MySEOCommunity
Circa 2012 - 2014


 

For several years, MySEOCommunity was a collection of the best new search engine marketing news, social media tips, insider reports on how to remove Google search results that are negative, and lots of other search related content. It was a great resource for many people.
Content is from the site's 2012 - 2014 archived pages providing a glimpse of what this site offered its readership and members.

 

What is MySEOCommunity?

MySEOCommunity is a collection of the best new search engine marketing and social media content on the web.

Does the World Really Need Another Online Community?

MySEOCommunity isn’t a run of the mill online community. Because of the increasing popularity of search engine marketing and social media, there is a lot of content written about these subjects on a daily basis. Unfortunately, trying to manually keep up with the best content that’s being written is next to impossible to do.

If you try by using an RSS reader, you will run into one of two problems:

  • Limiting your subscriptions will lead to you missing great content
  • Subscribing to a lot of feeds will result in you being overwhelmed with too many mediocre posts

In the past, social voting websites have run into the second problem that individuals encounter when using an RSS reader. Because they wanted to be as open as possible, they allowed any on-topic submissions. However, just because a post is on-topic doesn’t mean it’s good.

That problem is why  MySEOCommunity is moderated. Although we encourage users to submit any relevant content that they find interesting, that doesn’t mean it’s going to be published. Instead, we have assembled a great team of people to review the submissions we receive.

Is Moderation Really the Best Option?

When you have a team that’s as good as ours, the answer is definitely yes. The problem with some moderated websites is they simply hire people who are interested in doing the job. But because these people aren’t passionate and experienced with the topic they’re moderating, it creates a big disconnect between their practices and what the community actually wants.

MySEOCommunity has solved this problem by assembling a team who lives and breathes search engine marketing and social media.

What is the WebSEOAnalytics Wuzzrank calculator?

In their own words:

"The WuzzRank is a special rank that measures the popularity of a particular page or article on the various Social Media and it uses a logarithmic scale from 0-10. The word Wuzz comes from the words Web + Buzz. The WuzzRank is the PageRank equivalent for Social Media Reputation. Learn more about WuzzRank

Having a high WuzzRank indicates that your website or page is highly appealing to social media users. The Social Media Buzz is used as a Ranking Signal from the Major Search Engines and as a result it affects the SEO and the Rankings."

By combining user submissions and comments, experienced moderation and social media signals,  we’re building MySEOCommunity to be one of the Internet’s top search engine marketing and social media destination!



 

From the Editor: I loved the discussion of alternative uses of SEO, especially the focus on SEO recourse - the use of search to expose bad behavior. The most compelling example cited was the outing of con man George Binakis into the online community of news sites resulting in widespread dissemination of his crimes. In one egregious case in NYC he defrauded an elderly woman of over $65,000 by posing as a contractor who could renovate her luxury condo. In a carefully choreographed scam he told her that he had a serious heart condition, needed a pacemaker and constant monitoring. The scam was so successful that when he absconded with her money her first thought was for his well being, thinking he either died or was suffering some devastating ailment. This is where the SEO's come in. Good friends of the victims decided to let the world know about George Binakis and published content that would rank for searches of his name. We're hoping that this publicity prevents either of them from conducting business until every penny is returned. We know this is possible, because we've seen the power of the search used in this way many times. Go, SEOs, go!

 

MEET THE TEAM

 

 

Listed here are the awesome individuals that help make this community possible.

Gerald Weber - Administrator (TheGman)
Gerald is a professional SEO, social media enthusiast and founder of Search Engine Marketing Group (a SEO link building firm) in Houston, TX. He is also a team member at the popular guest blogging community MyBlogGuest.com and the social voting community www.Blokube.com. Feel free to connect with him on Twitter @the_gman or @myseocommunity.

 

Devesh Sharma - Administrator (Dev)
Devesh is a young entrepreneur and blogger. Founder of Blokube, a social blogging community for bloggers and creator of WordPress Marketing blog. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @heydevesh

 

 

Ann Smarty - Administrator (AnnSmarty)
Ann aka SEO Smarty is a brilliant SEO and Internet entrepreneur. She is also the proud owner of Myblogguest.com which is a community of guest bloggers. Feel free to follower her on Twitter @seosmarty or on the official MyBlogGuest Twitter @myblogguest

 

 

Ana Hoffman - Administrator (AnaHoffman)
Ana runs a no-nonsense Traffic Generation Cafe, where she freely shares advice on getting more web traffic by all free means possible, like SEO traffic, social media traffic, and blog promotion, as well as converting that traffic into email subscribers and paying customers.Feel free to follow her on Twitter @AnaTrafficCafe

 

Julie Joyce - Admin (JulieJoyce)
Julie owns and is the Director of Operations for Link Fish Media (which is a link building company in Greensboro NC). She also blogs in various places about link building. Julie is also co-founder of SEO-chicks.com. Feel free to follow her on Twitter @JulieJoyce

 

 

Melanie Nathan - Moderator
Melanie is a veteran SEO consultant and founder of CanadianSEO. She has a particular passion for authority link building and the use of authoritative content to attract attention. Feel free to follow her on Twitter @melanienathan

 

 

Kaila Strong - Moderator (cliquekaila)
Kaila Strong is an Sr. Account Manager at search, social and content marketing company Vertical Measures. She’s a regular contributor on SearchEngineWatch.com and Search Engine Marketing Group, covering topics such as social media, content marketing, link building and SEO. Follow her on Twitter @cliquekaila.

 

 

David Leonhardt - Moderator (amabaie)
David has been working as a search engine optimizer since 1983. He enjoys multilingual SEO and content-based social media marketing. His home on the Web is his freelnace SEO consultant services website. He also runs Zoomit Canada, Canada's social bookmarking website. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @amabaie

 

Hesham ZebidaHesham Zebida - Moderator (hishaman)
Hesham is a blogger and a web designer who became an internet marketer. Founder of FamousBloggers.net and the man behind ThesisAwesome.comConnect with him on @Famousbloggers

 

 

JD Rucker - Moderator (JDRucker)
JD is Director of New Media for TK Carsites, an automotive marketing firm, and is the Founder of Hasai, a social media strategy firm. Both companies were purchased by KPA Online last year. Search and social are his passions and he blogs about them often on Soshable. On MediaCaffeine, he dabbles in the visualizations world. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @jdrucker

 

Pete Wise - Moderator (MySEOHeadache)
Pete Wise is a White-Hat SEO Jedi and Content Creation Factory. He works closely with the magento programmers of Customer Paradigm; a web development company specializing in the Magento E-Commerce platform. An ultra-statistical SEO, he spends his days with Magento On-Site optimization, Google Places Management, Social Media Engagement, Link-Building, and Content Writing. Follow Pete on Twitter: @MySEOHeadache

 

Amanda King - Moderator (amandaecking)
Amanda King is a search engine marketing specialist with a passion for link building. Currently working for a internet marketing and web design company in upstate New York that specializes in e-commerce solutions, she always strives to look at any situation from different angles. An avid traveler, she writes about her experiences and offers advice, as well as her thoughts on the SEO industry on her website. Feel free to connect with her on Twitter @amandaecking

 

obaidulObaidul Haque - Moderator (obaidul)
Formerly an assistant manager (Travel Content) at IndiaMART.com, Obaidul is a professional SEO, freelance writer and passionate blogger. He now works with a wide range of clients from all across the globe and helps them expand the online reach of their businesses. He’s the owner of HelloBloggerz.com, where he shares insightful tips on blogging and internet marketing. Music is like oxygen to him. He can be reached via Google+ or Twitter.

 

Shelli Walsh - Moderator (shellshockuk)
Shelli is the founder of ShellShock UK - content based link building strategies and publisher of Link Building Monthly. SSUK take the authority approach to link building: creating remarkable web pages and infographics to promote sites via networking and outreach. The Link Building Monthly newsletter is a curated reading list of link building articles neatly packaged, summarized and conveniently delivered to your inbox every month. Check out the link building blog and newsletter. Connect or get in touch via @shellshockuk or LinkedIn


Amanda DiSilvestero - Moderator (AmandaDiSilvestro)
Amanda DiSilvestro is a recent graduate of Illinois State University. Although she graduated with an English Education degree, she found herself working as a full-time blogger in the SEO/social media department at a leading B2B company. She has since written over 450 guest articles for nearly 200 different blogs across the web and started her own project, The Business Bungalow, which aims to give startup companies and entrepreneurs “to-the-point” practical advice. Follow her on Google+ and Twitter to learn more!

 



2014 POSTS

 

Facebook Timeline Cover Photos for Businesses

By Gerald Weber | January 23, 2014

The Facebook timeline is here to stay, so it’s time to learn how using timeline cover photos can help your business. It’s a fact that every business should have a Facebook page, but it’s important to set it up in a professional way – not the same as you would set up your personal page.

As a business owner, you need to make sure that the page generates interest while showcasing your company and its products or services in the best possible light. The goal is to utilize the cover photo as another tool in your online marketing arsenal.

Understanding Facebook Rules

Before you start working with photos for your cover, you’ll need to become familiar with the Facebook rules that are in place. First, keep in mind the size of the cover photo is 851 x 315 pixels. If the photo isn’t sized properly, you’ll end up with a distorted look, which you need to avoid.

Take advantage of the use of text on your facebook covers. Facebook rules have relaxed a bit and they no longer limit the text to 20% of the photo. The only other rules that are specified state that the text can’t be deceptive or misleading. Of course, the text cannot be plagiarized

Use Text to Generate Leads

Adding text to the cover photo area will certainly help to generate more interest and therefore more leads. Use this area to communicate with your potential customers. You can indicate sales or show when events will take place. You can use the section to your advantage as part of your marketing plan.

Just be sure to change the cover text often because returning guests will want to find out what’s new. Look at the photo to ensure that it doesn’t have a cluttered look. Some photos are better for displaying text than others, so choose wisely.

Include Links to Social Media

When you want to increase visitors to your online sites, make sure to link them to each other. Add link buttons or link texts to your page so that links it to your website and to your other social media sites like Twitter or Pinterest. You can include buttons or links on the cover photo to make it convenient for your customers.

Visitors who like what they see have the ability to share with friends. This can quickly generate more interest in your business. Allow people to move seamlessly between your various sites, making it easy for them to make a purchase if they want. You can also include a subscription section to gather names and emails of interested people so you can send them information and newsletters.

Branding and Taglines

Branding is an essential part of every marketing plan. Creating a brand takes a lot of effort but it can be helped along every step of the way. One way is with a high quality photo along with a logo on your cover page. Use coordinating colors to make the cover more appealing. A good option is to use your company logo in the personal page photo, since this will always be included in the lower left corner of the cover photo area.

Taglines can be easily added to the top of your cover page. This is a great way to quickly give your visitors an insight into your business. If you already have a tagline, use it. If you need a tagline, develop one. It should be short, easy to remember, and have something to do with your particular product or service offerings. Incorporate the tagline on the cover photo rather than the personal photo, since this is a large enough area to effortlessly read it.

Google, Google and More Google

By amandaecking | September 15, 2012 

So you want to stay in Google’s good graces? Here are a few tips on what to do – and not to do.

  • Refresh your content
  • Use ad extensions – if you’re using PPC.
  • Don’t be cheap!

Hope that everyone enjoys their weekend – and take a look at Viral Content Buzz too!

Google is Making a Lot of Changes

By amandaecking | September 1, 2012 

Happy September! Have you guys been keeping track of what’s going on in the SEOsphere without me? Well, no mind, I’m back.

There’s been a lot of chatter about restricted SERPs and reverse domain crowding, but what are you seeing in search results this month that is making you reactive? There’s been a lot of that lately….

Anyway – here are a few things that have come to our attention recently here at MySEOCommunity.

  • Google drops from 10 to 7 organic listings in SERPs
  • How to make the most of Google+…and even optimize it.
  • Google is continuing to acquire all the things, and now owns Wildfire.

I’m itching to hear what’s on your mind. How is SEO treating you these days?

Summer Google Madness

By amandaecking | July 21, 2012

It seems the heat got the better of me last weekend, and for that I apologize. But I’m back! Let’ get going on what’s been happening this past week in the SEO-verse.

Google Sends Out Link Warnings Then Says You Can Ignore Them

submitted by Gerald

So another round of link warnings went out in Webmaster Central late this week. But then Matt Cutts said that we could ignore those and if we were really penalized webmasters would see a drop in traffic. Danny Sullivan puts his response together here.

Google’s war on bad links officially became insane today. For months, Google’s sending out warnings about bad links and telling publishers they should act on those, lest they get penalized. Today, Google said the latest round of warnings sent out this week can be safely ignored. That’s not “more transparency” as Google posted. That’s more confusion.

Taco Bell Smacks Down Old Spice on Twitter

submitted by Gerald

While this may be a short article, and more of a screen shot than anything, it’s worth checking out – makes some very salient points about how to run social media accounts of big companies that I won’t spoil with a quote here.

12 Essential Social Media Cheatsheets

submitted by Gerald

Written by our very own Ann Smarty (on Mashable!) This is a compilation of the best of the best tutorials on how to get around various social media sites and, of course, social media manners.
Getting around a social media site is not always easy. For some users, it’s a matter of getting used to social media. For others, the issue is keeping up with constant updates and changes to features, privacy settings, and account specifications. This, of course, is why social media cheat sheets exist.

Wrong Ways to Ask for a Guest Post

submitted by Gerald

This funny YouTube video uses the funny cartoon characters to illustrate just how dumb you sound when you use templated email pitched to blog owners. Check it out.

Now get out and enjoy your weekend!

Happy Independence Day!

By amandaecking | July 7, 2012

So for those of you that are in the States, this has been a very weird week indeed – the 4th of July was on a Wednesday! Do you celebrate before, or after, or just the entire week?

For those of you that are celebrating this weekend, I’ll be brief. My favorite article from this week was submitted by Julie Joyce, and was Two Important Little Things That You Can’t Overlook in Relationship Building. The tips are far from “little” and are quite important when it comes to moving from vendor to consultant or linkbuilder to relationship builder.

A few other things that have happened in the SEOsphere:

  • Lots of linkbuilding strategies
  • Advice for guest blogging on popular sites
  • Hellish linkbuilding shortcuts

And on that, everyone have a great holiday weekend – or if it’s not a holiday weekend, just enjoy the weekend!

Linkbuilding, Community and Content

By amandaecking | June 23, 2012 |

The Definitive Guide To Google Authorship Markup

submitted by Gerald

You would think that verifying with Google that you’re the author of the content that has your byline would be, well…easy. But it can be more convoluted and tricky than you might have thought, depending on a lot of factors – like if your site is in HTML 5, for instance. And it can be even more tricky if you’re just a contributor and don’t have direct access to the backend. (At that point, actually, it’s pretty much impossible). But this article from Search Engine Land goes through 3 different scenarios to get your articles verified as written by you – all so you can see yourself (literally) in the SERPs.

If you’ve heard about Google authorship markup, but have been confused as to how to get started with it, you are definitely not alone. I’ve been writing about this topic since August of 2011, and have worked to get this process up and running on three separate blog sites (Search Engine Land, Internet Marketing Ninjas, and The SEO Ace– all coincidently, sites that publish my content!).

I’ve learned a few things along the way, right and wrong, but I’ve gotten it properly set up and now my goofy mug usually graces the Google search engine results pages (SERPs) when you search for content I’ve written.

LinkBuilding With The Experts – 2012 Edition

submitted by JulieJoyce

Want to know what some of the top SEO’s in the industry think about the state of linkbuilding? Look no further. We’ve got Rand, Aaron Wall, our very own Julie Joyce and a few more experts in a panel answering some tough questions about the state of the industry. See what they have to say! (They picked out the questions themselves).

First, we get higher quality questions. Secondly, there is no “head nodding” because no one knows how anyone else answered the questions. Each question gets an answer with no outside influence regarding “what the rest of the panel thinks” so to speak. We’ve all been doing this a long time, but that doesn’t mean we always agree or don’t have different methods of achieving the same results.

Companies in Boring Niches Creating Great Content

By amandaecking

Think that you can’t create great content for your website because nobody is going to care about how you make awesome bricks? Or the fact that you produce quality scissors? Well, you’re wrong. People will care – but you will have to work harder to find the right angle, enthusiasm and tone. This article goes through a bunch of “boring” industries with examples of how companies are doing it all right.

Actually I don’t think that there’s such a thing as a ‘boring’ niche, but I do understand where they’re coming from. It’s definitely the case that coming up with ideas for great content is tougher in some than others – but there are companies out there doing it already. As such I wanted to put together this post highlighting some companies who are already doing great things in tough markets. Undoubtedly some of them you’ll have seen or heard of before, but I’ve deliberately tried to come up with some other examples that hopefully you won’t already have heard of.

A few other articles you may want to take a look at today:

  • Google Threatens to Sue…
  • Getting the Maximum Number of Links From Your Infographic
  • Killer Content Templates
  • 50+ Essential Blogs…

Enjoy your weekend, everyone!

 

Faster, Smarter, Stronger – Tips on Everything SEO

By amandaecking | June 16, 2012 

How To Be A Guest Blogging Rock Star

submitted by Gerald

We’ve all heard of Ann Smarty, and how she is the Queen of guest posting. Here she gives an interview about her history with guest posting, where she thinks the benefits and pitfalls are, her experience running My Blog Guest, as well as much more.

Plenty of people are guest blogging now. But there’s no competition. Guest blogging is very individual. I am never afraid of revealing my most efficient guest blogging tactics because I know that no matter how many people follow my advice, I’ll still remain unique. My style is unique. I love every article I write. I am passionate about my guest blogging. Other people are great as well. But I won’t ever try to replicate what they are doing because I value my own blogging style.

8 Tips to Increase Your Link Building Efficiency 

submitted by shellshockuk

I think we all have a love/hate relationship with link building – and much of that “hate” comes from the amount of time it takes to do. But this article goes through tools and tricks to help you free up at least some of your time. (But what would you be doing otherwise, anyway?)

If something is scalable, its size can be changed, like fonts. How long you have to link build for to get results will never change. It will always be one of the most time-consuming and arguably hardest things you do. If it isn’t, you’re doing it wrong.

Still, there are a lot of things you can do to improve your efficiency and productivity. Below are just some of my favorite, but fair warning: They’re not going to free up all of your time. They’ll just allow you do to more in the time you have.

The Impact of Authoritative Links, Mentions, and Shares on Rankings

submitted by christinag

Looking to get a more technical and thorough understanding of how Google sees social in this post-Penguin world? Take a gander at this post from SEOmoz for one man’s opinion and analysis of how the social element affects at least the initial rankings of blog posts in particular.

The data from my research suggests that you get a good exposure for about a week and then you start losing your rankings. If your article is good, this will be enough time for people to start linking to you. Google will then pick up those links and add some important ranking signals to your article.

Unfortunately, that means there is still no long term ranking without some good authoritative links. So let’s find out what kind of impact do authoritative links have on rankings.

But, well, that’s all folks. It’s only three this week, but for a good number of other interesting and relevant SEO news items, head over to My SEO Community and sign up (and you can let us know what you think is important) – but here are a few other articles that I was eyeing this week -

  • Google Penalty – Your Site Can Bounce Back Now
  • Matt Cutts on Penalties
  • Post Penguin Recovery
  • Google Local With A Splash of Zagat

Happy reading!

Lists, Matt Cutts and Link Building

By amandaecking | June 8, 2012 

I was out of the country – but I’m back! Kind of a mixed bag, that. But it’s great news for you guys, cause you get my input again on what’s been up in the SEO world this week. A lot of people are still reeling from flightless birds and trying to figure out how to move forward from here – and the conference season is upon us – which means we get to overanalyze and parse out every word out of any Googler’s mouth, especially if it’s Matt Cutts.

Here’s what I’ve found enlightening this week:

Google Places Is Dead, Long Live Google Places

submitted by God

Google Places isn’t going to be Google Places anymore. Really. Just as the knowledge graph is rolling out, Google is finding more ways for users to “engage” with Google Plus. (Can you tell I’m a little bitter about G+?) Google Place is actually rolling out to a local specific tab for business pages in Google Plus.

Business owners will probably have a somewhat more difficult transition than consumers, as they’re compelled now to pay attention to Google+ — in a big way. They now ignore Google+ at their own peril.

So, business owners, brace yourself for a potentially painful transition to Google+, if you don’t have a page on the social network already.

15 Ways To Keep From Getting Stressed Out About Social Media

submitted by morganbarnhart

Mogan always seems to have some pretty good social media advice up her sleeve, and she’s back this week with some tips on how not to completely drown in a sea of tweets. For many business owners (or even just people looking to get their name out there) social media can be an all-consuming beast – I know, because I don’t really spend any time on social media just for that reason. The tips laid out here can help put things in perspective and give you a benchmark for how much time you should be dedicating. One of my favorite pieces of advice (that I wish more people would follow):

There are a lot of shiny new platforms that pop up every single day asking you to join because it’s the hot new thing. DON’T DO IT. Contrary to popular belief you DO NOT want to be everywhere. You want to be easily accessible in a few places so that you don’t overwhelm yourself for managing so many places and so you don’t overwhelm your audience for having to find you so many places.

RIP SEO Footer Links

submitted by God

Straight from the horses mouth – we hear from Matt Cutts that footer links for SEO purposes are pretty successfully ignored by Googlebot:

“We’ve done a good job of ignoring boilerplate, site wide links. In the last few months, we’ve been trying to make the point that not only is link buying like that not doing any good, we’re turning the dial up to let people know that certain link spam techniques are a waste of money.”

Link Building From Scratch

submitted by God

Julie Joyce is not only a mod here on My SEO Community, but she’s one of the foremost authorities on link building. So when she gives her opinion on what kind of link building to do after Penguin, you sit up and listen.

How do I get any links? Social media promotion of your site, sending content to bloggers and webmasters, asking for links, guest posting…there are tons of ways and I’d say figure out what works for you.

As IT people a lot of us aren’t fans of picking up the phone, but if you like to actually speak to someone, the phone’s a great way to get a link. Actually at my company when we have a webmaster ask to speak on the phone, we almost always get that link.

How do I find good sources to pursue? Good old-fashioned manual discovery works for me, but there are countless ways to do this. There are tools that generate search queries to use (my favorite is Solo SEO’s Link Search Tool) or you can enter some keywords into the search engine of your choice.

Can I really just ask a webmaster for a link? Yes you can. You can be turned down of course, but if you have a great resource to point a webmaster to, you can definitely ask. People ask for links without offering any value all the time anyway.

So…get started! Don’t be afraid to mix medium and get involved in other aspects of your client’s business.

This is What an SEO Spammer Looks Like

submitted by brickmarketing

Most of us who own websites have gotten emails like the one that is given as an example in this article. But if you haven’t seen one – well, here’s an example! This article is useful as a template for what to tell a lesser-internet-savvy customer who receives one of these emails why it’s spam, and why this person is completely wrong to say that their site isn’t indexed, or has no links, or doesn’t have any social media profiles. I actually ran into this with a client myself, once – I was pretty amazed that they actually opened it and took it seriously. Goes to show you!

Hi
I recently visited your website during a routine survey of sites which may be capable of higher search engine performance through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Efficient SEO brings an increase in online sales or leads. I hope this information may be of use to you, if not then I apologies for any inconvenience caused.

So, here’s a summary of my findings on your site:
– Your Google Page rank is 0/10
– You have 0/10 back-links
– Your website has 0/15 pages indexed

Keep an eye out for these, and mark them as spam right away! (If they don’t already immediately go in with you Viagra and pyramid scheme emails. 

Enjoy your weekend, all! Good to be back…for the most part.

Relationship Building and the Inner Workings Of Google

By amandaecking | May 11, 2012

The weather is starting to get nice again – at least where I am, I don’t know about you – but this just makes me want to get outside and enjoy the weather. I’ll do my best to be quick, but sometimes SEO and search gets the better of me, and I get uber-excited. It’s the search dork in me, I guess.

How Does Google Search Work?

submitted by thegman

Have you ever wanted to get into Matt Cutt’s head and understand how Google search actually works? Well, this Youtube video provides a peek into what it’s like to be Google’s search engine.

5 Steps to Hosting Successful Twitter Chats

submitted by thegman

This is an absolutely extensive (and exhaustive) guide put together by Ann Smarty on the Social Media Examiner that goes through step-by-step what you need to do to have a successful Twitter chat – and this includes checking your #hashtag idea in Urban Dictionary to see if it has some not-so-nice connotations.

There’s no “right” answer on how to set up your Twitter chat.  There’s no “best” time of day or frequency. There’s no “correct” format for how you run it. It all comes down to how creative you get and how seriously you want it to succeed.

Like any other long-term social media endeavor we get involved in, hosting and promoting a Twitter chat requires a lot of patience and persistence. Just put lots of time and effort into making it work and it definitely will!

How Limiting Your Google Queries…

submitted by shellshockuk

Garrett French, who built the Link Prospector, seems to be a bit more social lately, which is great for link builders, because he’s sharing what he knows. Which is awesome. This article is an awesome walkthrough of what kind of process to go through to get relevant data for very specific queries. In short, change stuff up. And just keep searching.

As a link prospector I find this to be the core problem of using Google for prospect sourcing – the relevance of my prospects diminishes significantly after the top 10-20 results… And going beyond the top 20 results increases time spent qualifying without justifiable returns.

Top 12 Essential WordPress Plugins

submitted by morganbarnhart

If you’re just starting your blog in WordPress and staring blanking at the page and pages and pages of plugins that you can install, this is a good start. Morgan gives a great run through of plugins that run the gammut from SEO to custom contact forms.

The plugins I’m about to recommend are the top 12 that I put on EVERY WordPress blog that I create because they are the essential plugins to get your WordPress functional. There are other plugins that are specific to genre’s or depending on what you’re trying to do with your website, but these are just the basics.

The best part about these plugins are, they’re all free.

19 Ways to Build Relationships with Comments

submitted by amabaie

Blog commenting? That’s dead, isn’t it?

Nope. Spam is dead, and always will be, but legitimate blog commenting can be a great way to build relationships – and Marcus comes at this more from the angle of the blog owner than the commenter. Be that blog owner on the web that actually comments on their own blog, and interacts with your readers; it’s a great thing to see and be a part of.

This article isn’t about “How to get more blog comments,” but rather how to cultivate better relationships through comments. Notwithstanding, the two do overlap, as you’ll see in the following list.

But what do you guys think – what have you been eyeballing or focusing on this week in the SEO world?

Now, shoo, go! Have a lovely weekend.

 

Weekly Round Up

By amandaecking | May 5, 2012 | 

Wow, it seems like people took a late spring break this past week! Which I find surprising…because of (dun dun dun) Google Penguin. Or people have just been too busy dealing with the fallout to use their computers for anything other than work. Probably the latter.

But for those of you that have been living under a rock for the past two weeks-ish, here are some of the more recent thoughts on Penguin:

  • SEO Book
  • Search Engine Watch
  • SEOMoz

Who else out there has some actionable Penguin advice that they want to share? What resources have you turned to?

 



2012 POSTS

 

Google, Google and More Google

By amandaecking | September 15, 2012 | 

So you want to stay in Google’s good graces? Here are a few tips on what to do – and not to do.

  • Refresh your content
  • Use ad extensions – if you’re using PPC.
  • Don’t be cheap!

Hope that everyone enjoys their weekend – and take a look at Viral Content Buzz too!

Google is Making a Lot of Changes

By amandaecking | September 1, 2012

Happy September! Have you guys been keeping track of what’s going on in the SEOsphere without me? Well, no mind, I’m back.

There’s been a lot of chatter about restricted SERPs and reverse domain crowding, but what are you seeing in search results this month that is making you reactive? There’s been a lot of that lately….

Anyway – here are a few things that have come to our attention recently here at MySEOCommunity.

  • Google drops from 10 to 7 organic listings in SERPs
  • How to make the most of Google+…and even optimize it.
  • Google is continuing to acquire all the things, and now owns Wildfire.

I’m itching to hear what’s on your mind. How is SEO treating you these days?

Summer Google Madness

By amandaecking | July 21, 2012

It seems the heat got the better of me last weekend, and for that I apologize. But I’m back! Let’ get going on what’s been happening this past week in the SEO-verse.

Google Sends Out Link Warnings Then Says You Can Ignore Them

submitted by Gerald

So another round of link warnings went out in Webmaster Central late this week. But then Matt Cutts said that we could ignore those and if we were really penalized webmasters would see a drop in traffic. Danny Sullivan puts his response together here.

Google’s war on bad links officially became insane today. For months, Google’s sending out warnings about bad links and telling publishers they should act on those, lest they get penalized. Today, Google said the latest round of warnings sent out this week can be safely ignored. That’s not “more transparency” as Google posted. That’s more confusion.

Taco Bell Smacks Down Old Spice on Twitter

submitted by Gerald

While this may be a short article, and more of a screen shot than anything, it’s worth checking out – makes some very salient points about how to run social media accounts of big companies that I won’t spoil with a quote here.

12 Essential Social Media Cheatsheets

submitted by Gerald

Written by our very own Ann Smarty (on Mashable!) This is a compilation of the best of the best tutorials on how to get around various social media sites and, of course, social media manners.
Getting around a social media site is not always easy. For some users, it’s a matter of getting used to social media. For others, the issue is keeping up with constant updates and changes to features, privacy settings, and account specifications. This, of course, is why social media cheat sheets exist.

Wrong Ways to Ask for a Guest Post

submitted by Gerald

This funny YouTube video uses the funny cartoon characters to illustrate just how dumb you sound when you use templated email pitched to blog owners. Check it out.

Now get out and enjoy your weekend!

Happy Independence Day!

By amandaecking | July 7, 2012

So for those of you that are in the States, this has been a very weird week indeed – the 4th of July was on a Wednesday! Do you celebrate before, or after, or just the entire week?

For those of you that are celebrating this weekend, I’ll be brief. My favorite article from this week was submitted by Julie Joyce, and was Two Important Little Things That You Can’t Overlook in Relationship Building. The tips are far from “little” and are quite important when it comes to moving from vendor to consultant or linkbuilder to relationship builder.

A few other things that have happened in the SEOsphere:

  • Lots of linkbuilding strategies
  • Advice for guest blogging on popular sites
  • Hellish linkbuilding shortcuts

And on that, everyone have a great holiday weekend – or if it’s not a holiday weekend, just enjoy the weekend!

Linkbuilding, Community and Content

By amandaecking | June 23, 2012 

The Definitive Guide To Google Authorship Markup

submitted by Gerald

You would think that verifying with Google that you’re the author of the content that has your byline would be, well…easy. But it can be more convoluted and tricky than you might have thought, depending on a lot of factors – like if your site is in HTML 5, for instance. And it can be even more tricky if you’re just a contributor and don’t have direct access to the backend. (At that point, actually, it’s pretty much impossible). But this article from Search Engine Land goes through 3 different scenarios to get your articles verified as written by you – all so you can see yourself (literally) in the SERPs.

If you’ve heard about Google authorship markup, but have been confused as to how to get started with it, you are definitely not alone. I’ve been writing about this topic since August of 2011, and have worked to get this process up and running on three separate blog sites (Search Engine Land, Internet Marketing Ninjas, and The SEO Ace– all coincidently, sites that publish my content!).

I’ve learned a few things along the way, right and wrong, but I’ve gotten it properly set up and now my goofy mug usually graces the Google search engine results pages (SERPs) when you search for content I’ve written.

 

LinkBuilding With The Experts – 2012 Edition

submitted by JulieJoyce

Want to know what some of the top SEO’s in the industry think about the state of linkbuilding? Look no further. We’ve got Rand, Aaron Wall, our very own Julie Joyce and a few more experts in a panel answering some tough questions about the state of the industry. See what they have to say! (They picked out the questions themselves).

First, we get higher quality questions. Secondly, there is no “head nodding” because no one knows how anyone else answered the questions. Each question gets an answer with no outside influence regarding “what the rest of the panel thinks” so to speak. We’ve all been doing this a long time, but that doesn’t mean we always agree or don’t have different methods of achieving the same results.

Companies in Boring Niches Creating Great Content

submitted by amandaecking

Think that you can’t create great content for your website because nobody is going to care about how you make awesome bricks? Or the fact that you produce quality scissors? Well, you’re wrong. People will care – but you will have to work harder to find the right angle, enthusiasm and tone. This article goes through a bunch of “boring” industries with examples of how companies are doing it all right.

Actually I don’t think that there’s such a thing as a ‘boring’ niche, but I do understand where they’re coming from. It’s definitely the case that coming up with ideas for great content is tougher in some than others – but there are companies out there doing it already. As such I wanted to put together this post highlighting some companies who are already doing great things in tough markets. Undoubtedly some of them you’ll have seen or heard of before, but I’ve deliberately tried to come up with some other examples that hopefully you won’t already have heard of.

A few other articles you may want to take a look at today:

  • Google Threatens to Sue…
  • Getting the Maximum Number of Links From Your Infographic
  • Killer Content Templates
  • 50+ Essential Blogs…

Enjoy your weekend, everyone!

 

Faster, Smarter, Stronger – Tips on Everything SEO

submitted by amandaecking

How To Be A Guest Blogging Rock Star

submitted by Gerald

We’ve all heard of Ann Smarty, and how she is the Queen of guest posting. Here she gives an interview about her history with guest posting, where she thinks the benefits and pitfalls are, her experience running My Blog Guest, as well as much more.

Plenty of people are guest blogging now. But there’s no competition. Guest blogging is very individual. I am never afraid of revealing my most efficient guest blogging tactics because I know that no matter how many people follow my advice, I’ll still remain unique. My style is unique. I love every article I write. I am passionate about my guest blogging. Other people are great as well. But I won’t ever try to replicate what they are doing because I value my own blogging style.

8 Tips to Increase Your Link Building Efficiency

submitted by shellshockuk

I think we all have a love/hate relationship with link building – and much of that “hate” comes from the amount of time it takes to do. But this article goes through tools and tricks to help you free up at least some of your time. (But what would you be doing otherwise, anyway?)

If something is scalable, its size can be changed, like fonts. How long you have to link build for to get results will never change. It will always be one of the most time-consuming and arguably hardest things you do. If it isn’t, you’re doing it wrong.

Still, there are a lot of things you can do to improve your efficiency and productivity. Below are just some of my favorite, but fair warning: They’re not going to free up all of your time. They’ll just allow you do to more in the time you have.

The Impact of Authoritative Links, Mentions, and Shares on Rankings

submitted by christinag

Looking to get a more technical and thorough understanding of how Google sees social in this post-Penguin world? Take a gander at this post from SEOmoz for one man’s opinion and analysis of how the social element affects at least the initial rankings of blog posts in particular.

The data from my research suggests that you get a good exposure for about a week and then you start losing your rankings. If your article is good, this will be enough time for people to start linking to you. Google will then pick up those links and add some important ranking signals to your article.

Unfortunately, that means there is still no long term ranking without some good authoritative links. So let’s find out what kind of impact do authoritative links have on rankings.

But, well, that’s all folks. It’s only three this week, but for a good number of other interesting and relevant SEO news items, head over to My SEO Community and sign up (and you can let us know what you think is important) – but here are a few other articles that I was eyeing this week -

  • Google Penalty – Your Site Can Bounce Back Now
  • Matt Cutts on Penalties
  • Post Penguin Recovery
  • Google Local With A Splash of Zagat

Happy reading!

Lists, Matt Cutts and Link Building

submitted by amandaecking| June 8, 2012 

I was out of the country – but I’m back! Kind of a mixed bag, that. But it’s great news for you guys, cause you get my input again on what’s been up in the SEO world this week. A lot of people are still reeling from flightless birds and trying to figure out how to move forward from here – and the conference season is upon us – which means we get to overanalyze and parse out every word out of any Googler’s mouth, especially if it’s Matt Cutts.

Here’s what I’ve found enlightening this week:

Google Places Is Dead, Long Live Google Places

submitted by God

Google Places isn’t going to be Google Places anymore. Really. Just as the knowledge graph is rolling out, Google is finding more ways for users to “engage” with Google Plus. (Can you tell I’m a little bitter about G+?) Google Place is actually rolling out to a local specific tab for business pages in Google Plus.

Business owners will probably have a somewhat more difficult transition than consumers, as they’re compelled now to pay attention to Google+ — in a big way. They now ignore Google+ at their own peril.

So, business owners, brace yourself for a potentially painful transition to Google+, if you don’t have a page on the social network already.

15 Ways To Keep From Getting Stressed Out About Social Media

submitted by morganbarnhart

Mogan always seems to have some pretty good social media advice up her sleeve, and she’s back this week with some tips on how not to completely drown in a sea of tweets. For many business owners (or even just people looking to get their name out there) social media can be an all-consuming beast – I know, because I don’t really spend any time on social media just for that reason. The tips laid out here can help put things in perspective and give you a benchmark for how much time you should be dedicating. One of my favorite pieces of advice (that I wish more people would follow):

There are a lot of shiny new platforms that pop up every single day asking you to join because it’s the hot new thing. DON’T DO IT. Contrary to popular belief you DO NOT want to be everywhere. You want to be easily accessible in a few places so that you don’t overwhelm yourself for managing so many places and so you don’t overwhelm your audience for having to find you so many places.

RIP SEO Footer Links

submitted by God

Straight from the horses mouth – we hear from Matt Cutts that footer links for SEO purposes are pretty successfully ignored by Googlebot:

“We’ve done a good job of ignoring boilerplate, site wide links. In the last few months, we’ve been trying to make the point that not only is link buying like that not doing any good, we’re turning the dial up to let people know that certain link spam techniques are a waste of money.”

Link Building From Scratch

submitted by God

Julie Joyce is not only a mod here on My SEO Community, but she’s one of the foremost authorities on link building. So when she gives her opinion on what kind of link building to do after Penguin, you sit up and listen.

How do I get any links? Social media promotion of your site, sending content to bloggers and webmasters, asking for links, guest posting…there are tons of ways and I’d say figure out what works for you.

As IT people a lot of us aren’t fans of picking up the phone, but if you like to actually speak to someone, the phone’s a great way to get a link. Actually at my company when we have a webmaster ask to speak on the phone, we almost always get that link.

How do I find good sources to pursue? Good old-fashioned manual discovery works for me, but there are countless ways to do this. There are tools that generate search queries to use (my favorite is Solo SEO’s Link Search Tool) or you can enter some keywords into the search engine of your choice.

Can I really just ask a webmaster for a link? Yes you can. You can be turned down of course, but if you have a great resource to point a webmaster to, you can definitely ask. People ask for links without offering any value all the time anyway.

So…get started! Don’t be afraid to mix medium and get involved in other aspects of your client’s business.

This is What an SEO Spammer Looks Like

submitted by brickmarketing

Most of us who own websites have gotten emails like the one that is given as an example in this article. But if you haven’t seen one – well, here’s an example! This article is useful as a template for what to tell a lesser-internet-savvy customer who receives one of these emails why it’s spam, and why this person is completely wrong to say that their site isn’t indexed, or has no links, or doesn’t have any social media profiles. I actually ran into this with a client myself, once – I was pretty amazed that they actually opened it and took it seriously. Goes to show you!

Hi
I recently visited your website during a routine survey of sites which may be capable of higher search engine performance through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Efficient SEO brings an increase in online sales or leads. I hope this information may be of use to you, if not then I apologies for any inconvenience caused.

So, here’s a summary of my findings on your site:
– Your Google Page rank is 0/10
– You have 0/10 back-links
– Your website has 0/15 pages indexed

Keep an eye out for these, and mark them as spam right away! (If they don’t already immediately go in with you Viagra and pyramid scheme emails.

Enjoy your weekend, all! Good to be back…for the most part.

Relationship Building and the Inner Workings Of Google

By amandaecking | May 11, 2012 

The weather is starting to get nice again – at least where I am, I don’t know about you – but this just makes me want to get outside and enjoy the weather. I’ll do my best to be quick, but sometimes SEO and search gets the better of me, and I get uber-excited. It’s the search dork in me, I guess.

How Does Google Search Work?

submitted by thegman

Have you ever wanted to get into Matt Cutt’s head and understand how Google search actually works? Well, this Youtube video provides a peek into what it’s like to be Google’s search engine.

5 Steps to Hosting Successful Twitter Chats

submitted by thegman

This is an absolutely extensive (and exhaustive) guide put together by Ann Smarty on the Social Media Examiner that goes through step-by-step what you need to do to have a successful Twitter chat – and this includes checking your #hashtag idea in Urban Dictionary to see if it has some not-so-nice connotations.

There’s no “right” answer on how to set up your Twitter chat.  There’s no “best” time of day or frequency. There’s no “correct” format for how you run it. It all comes down to how creative you get and how seriously you want it to succeed.

Like any other long-term social media endeavor we get involved in, hosting and promoting a Twitter chat requires a lot of patience and persistence. Just put lots of time and effort into making it work and it definitely will!

How Limiting Your Google Queries…

submitted by shellshockuk

Garrett French, who built the Link Prospector, seems to be a bit more social lately, which is great for link builders, because he’s sharing what he knows. Which is awesome. This article is an awesome walkthrough of what kind of process to go through to get relevant data for very specific queries. In short, change stuff up. And just keep searching.

As a link prospector I find this to be the core problem of using Google for prospect sourcing – the relevance of my prospects diminishes significantly after the top 10-20 results… And going beyond the top 20 results increases time spent qualifying without justifiable returns.

Top 12 Essential WordPress Plugins

submitted by morganbarnhart

If you’re just starting your blog in WordPress and staring blanking at the page and pages and pages of plugins that you can install, this is a good start. Morgan gives a great run through of plugins that run the gammut from SEO to custom contact forms.

The plugins I’m about to recommend are the top 12 that I put on EVERY WordPress blog that I create because they are the essential plugins to get your WordPress functional. There are other plugins that are specific to genre’s or depending on what you’re trying to do with your website, but these are just the basics.

The best part about these plugins are, they’re all free.

19 Ways to Build Relationships with Comments

submitted by amabaie

Blog commenting? That’s dead, isn’t it?

Nope. Spam is dead, and always will be, but legitimate blog commenting can be a great way to build relationships – and Marcus comes at this more from the angle of the blog owner than the commenter. Be that blog owner on the web that actually comments on their own blog, and interacts with your readers; it’s a great thing to see and be a part of.

This article isn’t about “How to get more blog comments,” but rather how to cultivate better relationships through comments. Notwithstanding, the two do overlap, as you’ll see in the following list.

But what do you guys think – what have you been eyeballing or focusing on this week in the SEO world?

Now, shoo, go! Have a lovely weekend.

 

Weekly Round Up

By amandaecking | May 5, 2012

Wow, it seems like people took a late spring break this past week! Which I find surprising…because of (dun dun dun) Google Penguin. Or people have just been too busy dealing with the fallout to use their computers for anything other than work. Probably the latter.

But for those of you that have been living under a rock for the past two weeks-ish, here are some of the more recent thoughts on Penguin:

  • SEO Book
  • Search Engine Watch
  • SEOMoz

Who else out there has some actionable Penguin advice that they want to share? What resources have you turned to?

Negative SEO, Penguin and More

By amandaecking | April 28, 2012

A lot of drama has gone done since our last real update of the state of search – Penguin rolled out, and Rand ranked for “snuggie dog bed”, plus a whole lotta drama about the politics of “outing” black hats and negative SEO tactics and if you’re a traitor to the industry if you reveal black hat or negative SEO tactics (even if you’re whitehat and don’t use them). Don’t understand the difference between “negative SEO” and black hat SEO? Keep reading.

Google Bowling, Negative SEO, and Outing

submitted by thegman

I’m always interested in what Aaron Wall over at SEO Book has to say – and his insightful article on black hat SEO “outing” is thoughtful and presents a good case of the situation, taking into consideration both sides of the equation (that is, the person doing the negative SEO work and the person being affected by the negative SEO work).

When you out someone for shady links, you can’t be certain they were responsible for it. They could have had a falling out with a consultant or business partner or another competitor who wanted to hose them. Or their SEO or webmaster could have been non-transparent with them.

Then you out them & they might be toast.

He calls out the SEO industry for being _____ because we’re calling each other out, and making things easier for Google. Do you agree?

How To Improve Your SEO with Bing KW Research

submitted by JulieJoyce

Everyone talks about Google, Google, Google. But we can’t forget about Bing, either, as their marketshare is increasing – it seems to be at about 30% of the market right now. And a number of small businesses find success optimizing for Bing – even over Google.

But how to go about it, and where to find the data? This article over at sem-group.com is a straightforward, step-by-step guide on how to use the Bing keyword research tool. Have at, and don’t forget about the other search engines! Plus, there are a number of benefits to the Bing keyword research tool that Google does not contribute in it’s own research tools.

If learning more about Bing keyword research is something you’ve been considering, now is the perfect time to dive into the deep end. Bing recently announced that their Webmaster Tools is launching an organic research tool that can offer up to six months of historical data. All the data that will be gathered from this keyword research tool will be focused on SEO, not PPC, and there is no rounding or averaging when it comes to results.

The Top 12 Internet Marketing Myths You Should Avoid

submitted by moneytized

A good parallel to the SEO Book article on Negative SEO and outing mentioned first in this list, this article is a friendly reminder to everyone both what the preconceived notions are about SEO – and therefore what a lot of small buisness owners and uneducated CEOs think of when that acronym is bandied about – and thus what you should be avoiding in the field if you want to play by the rules.

This is also a great primer if you’re looking to strike out on your own and start an online business, the author presents a number of efforts both to avoid and situations to take into consideration when moving forward with online marketing.

You’ve read all about it. Working in Internet Marketing and having an online business so you can make money from home is the most promising thing you read about on the Web these days. There’s so much information on how to make it big out there, but what should you believe? What’s genuine, and what’s a scam? What is everyone saying, and how much of it is true?

33% of US Consumers Use Social Media For Health Care Info

submitted by amabaie

This article presents interesting insight on the (unexpected) ways in which social media is infiltrating our lives, slowly and steadily. Would you share your medical information online? Would you look up potential doctors on Facebook, or see what people have to say about them through various social means?

A good percentage of the population (esp. those surveyed bet. the ages of 18-24) are likely to. Are you?

A full one-third of U.S. consumers are using YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to find medical information, research and share their symptoms, and offer opinions about doctors, treatments, drugs, and health plans. The trend isn’t new, though it does seem to be growing, with consumer confidence in the information they are finding through social contacts higher for some people than others.

Does Website Design Impact The Bottom Line?

submitted by kissmetrics

Have you ever considered your website design and user interface as a part of your SEO strategy?

The TL;DR of this is – Yes. But appearing credible is most important. Declutter, allow users to compare products, don’t have too much white space, and HOLY CRAP DON’T USE F%!&*#& POPUPS. Oh, and write good and test usability. Really test. Don’t just “go on a gut feeling.”

Companies invest thousands of dollars when they want to redesign their website, hoping that a more attractive design will lead to more revenue. But does it really matter? Is simplicity more important than eloquent design? Where do you draw the line between simplicity and overkill? What really matters to users? While the ‘wow factor’ may leave a positive impression on investors, banks and even prospects, does it lead to more sales?

So enjoy your weekend, and I’d love to hear – what have you been talking about in the SEO industry this week?

 



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