Google warned us in advance about its planned webspam algorithmn update (now known as “Penguin”) and site owners who ignored those warnings are now paying the price.

Many of the comments posted to Danny Sullivan’s post about the Penguin update verify search engine ranking downgrades and loss.

Here are just a few examples:

• “I just had a website that ranked on the first page for numerous rankings…. completely tank. One of the only websites that didn’t do comment spam in my SERPS. Didn’t do link exchanges. Now it’s gone.”
• “5 out of 11 of my sites have dropped into oblivion today.”
• “In one of my niches, of course, my site has disappeared.”
• “I have 2 sites that went missing ..they are MIA .. No where to be found in any key word !!”

While I feel for the truly innocent who get caught in the crossfire of Google’s algorithm changes, they will mostly likely regain their rankings — as has happened in the past. By the way, if your site was affected by the “Penguin” webspam algorithm update on April 24th, 2012, and you don’t think it should have been affected, you may submit a report to Google here.

But some not-so-innocent webmasters are stating that Google doesn’t “play fair” and blame Google for the possibility that they may have to seek offline employment or go on government assistance.

Oh, too bad, so sad.

Forgive my lack of empathy, but give me a break.

I’m sick of the whining and moaning that ensues when Google dumps Viagra, make money online, and diabetes web spam over-optimized sites. Google stated that only 3.1% of English language sites would be affected by this update, yet there’s way too much emphasis placed on spammers’ reactions to such changes.

Instead of living in fear of Google algorithm changes, online business owners should seek out positive reports — and there are plenty of positive reports related to the Penguin update, including:

• “I went to my analytics and did a quick search of traffic over the period from April 23-27 and saw my stats go up after Penguin. More traffic, coming from more places. My ranking in Google is stagnant at #4, but has gone up in Yahoo, Aol etc. Has anyone else seen positive signs from this Penguin update?”
• “one of my sites is up 20-30%…”
• “I’ll wait and behold, and start to arrive at any conclusion in a month or two. First of all, none of my sites dropped outta’ index. Second, being patient is natural for buddhists. Third, being an IT worker, I’ve never seen anything of that scale working well at the moment of release and later on. And I don’t really think I’m ever going to, to be frank)”
• “my total search traffic hasn’t changed”

I too have seen a traffic increase in the past week on most of my primary sites, as is usually the case when an Google puts out an algorithm update.

Here’s a Google Analytics screenshot from one site to which no posts have been made for well over a week and no traffic sent from email blasts. Daily traffic variations remain completely normal and new visitor ratio is virtually the same.

After almost 15 years online, I must conclude that’s because I’ve consistently played by the rules. I do NOT do SEO other than naturally including important keywords in my post titles and text, i.e. I do NOT use silly formulas that may work today, won’t work tomorrow and will get me bounced from the index.

It’s Google’s game, therefore Google makes the rules.

Webmasters who want to rely primarily on free traffic from Google should know and follow Google’s webmaster guidelines.

Here are a few more recommendations:

1. Don’t buy links
2. Don’t allow links from low-quality sites and networks
3. Don’t get sucked into buying SEO services that promise a #1 listing
4. Don’t waste your money on crap tutorials that promise to teach you how to get #1 listings in Google

In other words, don’t waste your time on SEO – become a real business that provides real value to real people.

Has Penguin affected your site? Please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

P.S. Thanks to Stan Shebs and Wikipedia for the beautiful penguin pic.

Coming with new and unique ideas to write about can be a challenge. However, there are some things you can do to help you not only come with great ideas, but to also help you write about them. Follow these tips for creating content that is both outstanding and compelling.

No matter what you are writing about, keeping your readers in mind while doing so is important. This is especially true when you are writing a specific topic that relates to certain people. For example, think about the people that love gardening when you are exploring the benefits of hydroponics gardening. In fact, you might find your words come much easier when you have a targeted audience in mind.

Be direct and to the point in your writing. Most people never read an entire article. The first few paragraphs are read and the rest is generally scanned for outstanding and important information. By getting to the point in fewer words, you can get more information in and across to your readers.

When you start thinking about excessive words, you might consider the number of adjectives you use in your work. While adjectives do have a place in your writing, being there too much is unacceptable. This goes back to simply getting to the point without fluffing it up. How you write reflects a part of you, so avoid beating around your main topic and tell readers what they want to know.

One great reason many people never read through a complete article is because it becomes boring. However, think about the article that relays important information while also telling a story. The writing you do that contain interesting facts and a story line suddenly becomes writing that is not so boring.

The writing that is most appealing is the writing that is well rounded and to the point. While making your point, be sure to remain informal and friendly. The best content becomes unattractive when it sounds like it was written by a computer program or robot. Making yourself a real person is an important part of all the writing you do.

Brainstorming for new ideas can certainly be challenging. Take the time to read all you can about topics you want to write about. Ask your friends and family members about any ideas they might come up with. Read other content about the topics you are thinking about for ideas about what to write. Get outdoors and take a walk. You might be surprised how getting away from the desk for break with help to refresh your creative thinking.

Honing your writing skills takes you writing a great deal every day. By doing so, you begin to see the little faults in your work you never noticed were there before. Check out the information online as well about tips and tricks to creating content on a regular and profitable basis. Writing is skill you must practice. Making the changes to your style can mean the difference between your being excellent or mediocre.

With a quarter of search traffic coming from Bing and Yahoo!, if your blog isn’t optimized for bing, you’re missing out on lots of commissions!

So, what can you do to improve your Bing viewership?

1. Make sure the Bing spider is allowed to see your site in your robots.txt file
2. Check to see how many of your pages are indexed in Bing, by searching site:yourwebsite.com
3. Compare those returns against the numbers shown by Google.
4. Use Bing’s webmaster tools, to increase your visibility.
5. Use Microsoft AdCenter in addition to Google Adwords to generate traffic.

Yes, Google is great, but Bing will bring your extra traffic, so start paying attention to what they’re telling you!

Brian Clark of CopyBlogger has just released a completely free 29-page report called, “How to Create Compelling Content that Ranks Well in Search Engines“. Are you interested in ranking higher in the search engines for your content?

If so – you should download this completely free report (there’s no registration needed and no obligation to do anything to get it) from Scribe. It’s called How to Create Compelling Content that Ranks Well in Search Engines.

Topics include:

• Why SEO Copywriting Still Matters
• How Search Engines Work
• Why You Have to Spoon Feed Search Engines
• The 5 Essential Elements of Keyword Research
• How to Create Cornerstone Content That Google Loves
• Five Link Building Strategies That Work
• Five Areas to Focus On for Effective SEO Copywriting
• Why Writing for People Works for Search Engines
• How to Make SEO Copywriting Simple

I’d highly recommend taking a hour or so to go through Brian’s report to learn how to improve your SEO through better copywriting.

I never write content specifically to get search engine placement and it’s something I never want to do.

My blogs are for real people like you who would quickly decide that I no longer deserve their business if I were to write like an SEO optimizer instead of just being myself and writing as I do.

Seriously, no reasonable adult takes a blogger seriously when they start a post with “Want better search results? Then get better search results by targeting the search engine results pages with better SEO. You can improve your SEO…” blah, blah, blah.

Boring and obvious.

But due to my refusal to even consider SEO when I write, my blog posts probably don’t rank as highly as I would prefer for the topic that I’m writing about.

The posts generally get traffic because I use a multitude of other promotional methods — i.e. social media, Feedburner, Aweber, etc — but Google does not frequently reward my efforts with 1st page listings.

That’s about to change, however.

During a conversation with one of our Rosalind Gardner’s Academy members, I learned about Scribe SEO, a tool for affiliate bloggers like myself who prefer to write for readers than search engines.

Scribe SEO is a plugin with an online interface that shows you exactly how a proposed post will fare in terms of keyword effectiveness.

For example, I plugged an existing post from my travel blog into the Optimizer Content Analysis tool and this is what I saw…

UGH!!! A 39% SEO score overall.

Your content meets few of the SEO recommendations. Check any warnings to see where you could improve.

No doubt.

All the stuff in yellow was where the post was deficient, such as:

• Title contains 0 Primary Keywords; below the minimum recommendation of 1.
• There are no Primary Keywords in your Body. After adding there, consider adding them in your title.

and…

• Description contains no Primary Keywords.
• When you add keywords to your description, consider adding them towards beginning; using keywords towards the beginning is recommended.

Then Scribe SEO picked what appeared to be my primary keywords…

Primary Keywords - No Primary Keywords found.
Other Keywords – Additional keywords found include canada, laptop, air canada, transport canada, vaio, las vegas, air travel, london drugs and airport security.

Um… those weren’t exactly what I was going for.

Then it made a bunch of suggestions on how I could make those keywords more prominent…

To make canada, laptop and air canada Primary Keywords, add them to the beginning of your Title and Description. Re-analyze to see the new Keyword Review.

To make transport canada, vaio, las vegas, air travel, london drugs and airport security Primary Keywords, add them to your Title and/or Description and add it more frequently to your Body content. Re-analyze to see the new Keyword Review.

The software also suggested Tags that I could add…

The following is a list of semantically relevant terms that have been identified within your content. Consider adding these terms to your post tags.

Next it showed me an example of how my content may appear within a Search Engine Results Page. The SERP item is comprised of the first 72 characters of your title and the first 165 characters of your description. Therefore, if important words are cut off in the SERP sample below, edit your headline and description accordingly to move the important words, for example Company Name, to the front of the sentences.

Lastly, it gave me a tutorial on SEO best practices.

One of the most significant items (as far as I’m concerned) is the incorporation of the Flesch Reading Ease Score – one of the best-known and most popular readability indicators.

The formula rates text on a 100-point scale based on the average number of syllables per word and words per sentence. The closer the score is to 100, the easier the content is to read; the closer the score to 0, the more difficult the content is to read. In general, a score below 30 is considered very difficult, and a score of 70 is estimated to be written at the eighth or ninth grade level. Research has indicated that a score of 70 is likely appropriate for adult readers. A score of 100 represents that the content is understood by readers with at least a fourth grade education.

All the while, Scribe SEO gives you the opportunity to change and re-evaluate your text on the fly.

Will I use this tool?

You betcha.

Especially considering I know I can do better than 39% SEO scores, even when writing for real people.

The post evaluated above was all about carry-on baggage allowances. Somehow, in my frenzy to get the post out there, I missed the obvious.

That won’t happen again however.

I picked up the Scribe SEO monthly membership (for $27) just to check it out, but will definitely upgrade to the yearly membership before the month is up.

If you write like I do, Scribe SEO is one tool well worth checking out for $27. You’ll get 30 evaluations on unlimited websites. For $47, you can get 120 evaluations and $97 buys 300. If you’re just starting out, I’d suggest going the ‘Starter’ $27 route. If you don’t think it serves you well, they have a 30-day money-back guarantee.

If you’re writing an affiliate website/blog and Scribe SEO helps you write posts that rank better, drive more traffic, and gets you more clicks or conversions, I think you’ll find the absolutely worth the price and the little bit of time it takes to evaluate your posts before publishing.

I just wanted to make sure that you’ve seen the video that Michael Green and I did before it comes down in the next couple of days – because whether or not you plan to buy Google 1st, the short (9:46) video is a worthwhile watch.

In the video, Michael shows some clear ‘outside the box’ thinking when it comes to getting 1st page Google rankings. This is good stuff that you may not have thought about before, but that’s easy to replicate in your own marketing efforts.

Watch the video now or learn more about Google 1st.

Amit Mehta and I were exchanging some friendly super affiliate banter during the Affiliate Summit over whose site ranked #1 in the Google search results for the keyword phrase “super affiliate”.

Amit said his SuperAffiliateMindset blog ranked number #1 and I was quite sure that it was my Super Affiliate Handbook site.

Well, here are the graphic results. (And remember, we’re comparing a blog to a one-page site… the blog should win hands-down!)

Super Affiliate with quotes…

Super Affiliate WITHOUT quotes…

That’s OK, Amit. I still love ya.

Of course, in the long-run, it doesn’t really matter how either of us ranks on Google for the term ‘super affiliate’, because here’s what Wordtracker has to say about how many folks are really searching for the term…

Hmmm… a whopping maximum total predicted traffic of 9 searches for all of the major directories, search and pay per click engines today.

And here are the keyword phrases we both should be targeting.

BTW, I have no doubt that someone will respond with graphic images showing Amit’s site in the #1 spot. That’s OK, but my version of Google is better.

Press releases are a wonderful way to get free promotion for your website.

What is a Press Release?
A press release is a newsworthy story about your business that you submit to various media outlets ~ newspapers, magazines, website, radio, television. This is a wonderful way to get free promotion for your website. Any story that the media picks up will be far more valuable than a paid advertising spot. Having the media do a story about you is like a personal endorsement of your website and business.

What is the Appropriate Format for Your Press Release?

Your press release should have six basic components and they are:

1. Release Instructions

“For Immediate Release”;
“For Release Before [date]” or
“For Release After [date]”

Use one of the latter two if your press release is of a time sensitive nature. For example, if you are holding a public speaking event, you will want to use the “For Release Before [date]” and make sure you input the final date for registrations. If you are using the “For Release Before [date]” ensure you are sensitive to media deadlines. Send your release out well in advance.

2. Headline

Write an attention-grabbing headline. Make it benefits-oriented (why would it be of interest to people?) and descriptive. Avoid hype and promotional language ~ remember, this is a news story.

3. Contact Information

Include as much information as possible here. Make it easy for the media to contact you. Include your phone number, address, company name, fax number, email and URL. Include the hours you are available at the listed phone number and add an after hours phone number, if applicable.

4. Summary

Before you get into the body of the release, write a sentence or two to summarize your press release. Make it interesting, you want the recipient to keep reading.

5. Content

This is the meat of your press release. Again, write a benefits-oriented story. Think of the target audience as you are writing. Your target audience is partly the editor or reporter who will be reading the release. Ultimately, however, your target audience is that editor or reporter’s readers or audience. You need to write a story that will be of interest to them.

The first paragraph should answer all the important questions – Who, What, Where, When, Why & How?

Add some quotations to add credibility and to break up the story. Quotations can be from you about the topic. Testimonials or commentary from your customers are very effective as well.6.

6. Signify the End of Your Release

The end of your press release is shown by a few simple characters. Place ### at the end of your release.

Other General Formatting Tips

-  Always remember that your press release is not an ad. It is a newsworthy story.

-  Address your release directly to the appropriate reporter or editor. The media receives many press releases each day. A release addressed to a specific person is more likely to get attention than a general submission.

-  Keep your release to about 1 page (or 2 pages maximum).

-  Number your pages 1 of 2, 2 of 2, etc.

-  Use active verbs.

-  Do not use excessive adjectives ~ they sound like hype.

-  Tweak your release when sending to different media outlets. If you are sending to the local paper your content may be slightly different than if you are sending it to a trade magazine.

-   If you are sending your release by mail, use 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper.

-   If you are sending your release by email, never send an attachment. Copy and paste your release into the body of the email.

Where to Send your Press Release

You need to build a media list and this will likely take some time. Start local and small. Local and/or small media are most likely to be interested in your story and it’s the perfect way to hone your release writing skills. Besides, a lot of the larger media outlets scan the little guys to find stories to pick up.

Try newspapers, trade journals, topic specific magazines, websites, radio shows, television show ~ whomever would be interested in your topic.

Again, always remember to get specific contact information for your press release. A release address to a particular person will get a lot more attention than a general release sent to the media outlet.

Despite continuing problems with getting my blog posts to show up or stay listed in Technorati and Google Blogs, it appears that at least one of Google’s spiders still loves me.

Immediately after I posted “A 9K Walk Along Icey Roads in Rohdes” to my travel blog, I searched Google for the keyword phrase that I was targeting – Rohde boots – and was delighted to see that the post showed up in the 8th spot on the first page of returns (see the screen capture below).

Although I’ve seen posts get listed that quickly before, many also seem to disappear from Google’s results almost as fast, so I searched for the keyphrase again this morning, and much to my amazement, it is still there.

Granted, Rohde boots isn’t a particularly popular search term. According to Wordtracker, the phrase has a predicted count of only 12 for today. Furthermore, I haven’t found an affiliate program that sells Rohdes.

So, why would I bother to target the phrase ‘Rohde boots’ if so few people are looking for them and I don’t make any money promoting them to people who find the post?

Well, my primary motivation for writing such a post is to share information about a truly great product that will benefit walkers like myself. In return, I hope to earn new feed subscribers with the invitation “If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!” that appears at the end of every post.

Furthermore, the site is monetized in many ways. Those who appreciate the information may browse around and find other products of interest to them that are sold through an affiliate program. Or, they may leave the site through a Google Adsense ad for which I get paid.

Assuming I get only 1 click per day from that listing over the period of a year, that would be 365 visitors to my site — for free — from a post that took me only 10 minutes to write. If only 10% of those visitors sign up for my feed / newsletter, that would be 36 new subscribers to whom I can promote products on a continuing basis. Now, if you write a post like that once a week, you can multiply those results by 52, and estimate nearly 19,000 visitors and 1900 new feed subscribers — for free.

But, those traffic estimates are probably low, especially considering the personal nature of the blog post title and content description that appears on Google, which is in striking contrast to the ‘salesy’ nature of the other listings that appear on the first page of Google results.

For example, inthe last 23 hours, my most recent first page listing has generated 4 site visits, or 33% of the estimated traffic for the term ‘Rohde boots’.

So, imagine how much free traffic and revenue you can generate by targeting those ‘less popular’ phrases if you post to your blog 3 or 4 days a week, or better yet, every day!

[tags]rohde boots,google,seo,marketing,free traffic[/tags]

Back on Monday April 2nd, I wrote a post titled “Are you missing out on this Traffic? I was…” about registering your own name as a domain name to get more traffic from the search engines — or at least to dominate the first page of results for searches on your name.

Well, I totally forgot to check to see whether RosalindGardner.com made it to the first page of results for a “Rosalind Gardner” search until just now… and I see that it’s taken the 8th spot.

Not bad. Now I guess I’d better do that with the rest of my sites, eh?

Have you registered yours, yet?