How to Protect Your Google Page Rank – Part 2

Dec 022011
 

Google Page Rank
Your Google Page Rank Is Valuable… Make Sure You’re Protecting It!

If you haven’t read Part 1 of How to Protect Your Google Page Rank, click the link to check it out.

In part 1 we talked about how back linking to certain blogs and sites can cause your blog to be penalized by Google and actually hurt your Google page rank.

In this post, I want to touch on another sneaky trick that some bloggers use to use to boost their Google page rank that can now cause your blog to be penalized. Fortunately, most bloggers who used this trick in the past now realize that Google is on to them, and it doesn’t help, but only hurts their Google page rank.

Don’t hurt your Google Page Rank with duplicate colors…??

One of the main things search engines will do to determine the relevance of a blog post is crawl the page. When the Google spiders crawl your page, the words found on the page is one of the things that will determine your Google page rank. It’s the main reason we make such a big deal out of doing proper keyword research. When your article has a certain percentage of keywords, the search engines will consider your blog to be very relevant to the keyword and will give it major recognition in the form of a better Google page rank.

Back in the day, bloggers and webmasters would try to trick the crawlers by hiding their key words on the page. Now you might think… how can you hide words on your blog…? Very simple.  Bloggers would place these keywords in areas on their blogs that made no sense… between paragraphs, at the end of sentences… anywhere they could find an empty space. They would then make the font color the same as the background… so you wouldn’t see the words with the natural eye, but the crawlers would still pick up the words,which would boost that page’s Google page rank.

So why did I choose to write about hurting your Google Page Rank with duplicate colors when people know not to use this little trick any more…

Because there is a another side to it… a downside.

Sometimes these spiders have been known to penalize pages by mistake. Let me explain.

You could have your blog background a certain color, then place the same color text within your blog post. What the spider will note is that the background and text colors are the same and assume you’re using the hidden text trick.

There are many times we want to draw attention to some of what we write by using bold, underlines, italics, colors, and more. One way to protect your Google page rank and avoid the risk of an unwarranted penalty is to make sure that you never use text within your blog post that’s the same color as your background. Yes, it my be nice to look at, but could cost you dearly.

Again, I realize that this is a very ‘old hat’ method that people don’t use any more. What I want to prevent is new bloggers coming across this type of information from a post they’ve found on an older blog and think that it’s relevant today. It is not, so please… don’t even consider it.

In Part 3, I’ll cover another important aspect of protecting your Google page rank that you should be aware of.

To make sure you don’t miss this 4-part series of how to protect your Google Page Rank, be sure to subscribe to my RSS Feed.

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What is a Google Scholar and why should you be one?

Oct 112011
 

Google Scholar
You’re well on your way to becoming a blog pro, but what about becoming a Google Scholar in the process…?

It’s no secret that blogs and websites that make it to the first page of Google for their selected keywords do extremely well. This means that your blog is seen by Google as one of the to 10 sites on that topic… which means tons of traffic to your site.

One way to maximize your exposure is to learn as much as you can about how to take advantage of all that Google has to offer. Yes, in other words, become a Google Scholar. Maybe not in the sense that the “official” Google Scholars are studying, but nonetheless… learning all you can helps you to become a scholar in that field, thus… you’re becoming an “unofficial” Google Scholar!

Now, I won’t even try to attempt to teach you how to become a Google Scholar in this post. First of all, that would be impossible. Secondly… I’m not a Google Scholar myself! But there are some things that I can share with you that could certainly help your efforts.

First Steps to becoming a Google Scholar.

1. Before you start to write your blog post, take the time to do a little bit of keyword research using the tools that Google provides. There are also some other great keyword tools outside of Google that work great. Just do a little research to find one that you like. A Google Scholar will look for a good keyword or keyword phrase where the competition isn’t too high.When you write your blog posts with the best keywords, it will maximize the exposure of your blog and get you a ton of people visiting every day. And by the way… if you don’t have a Google account already, sign up for one. It’s free. Just visit http://google.com and get your account started.

2. A Google Scholar will learn to create and publish a keyword rich blog post. A good word count is a minimum of 525 words… give or take a few. And here’s a tip that I never followed when I first started blogging… When you write your posts, also be sure to add an image and make it clickable and trackable so that it leads to a lead capture page. (I’ve got some “catch-up” work to do.) To track your links you can use the Google url builder, or bit.ly. A Google Scholar will always include their keywords in the Blog Title, tags, and headings. If your WordPress theme doesn’t provide a place for these, be sure to install the All In One SEO Pack plugin to your blog. If you’re not sure how to do this, sign up for my FREE “How To Blog 101″ tutorials.

3.  Submit your blog post to top article directories. It’s a lot faster if you use an article submission tool. These tools will help to automate the submission process and save you a lot of time. In the resource box, be sure to include a trackable link that will point your readers back to your blog or to a lead capture page.

4. Set up a free account at Posterous, then copy and paste your blog post. Be sure to keep all of the links within the blog post in tact. To get your account, visit http://posterous.com and set up as many services as you can. Remember to include the trackable links in the blog post image and the call to action.

5. If you’re not a member of Better Networker, sign up for a free account and submit all of your posts there, as well… again, keeping all of your trackable links in tact. And don’t forget your call to action!

6. Grab your article link from Better Networker and post it to Posterous. When you post the link in Posterous, give it a title that’s similar to the post in BetterNetworker, but not exactly the same, and include your keyword or keyword phrase. This next step is important: Write an informative sentence in Posterous that goes something like this: “Check out this great article from BetterNetworker on Why You Should Become a Google Scholar”. Make a hyper-link from the phrase “Google Scholar back to the article in Better Networker.

7.  Become a Real Google Scholar with with Facebook. One thing you want to do for you blog is create good backlinks. This will help to strengthen your rankings on Google. You want to submit both your original blog post and your Betternetworker post to your Facebook page. Then add both posts to at least 5 groups specific to your niche.

I know this may seem like a lot of work, but it’s all part of becoming a Google Scholar.

If you follow these simple steps every time you write a new post on your blog, you’ll eventually start to see that you’re grabbing some of those top spots on Google.

Now you’re driving more traffic to your site and capturing more leads for your business. Bottom line… more money in you pocket–and that’s what you want, right? Then take the time to do this faithfully and you’re well on your way to becoming a true Google Scholar!

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Finding Targeted Traffic for Your Blog

Oct 012011
 

Targeted Traffic
Are you sure what “targeted traffic” means?

It’s very simple. When you have targeted traffic, you’ll have people visiting your website that actually want more information about your topic. This of course, means more sales, which is exactly what you want. You need targeted traffic and not just robots visiting your site in order to keep it profitable and out of the website graveyard.

So, let’s take a look at what can happen for your site (ultimately… you) when you take the time to get the right traffic… targeted traffic… to your website.

1. More Paying Customers

This is usually the main purpose behind most blogs… at least the one’s that are related to a business. Think about a barber shop for a moment. If no one shows up to get their hair cut, the shop is closed, and will soon go out of business.

2.  More Backlinks

If you don’t know it yet, the more sites that are linked into your blog, the better you’ll do in the search engines. When you do well in the search engines, you’ll see more of the right kind of traffic… again, targeted traffic showing up at your blog’s door step.

3.  Free Advertising

As your page starts to get better rankings, especially if there is a consistent climb, the search engines will notice. Getting to the first page of the most popular search engines can do wonders for your blog. It means more exposure to more people who are looking for what you have.

But here’s the important part. You never want your site to get good rankings just because of robots crawling through it and noticing how great it is. Now, don’t get confused here. Yes… you do want the crawlers, but more than that, you want real people, the one’s who will do business with you, to be where most of your traffic is coming from. Always keep in mind. Robots and crawlers don’t write checks… people do.

So, while some people think there’s some great “secret” behind success on the internet, it’s not. It’s actually very simple. Ready for it?

For continued targeted traffic, you need good blog design!

For continued targeted traffic, you need good blog content!

Another important point.

Never get to the place where you feel that your blog is finally complete. The best blogs and websites out there are never completely finished. You want your blog to continue to “live” “breathe” and “grow” as the topic that it covers continues to change.

You want to keep your content current and up-to-date always. No one wants to read last year’s news every time they come to your blog. And believe it or not… neither do the robots.

Keep in mind that your competition will always have the most current information. If you intend to compete… and win… when it comes to getting the most targeted traffic, you really do have to keep up with (or surpass) the Joneses.

Don’t let your site go to sleep for more than a few days at a time.

When it starts to gather dust, people will skip right by and go to the one with the nice shiny new objects.

So, it’s very simple.

Whatever your blog is about, keep your information irresistible, and keep your audience wanting to come back for more.

Keeping targeted traffic coming to your blog can be easy when you follow these simple rules.

If you have some ideas on how to keep targeted traffic coming to your blog, we’d love to hear about it, so please comment and share!

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