead of low quality posts.

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Make Your Blog Readers Your New Google Bots

You always wanted to make your blog famous.

A big fan following, email subscribers & regular readers, right?

After blogging for few months; one day you stumbled-upon a term called SEO. You tried to learn all the tricks of SEO to impress the Google bots. So that they rank your articles high on the Google search, and you get some organic readers on your blog.

You did keyword research. Sprinkle them in your blog posts whenever you create a new piece. Always optimize the meta-descriptions, and added social sharing buttons & integrated Google Authorship Mark-up to claim all your creations in the search results.

The results…

Then you purchased a Premium Theme to make your blog standout from the rest of the crowd. Customized the fonts, colors, widgets… and everything in between.

Despite a great looking blog and time spent on SEO; your blog posts don’t rank high on Google. You get organic traffic from Google like some peanuts in the breakfast (hope, you don’t like only peanuts in the breakfast).

Why the hack you failed?

Don’t worry. Keep reading… to know the simple solution.

Solution

The landscape of SEO has changed a great deal in the last couple of years. Now you can’t impress Google bots by simply adding some tags or acquiring some dofollow links.

SEO is not confined to search engines or online world only. It has extended to offline or real world too. Now offline brand building is the best SEO you can do to your beloved blog.

So, what should you do?

Make your blog readers your Google bots.

Hey, don’t get me wrong. I want to say – treat your blog readers like your dear friends. Invite them like you invite guests in your home. Pamper them. Make them happy 

When your readers become happy few great things happen:

1. Time on site/web-page increases.
2. They don’t bounce-back to search results.
3. They share your posts in their social circles.
4. They bookmark your blog, and become frequent visitors.

Truly speaking – they (your readers) optimize your blog posts to rank high in Google search. Because these are the things (signals) Google/Google bots like to see on a web-page to rank it higher.

To make Google bots happy;firstly, make your visitors happy.

How to make your visitors happy

Just connect with them.

Find out what exactly they want. Inspire them, help them and entertain them.

Just like making a guest happy in your home – offer your readers a great ambiance by making your blog fast loading, easy to navigate and without any unwanted pop-ups. Discuss with them what they like by publishing well researched articles. Answer their comments.

And they will recommend your blog to Google bots.

Happy Blogging 

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Why Google Removed Authorship Profile Photos From Search Results? 3 Reasons…

Google has dropped authorship profile photos and Google+ circle counts from SERPs

And the announcement by John Mueller of Google shocked the entire online marketers community and SEO fraternity, equally.

Is it really a good decision taken by Google? What are the reasons behind this big decision? And what should be your action plan now? Let’s dig the matter a bit more… to find a concrete solution.

Authorship Profile Photos

Displaying authorship profile photos alongside own content in Google SERPs was like an honor for online content creators.

Few years back when Google started displaying images of the content creators in the search engine results; webmasters and bloggers were in a frenzy to implement the new feature. Connecting your online content to your Google+ Profile and again from your Google+ Profile Page to your web-pages or website (or blog) is definitely a herculean task. At least for non-techie bloggers.

But still everybody invested (may be wasted) their precious time to implement the authorship mark-up to display their images and names alongside their online content in Google search results. Mainly because of 3 reasons – To increase CTR, better branding and to increase trust factor.

Why Did Google Drop Author Images

Somehow, I was not so happy when Google started displaying profile photos of content authors in the search results few years back. But the way Google started giving importance to authorship mark-up, Google+ Profile, and even to author rank; nobody spared.

1. Visual Distraction

Just imagine, how the search results will look – Displaying 10 smart author photos in a column corresponding to their content, on the left side of the SERP.

And out of the 10, almost 6 to 7 are always good looking (and probably) sexy girls. Wouldn’t your eyes go to the images first, instead of the headlines? Wouldn’t you be clicking the headlines (URLs) by just looking at the authors’ photos (many a times)?

Yes, our brain processes images much faster than texts. And many a times, subconsciously, searchers were clicking headlines in the search results just by looking at the author profile photos. It was a clear distraction affecting Google’s search quality.

2. Poor Mobile Experience

Author images were occupying precious real estate in mobile search, due to the small screen of various mobile instruments (smart phones & tablets).

The mobile search results were getting more and more cluttered & visual in nature. By removing the author profile photos, mobile search will be more contextual, and probably more natural. So, it’s an attempt by Google to make the search experience seamless and natural across all types of devices. It couldn’t be achieved by simply dropping the author images in the mobile search (and not in the desktop search).

3. Fake Author Images

Yes, this is also a big reason for Google to drop this feature. Displaying fake photos, promoting female authors, and even displaying fake female author photos were a common practice to win more CTR.

Lots of webmasters and bloggers were displaying their young time photos instead of their current ones to get more CTR in search results. And even, many a times, content written by male authors were being attributed to female authors; only to display an attractive female photo in the Google search to get more clicks. This was mostly practiced by big multi-authors websites and blogs. It was really a disturbing trend growing day by day. And Google was unable to handle this spammy activity despite their strict rules for claiming online content authorship using authorship mark-up.

Your Action Plan

Don’t think Google is dropping authorship mark-up or the importance of authorship (undeclared author rank) as a ranking signal while ranking online content.

Google has just dropped the authorship profile images and Google Plus circle counts from the SERPs. And it’s still displaying a clickable author name attached to the Google+ Profile Page. Content authorship and author rank will definitely play a big role in the future.

So, you shouldn’t stop claiming your content authorship for your existing, as well as newly created sites and blogs.

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Is Your Blog Unique Enought To Appeal Visitors

Everybody knows – Unique things sell like hot cakes.

In the world of blogging there is cut-throat competition. Your blog has to be unique enough to get noticed by your blog readers or visitors.

If your blog has unique content, looks and user experience – People will visit  it repeatedly, bookmark it, subscribe the email newsletter and spread the words in social media. They feel a kind of peace or security when they visit their favorite blogs. These blogs are visitors’ favorite because they are unique in some way.

Today I will tell you – How to make your blog unique to be noticed by visitors?

1. Content

Always remember, people visit your blog because of your content. If they visit your blog for any other reasons than content, then it’s short-lived.

Content makes or breaks a blog. So, how will you make your content unique?

To make your blog content unique – You should have a unique voice, a unique writing style and unique topic selection. A visitor visits your blog not because it’s his/her favorite; but because he/she hopes to learn something or gain something with every visit. So, find your unique blogging style and stick to it.

2. Looks

Even though you’ve great content, if the looks of your blog is unpleasant then sooner or later people will avoid it.

People like to visit blogs which look unique. A unique domain name, a custom logo, and a premium theme with pleasant colors make a big difference. Color plays an important role for blogging success. Your color choice should be restricted to max. 2 to 3, and should complement your subject matter (niche).

Customize your main content area, your sidebar, footer, various widgets, and even the comment section. There shouldn’t be any other blogs in blogosphere which looks completely like yours.

3. User Experience

Visitors repeatedly visit a blog because they feel comfortable during their stay (reading, navigating, commenting, etc.).

People like fast loading blogs. So, use a CDN. Give readability the utmost importance. Because visitors come to your blog to read something. Use a better font with good font size and font color. Use a pleasant background color with better contrast.

Make your blog easy to navigate by organizing your menu, category and pagination. Customize your commenting section. Make your content sharable.

Most importantly, don’t stuff annoying ads within your blog posts. It breaks the flow of reading. It distracts. Subconsciously it makes a repulsion within the mind of readers. Initially they may visit your blog frequently, but later on they will quit. And people hate pop-ups. Don’t display it; unless and until you are in the top 3 spots in your niche, and offer a great value for your visitors.

There are various other smaller things which you can use on your blog to make it unique like – running an interesting poll, adding a video section or adding a voting option on your blog posts. But remember – less is always more. Be minimalistic, and be unique.

Happy Blogging 

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5 Types Of Low Quality Content… for Sure-shot Panda Hit

Everybody knows – Google Panda doesn’t like thin or low quality content.

But what actually is low quality content according to the “Panda algorithm?”

Since the introduction of this low quality content fighting algorithm on Feb 24, 2011; millions of websites and blogs are being hit in terms of traffic and revenue. Only few have successfully recovered. May be 20 to 30% or so. But majority are still suffering from this Google filter.

According to Google – Panda is not a penalty. Instead, it’s a filter. It filters good quality content from bad ones; thereby promoting quality content to the top of the search results.

Without much ado, let me tell you 5 types of low quality content blogs or websites which usually suffer Panda hit.

1# Internal duplication

Content farms and bloggers usually do this type of mistake. In an attempt to rank for a specific keyword or phrase they publish multiple posts about a single topic. This is like content spinning – Multiple versions of web-pages with same meaning.

By doing this, they suffer from “keyword cannibalism” along with Panda hit.Keyword cannibalism means – Multiple web-pages competing with each other to rank higher for a single keyword or phrase.

You can check your internal duplicate content here on Siteliner.com

2# External duplication

Content duplication from external sources is an obvious reason for Panda hit. If you’re duplicating 2 to 3 lines (an excerpt) with a link to the source; then it’s OK. But duplicating the complete blog post or spinning the entire post for publication is considered extremely low quality content by Google.

As such, external duplication is a cyber crime according to copy write infringement law. You may end up with a heavy penalty (monetary) by the other party.

3# Useless content

Many a times, bloggers unnecessarily lengthen a simple topic to achieve a specific keyword count.

If a topic can be expressed well with in 500 words; and you try your best to make it 2,000 words article to rank higher and include it in the in-depth article section in Google search; then obviously readers will be bored and abandon the page without reading much. And low time-spent for large web-page is a –Ve ranking signal by Google.

So, don’t set a specific keyword count or target. Instead, express your thoughts in a natural way. Let your thought process decides the length of your blog post (keyword count).

4# Thin content

Thin content means – Inadequate content to express the exact meaning of the topic. Readers usually bounce back from this type of pages. Because 8 to 10 lines can’t do justice for a given topic.

Content farms were used to publish thin content in a large scale to rank for in-demand keywords for more page views. And Google Panda algorithm is specifically designed to curb this practice by content farms.

5# Irrelevant content

Again, a commonly practiced method by Bloggers which attracts panda hit.

Instead of sticking to the original niche or theme of their blog; many a times, bloggers publish unrelated content which are in great demand. In an attempt to rank that content higher they usually make them keyword dense (keyword stuffing). Panda algorithm also hits blogs with keyword stuffed pages.

Publishing blog posts about “how to earn money” and “popular gadgets” on fashion, recipe and traveling blogs are examples of this type of practice. Often, by de-indexing or deleting all these posts or the entire category containing these posts results in prompt recovery from Panda hit.

Does your blog contain any of the above 5 duplicate content type? Add your experience in the comments below.

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Guest Blogging: Kill 5 Birds With 1 Stone!

Do you still think - Guest Blogging works in the era of Penguin & Hummingbird?

So much of -Ve discussions going on in blogosphere about Google devaluing the manipulative, author-controlled and rich anchor text links acquired by guest blogging.

Should you continue to guest author on others’ blogs? What is the future of guest blogging? Instead of going directly in to the future, let’s talk a little about the past.

History: Guest blogging in its purest form was being practiced since year 2000 to 2004, when blogging activity was just picking-up. Guest columnists were contributing to various blogs just like their offline counterparts. Everything was fine till 2007 – 2008. Then came the blogging revolution with mass popularity of free blogging softwares like Blogger by Google and WordPress.

Quest for the links: SEO firms started exploiting guest blogging as their main weapon of link building for their clients. Millions of low quality blogs were their target. Followed by small-time bloggers joining the guest blogging band wagon. Everybody were just happy. Without a sophisticated link analysis algorithm, Google had no other option but to watch silently on the fence.

In 80 to 90% of cases the primary motive was to get do-follow links for SEO gain. As the guest author decides what link anchor texts to be put (inside the author-box), it was clearly against Google’s Quality Guidelines. The do-follow links were acting as editorial votes. Just like natural links. Guest blogging activity attained its peak in year 2012. When every X, Y & Z blogs were accepting crappy guest posts in exchange of 1 or 2 do-follow links in the name of content marketing.

With better link analysis algorithms Google stepped in and somehow able to slow the speed. Now, Google doesn’t give equal value to links within the post, in the side-bar, in the footer, or inside the author-box. The links within the article body definitely carry higher values than within the author-box. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web-spam team even announced about the -Ve consequences of low quality guest blogging. Check out the below question asked by Nandita B of SEOHour in year 2012:

Currently, guest blogging is the favorite activity of webmasters for link acquisition. Due to its easy nature, lots of spammy activities are going on like article spinning etc. Is Google going to hammer websites for links acquired by guest blogging?

Nandita B, India

Matt Cutts view about guest blogging (Video):

So, what should be your strategy? Should you stop guest blogging completely, or plan your next guest blogging campaign with a list of top 10 blogs in your niche + 10 ready to publish posts?

Check out, what Matt has to say in his next video about guest blogging:

Present scenario about guest blogging

Google has the best possible link analysis algorithms. It can easily identify links acquired by organic guest blogging and spammy guest blogging for SEO. Every entity comes into play when analyzing a guest post: the author and his/her reputation, quality of post, publishing blog, outgoing as well as incoming links, social shares, performance in search results, link anchor texts and many more.

The most important is link graph. If you’re on a guest blogging campaign, your link graph will look much different and artificial than a natural link graph. That’s where Google’s link-spam algorithm comes into play. Rich anchor text is another thing which differentiates a natural guest blogger from a campaigner. If you’re mass guest blogging and majority of them are not liked by web-readers and search engines, and even not shared in social networks, then Google takes it -Vely.

It means…

With better search engine algorithms like Hummingbird & Penguin, the Golden Era of guest blogging has just begun now.

The only thing Google needs is – do it in moderation and with a good intent.

1. Authority: When you publish your best creation ever as a guest post, you command authority as an expert. A new group of people know about your expertise.

You act as your blog’s brand ambassador. Which helps to increase your blog or website’s brand value. If the publishing blog is authoritative in your niche, you may get clients, partnership deals, and even opens the door to more guest blogging on other reputed blogs.

2. Author Rank: Although Google has not officially announced about author rank (AR), with authorship mark-up, Google+ and Hummingbird, it’s not far away.

If you show your expertise on reputed blogs, you will be recognized as a top rank author. To build a good AR you have to come out of your cubicle (your own blog).

3. Link: When your guest post becomes a masterpiece, I mean liked by readers, shared in social networks, bookmarked, and linked by other sites; then Google also ranks it higher and gives the web-page a high PR (page rank). And the value of your link inside the author-box also increases.

4. Traffic: This is the most fun part. You receive targeted referral traffic on your site, and they may subscribe your e-mail newsletter, follow you on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.

Long story short – you get customers and readers on your site.

5. PR: Guest blogging helps building personal relation with the publishing blog owner and his readers.

This type of PR building is quality and everlasting, because you as an expert author helping them to solve their problems, or making their life easy. This can be proved as most valuable asset going forward.

Hi folks! Can you kill any more birds by guest blogging, besides these poor five 

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