Google Panda Updates

·         Panda 3.9.2 on September 18th

·         Panda 3.9.1 on August 20th

·         Panda 3.9 on July 24th

·         Panda 3.8 on June 25th

·         Panda 3.7 on June 9th

·         Panda 3.6 on April 27th

·         Panda 3.5 on April 19th

·         Panda 3.4 on March 23rd

·         Panda 3.3 on about February 26th

·         Panda 3.2 on about January 15th

·         Panda 3.1 on November 18th

·         Panda 2.5.3 on October 19/20th

·         Panda 2.5.2 on October 13th

·         Panda 2.5.1 on October 9th

·         Panda 2.5 on September 28th

·         Panda 2.4 in August

·         Panda 2.3 on around July 22nd.

·         Panda 2.2 on June 18th or so.

·         Panda 2.1 on May 9th or so.

·         Panda 2.0 on April 11th or so.

·         Panda 1.0 on February 24th

The Top 10 Tips for Loving (Or Living With) Google’s Penguin

Never before (except perhaps in the baneful reviews of the box office bomb Happy Feet Two), have penguins been so universally despised as in the latest iteration of Google’s algorithm modifications. If you thought Farmer had ploughed you into the ground and Panda had eaten your most successful shoots, the Penguin will ice your SEO efforts and freeze your income. To beat that Penguin into submission apply these tips:

It’s All About Quality – Even though there has been more than enough public discussion about what constitutes quality and depth in writing articles, it’s very obvious what constitutes poor quality and shallowness. Any spun or transparently rewritten articles are going to attract the full wrath of the Penguin From Hades, so make sure that your content is eternally fully unique and well-written.

Limit Your Links - Too many links within a page are a clear trigger for Penguin’s bots to kick you down to Antarctica so keep the number of links to an absolute minimum and always integrate them logically and in a reader-friendly manner within your text, never in a list of links plunked into a sidebar.

Keep Your Links High Up – Above the fold is the critical place for links to be placed as they bear the most weight as well as attract the most reader attention. Penguin appreciates high up links and is not so kind to those which are dumped into a footer or at the end of an article.

Drop the Dropped Domains – One of the old standby SEO strategies is to pick up dropped domains to benefit from istorical links or PR and Google’s little polar bird is completely up to speed on this ploy so avoid it like a Penguin plague.

Never Stop Validating – Ensuring that your site is completely free from validation errors and each page is of a strictly limited file size to ensure easy loading is critical to keeping that tuxedo-wearing little bird happy and chirping away… if Penguins chirp, that is.

Stop Worrying About Negative SEO – Only in the most extreme cases do you have to be concerned about one of your rabidly vicious competitors setting up a few thousand links pointing to your site overnight to get Penguin to target you. Not only is it a whole lot of work for very little result, but the Googleplex has very few birdbrains so they’ll see through that.

Fry Up Your on Page Spam – Hawaiians believe that fried Spam is delectable, so go ahead and fry all the spam you currently have. That equates to: hidden text, keyword stuffing, thin content, cloaking, paid links, link spam, and the rest of the naughty black hat stuff which is nothing more than rancid canned meat product that is toxic to Penguins.

Bad Link, Bad, Bad Link – Come on, you know which of your links are nasty, so just go ahead and kill them now. Keeping them alive on your pages will do nothing but cause the evil Penguin Penalty to rear its ugly head from the snow and ice.

Know When to Start Over – Perhaps your current site is so riddled with Penguin Pathogens that it just may be at the unrecoverable stage. In these fairly rare cases you might be better off to just can the entire site and start completely fresh at a new URL. If you do take this extreme step, ensure that you are not carrying over any of your old calamitous habits, as well as not a single iota of any text or image content from the dearly departed site.

File the Google Feedback Form – If you think that you have been penalized by the Penguin through no fault of your own don’t listen to the paranoid hyperbola on the various SEO forums and go ahead and file The Form. There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that filing The Form will “out” your site so file with no fear and confront that rascally Penguin.

You can live happily with Penguin. Just try not to mind the ammonia odor!

Source

RSS Feeds – All You Need to Know

You’ve seen the acronym RSS everywhere. Most blogs ask you to subscribe to their RSS feeds, but what are they?

RSS commonly stands for Really Simple Syndication and it’s another way to publish articles and updates from web sites, particularly blogs, news sites, audio sites and video sites, that update frequently. An RSS feed can be displayed as either full text or a summary.

Websites can benefit enormously by utilizing RSS feeds because a web author can syndicate content completely automatically, using a service such as Feedburner, or software which creates the feeds automatically whenever anything on a website is updated.

Users sign up to receive your feed and receive an update anytime anything changes on your site. If you publish a new post on your blog, for example, subscribers will receive a summary message advising them of the title of your post and when it was added to your site. From the summary, they can then click on the link to go read the full article. Subscribers use a ‘feed reader’ or ‘aggregator’ to read the updates.

Feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. A standardized XML file format creates the information a single time, but allows it to be viewed by many different programs. A feed reader, or aggregator may be web based such as in Google’s suite of tools, a desktop download or available for a mobile device.

The benefit to the subscriber is that summaries are sent to their reader automatically without them having to go to each website of interest to see if there are updates.

Benefits for Subscribers:

As a subscriber, you are kept up-to-date about items of interest without having to go to each website. You can get feeds on anything from news headlines and weather, to your favorite music releases and favorite blogs. You can discover the latest details almost as they happen and it saves you a lot of time. As a subscriber, you stay in control of what you receive, when and from whom. This leads to a cleaner inbox because RSS feeds don’t send to your email address.

Possibly one of the best advantages in using RSS feeds instead of subscribing to a website by email is that you don’t use your email address. This means you won’t be spammed. The feeds may contain advertising, but they do not spam your inbox. We all know some sites don’t honor requests to unsubscribe from emails or ask you to explain why you’re leaving, but RSS lets you unsubscribe easily by simply deleting the feed from your reader.

Benefits for Publishers:

For website owners, RSS feeds are great marketing tools.

When someone subscribes to your website via RSS they are interested in what is happening on your site. They want to know when you’ve updated your content when it happens. They can receive the latest news on your products and services without the hassle of your email ending up in their spam box.

If you’re using Feedburner or a similar service to publish your feeds, you can get details on how many subscribers you have. Some services do not provide that information. You don’t get to see who is reading your feeds and who ignores them or who unsubscribes and why. Finding out why people leave mailing lists is often a critical piece of information that can help improve a website design or content.

Despite RSS feeds being around for years, many people still don’t know anything about them and don’t use them.

Using RSS

Subscribers:

If you want to start using an RSS aggregator to receive feeds, then perhaps the simplest one is in Google + when you sign up for a free account. It’s quite user friendly and easy to read. It’s available by clicking the “more” tab when you’re signed in.

When you’re on a website you like, look for subscription options and you’ll usually find an RSS feed button. There is an RSS feed code you can enter into your reader, or the site may offer Google as an automatic option. That’s it. The feed from the site will now start coming into your reader in real time.

Publishers:

When RSS was created, the idea of Internet marketing was not considered. However, as people subscribe to your RSS feed, they are indicating an interest in your content. Of course, savvy marketers can see the benefit of sending marketing messages to those who have a specific interest in their topic.

RSS is still under used but is a very powerful way for subscribers to keep updated on many sites easily and for web sites to provide real time content updates to interested readers. If you’re not using RSS as a subscriber or a site owner, now is the time to begin.

Seo Source

9 questions writers ask about SEO copywriting

Thinking about jumping into the wild and wooly world of SEO copywriting?

You have questions – and I have answers!  Today’s post is the first in a two-part series where I answer the most common SEO copywriting questions that I hear from writers. Enjoy!

So, what is “SEO copywriting” anyway?

SEO copywriting is an umbrella term for any type of “keyphrase-based” writing. That means understanding how your prospects search – and strategically including those search terms on the page and in the code.  You can read this post to learn more.

Placing search terms on the page? Oh no – so,  SEO copywriting means writing really bad articles that repeat the same words over and over?

Goodness, no.  That’s spam.  Good copywriting is good writing, period – and it was never about keyphrase stuffing (although that’s what some people did.) Thankfully, Google is focusing more on content quality. In fact, a Google update (code name: Panda) emphasized good content, and kicked the “thin,” keyphrase-stuffed content to the search engine curb. Here’s more information about how to write copy after the Panda update.

What about blogging or tweeting? Is that SEO copywriting?

You bet. Some people call this “social media writing,” and call writing a sales page “SEO copywriting.” Whatever you call it, you’re still researching keyphrases, determining the reader’s intent and making sure that those words appear in the content and code. Here’s the difference between social media writing and “traditional” SEO copywriting.

What kind of people make the best SEO copywriters? 

I’ve met SEO copywriters from all walks of life – and they all love to write, love to research, love to learn and love working online.  They also tend to have a high tolerance for  change – which is good, since Google (as well as other providers) love to change things up on a regular basis. If you are the kind of person who gets bored easily, SEO copywriting is a great gig. I can guarantee that it’s never boring. 

Hmm…will people actually pay for this?

Yup! You could work in-house for a company, or you could freelance. Some people do both. It’s up to you.

How much will they pay?

That depends on quite a few factors. The freelance SEO copywriting range can be anywhere from $75-$1,500 a page. I’ve heard of in-house SEO copywriters making anywhere from $35,000- $100,000+ a year.  How much you make depends on who you want to work with, where you want to work, what kind of copywriting skills you have, and how much SEO knowledge you have.

How do I learn this stuff?

In a perfect world, you work with a mentor who can guide you through the process, check your work, and help you hone your craft. That’s why some people prefer to work in-house – they figure that they can earn while they learn. You’ll want to do a lot of research on traditional copywriting techniques (Bob Bly is a fantastic resource,) read everything you can about how people search online, and also consider taking my SEO Copywriting Certification training to learn best practices and the latest information.

Do I have to do all that? Can’t I just figure it out myself?

Not easily. SEO copywriting is an ever-changing skill set – and it can be somewhat overwhelming to learn for new (and even experienced) writers. You’ll need to put in the time to learn how to do it right. I can’t stress how important it is to know what you’re doing before you work with clients. If you do something wrong, it can hurt your client’s Google ranking – and damage your professional reputation.

Why should I spend all that time “honing my craft.” Isn’t Google just going to change everything anyway?

It’s true that Google loves to keep us all on our toes. However, the SEO copywriting fundamentals have stayed the same over time. Yes, strategies have changed – and there are definitely some new opportunities – but you won’t have to worry about the knowledge being obsolete in six months.

I’ll be answering even more common SEO copywriting questions next Thursday – stay tuned! In the meantime, if you have a question, please include it in the comments and I’ll make sure that I cover it next week. Thanks!

Source : http://www.seocopywriting.com/in-house-seo-copywriting/16-questions-writers-ask-about-seo-copywriting/