There are many Internet search engines available for people to use. However, it is the Google search engine that revolutionized the way that we search for things online. It is also the search engine that websites and businesses live and die with. Being among the top of the Google search ranking for a given subject or keyword can mean an extraordinary amount of unique visitors for a particular website. On the other hand, being buried on the 20th page of search results can result in the failing of a website or business. In the Internet age we are living in, Google is just that important.

Traditional SEO

Getting to the top of the search results and staying there takes a lot of work. Google wants to be certain that the websites it presents in its search results are legitimate and do not represent a problem to the public. They also try to steer away from websites that have business practices that Google believes to be shady. This leads us to the subject of spam.

We hear about spam every day we are online. Our email accounts even have special spam folders to capture and dispose of all the spam emails that we receive. Needless to say, spam remains a huge problem all over the Internet. Google is not taking the issue of spam lying down. In fact, they have made it a mission to punish websites who engage in spamming on a regular basis. Perhaps you run a website and you have received a Google Webmaster email that says your website has been issued a “manual spam penalty for having “pure spam.” Google considers pure spam sites to be the ones they believe have performed the spam infractions that are the most egregious.

Making Google’s S#!% List

So what exactly is pure spam and does Google give any clear definition as to what it considers to be spam? After all, there is no way you can try to fix the problem and comply with Google unless you know what exactly the problem is. If Google sends you a Webmaster email regarding a “manual action” being implied to your site, you need to carefully read the email. There are specific words that they use in their emails. It is important to know exactly what they mean so you can take steps to fix the problem that Google has with your site.

It is hard to recover from Google penalties of any kind, especially a severe penalty such as the removal of your homepage. If you run a website that has been engaged in spamming for a long period of time, and you are currently trying to change your practices and get Google to accept your site again, you have a difficult road ahead of you. You will certainly have more trouble than a site that is guilty of only a few spamming infractions. Sites that have a long history of spamming will not be able to get back into the search results for Google very easily.

Google has been forced to get tough with a lot of sites that continue to spam despite being penalized by Google in the past. In certain cases, the standard method of removing the site’s links has not been an effective enough deterrent to get a website to stop its spamming practices. Enough websites were not slowing their spamming that it made Google realize that it had to up the ante as far as penalizing these sites is concerned. Google has defined the targeted sites as “those sites that display a long-standing practice of delivering mass and deliberate spam.”

Recovery

These sites naturally want to know if there is a possibility of ever getting this huge penalty lifted. While it is possible, if a site has been spamming long enough and in a high enough volume, undoing that amount of spam could be a tough task. In many cases, certain sites have created such a horrible reputation for themselves, and have become so deeply entrenched into the world of spam that it is virtually impossible to get themselves back to respectability and to get Google to lift their penalty.

In some cases, a site has a reputation that is so tarnished and beyond repair that the best thing to do is to shut down the site and start again with a new website that does not have all of the spam baggage associated with it. While it is never a decision that any website owner should make lightly, this is occasionally the best move for all parties involved. It is just a matter of determining if the damage that has already been done can be corrected enough to the point where Google is willing to forgive you and lift the penalty.

Bad Neighbors

Even with Google laying down the law and severely penalizing websites that have been spammed for a long time, you can be sure that sites will continue to do it, knowing full well the risk they are taking. The reason for this is because these sites believe that spamming is what they need to do in order for their site to rank in the search results. Sites that peddle gambling, prescription drugs and payday loans have been at the focal point of spamming for many years. None of these industries shows any signs of curtailing their spamming activities.

Google has also recently confirmed a key piece of information that a large number of webmasters, especially those who spam on a regular basis, have suspected for a very long time. Google stated that a website known for spamming has the ability to contaminate various sites that contain the identical company information and address. Along with this, Google looks into other less known factors to figure out the validity of various sites that are known to be on the shady side. Google is on the lookout for multiple businesses that operate from the identical address. This does not necessarily mean that shady activities are going on, but Google considers it a red flag that causes them to investigate the site further. It could also be one of the reasons that Google eventually decides to penalize a specific site. Payday loan sites are directly in Google’s crosshairs because of their long history of spamming and unethical business practices.

Minimizing Risks

There are some important things that webmasters can do to minimize the penalties and headaches they may face as a result of being targeted by Google. For example, if a webmaster is having problems with spam warnings relating to a specific site, they should immediately separate any other sites they own that are related to the site that is having the problems. This should include such items as WHOIS information, contact information and any affiliate codes that happen to match. This will eliminate any possible “guilt by association” scenarios.

If you submit a request to Google to have your penalty reconsidered and you either get a negative reply or none at all, you should not give up. Consider hiring a professional who has experience with this sort of issue to help you determine what exactly the problem is. If you keep submitting your request to Google without fixing the problem, they may eventually start to ignore you. This is a situation you want to avoid at all costs.

Now, when looking at algorithm updates, a lot of people fear their site will fall off the top pages of Google. This was the case in the past as many site owners would use techniques Google and other search engines did not take kindly to. In the past, site owners would routinely buy hundreds of low quality links, post bad content and copy it from other sources. In response, Google knocked these sites out of oblivion and left many site owners wondering what’s next. However, if you are a small business owner, you should realize the last Panda update was not harsh and it actually, in the long run, probably helped you. Here are five reasons why this is the case.

Real content

Above all else, if you are a business owner, you will provide real content. A company will need to make a website with multiple pages from contact us to product description pages. Not only that, many entrepreneurs use a blog as a way to communicate with people from all over the world. On the other hand, people who want to run a spam site or one to make money from advertisements often put up repetitive and uninteresting content written by software programs. For this reason alone, if you are an entrepreneur, you should not worry too much about this as you will already have your own unique and interesting content. To take this further, if you are a small business owner, it is wise to double-check that all content is unique. At the same time, this is a good time for you to read all your Web pages and make sure you took the time to write amazing, unique and interesting content that will convert visitors. Without a doubt, when you do this with care, you will not feel the effects of Panda or any other update. In fact, when updates occur, you will be the first to benefit as your site will fly by all the other ones with spam.

Links

If you run an established and well-liked business, you will, inevitably, enjoy plenty of free website links from others. When you run a business, over time, people will link back to your site when they enjoy your product or service. Other times, if you have been around long enough, you will not even have to worry about your linking campaign. This is true for large companies with a huge following. Sadly, in a bid to rise to the top, some foolish site owners would head to online message boards and other sites looking for answers. When doing so, many end up finding links and buying them from third-party providers. While this worked for a while, it will not work now. Luckily, as mentioned, a serious business owner with a viable and well-liked organization will have no trouble getting links without spending a dime. With this, he or she will rise in the rankings as it is easy to do so when one obtains high quality links over a long period. This is in stark contrast when compared with buying hundreds of links overnight and trying to game the system. With this, you may beat Google and your competition for a few months, but you are one algorithm update away from a huge drop in your organic search rankings.

Other factors

Without a doubt, when looking at your SEO rankings, you will notice some things help more than others. In the past, a lot of people who wanted to make a quick buck would build and design a site and use certain methods to rise to the top. By overusing keywords and getting a lot of links, some site owners landed on page one without effort. As mentioned, times have changed drastically, and a small business owner should embrace, rather than fear, this change. Now, when looking at your site and deciding your rankings, Google will look at a lot more than links and content. Instead, when deciding where to place your site, Google will look at your local and social media metrics. With this, it is hard for you to fake it and rise to the top. This is great news if you are a hardworking business owner who wants to make money and convert your website visitors into users. On the other hand, if you are trying to make fast cash with a website full of spam, you will have trouble. Simply put, now more than ever, Google looks at other metrics that favor an established business owner with a large following.

Slow and steady

By now, if you understand SEO and the recent and past updates, you should know that slow and steady will always win the race. For this reason, if you are a small business owner, you should concentrate on running your business and providing quality service to your existing clients. With this in mind, when it comes to your online marketing and SEO strategy, you should take it easy and make changes slowly. Google will notice when a website suddenly has dozens of links or a bunch of new content. When noticing this, Google will punish the site as it is unnatural for a person to get hundreds of links or followers on Facebook overnight. In fact, this will, realistically, only punish a person who wants to game the system. Remember, if you have a slow approach and take time to ramp up your online marketing and website strategies, you will not have to fear the wrath of panda.

Age

When looking at a site full of spam that somehow reached the top page, you will usually notice the site is not old. On the other hand, when you notice a site sitting on the top page for a long time, you will see that it is established. Think about it, if you own a site for a long time and offer value, you should not worry about recent and future updates. Instead, if you keep doing your work, you will succeed. For this reason alone, if you have an older domain and an established website, you should not fear any future updates. Instead, a site owner with an established business should continue his or her ways. On the other hand, a person who wants to game the system with a brand new site will face an uphill battle and is unlikely to win in the long-term.

A small business owner with a serious and well-thought-out plan should not fear the wrath of Google. No, instead, if you run a great site offering value to your visitors, you will have no problems. This is the case for many people who noticed their sites unaffected by recent updates. In fact, when the next algorithm updates happen, you will, provided you write quality content and have great links from relevant sources, pass up the other sites full of spam. For this reason, if you run a company and fear the next update, you should take a proactive approach as you will end up in a better position in the long run. Remember, algorithm updates are not out to punish honest companies that provide a great product. They are out to get people who try to game the system with spam.

The trend in long-tail keyword use in marketing strategy is largely the result of cost efficiency in advertising. Used as a cost conversion mechanism in search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) online advertising campaign, long-tail keywords reduce cost-per-click while increasing the number of click-through observations. By increasing the rate and quality of SEO and PPC response, long-tail keywords have been the subject of Web search engine providers like Google, as those companies attempt to improve long query proficiency.

The Power of Long-Tail Keyword Advertising

The concept of virtual crowd marketing establishes consumer equity at point of search engine keyword classification. Long-tail keywords from natural language searches online offer key insights into advertising conversion. When visitors observe SEO or PPC advertising spots, the decision to ‘click-through’ to a company website is a discerned one. If conversion of visitors to customers offers the rationale to strategic advertising placement, keyword precision is critical.

Long-tail keywords create a record of natural language searches leading to advertising engagement. Popular for building crowds of customers, long-tail keywords go viral more than any other keyword language taxonomy. Peer-to-peer sharing of a brand, its advertising, and website marketing collateral is more likely in response to long-tail keyword searches. Named after statistical long-tail distributions, the probability that long-tail keyword searches will increase the magnitude of advertising ‘click-through’ frequency is high.

Gaining popularity in the past several years, long-tail keyword advertising is especially agile in its ability to sell a volume of unique items, all under the same name brand. For instance, long-tail keyword advertising strategy is use by online retailer aggregators such as Amazon.com, and Yahoo.com to sell a range of warehoused, and third party goods.

Compatible with operations strategies designed to reduce distribution and inventory costs, long-tail keyword searches capture the most precise advertised item per search engine query. Companies can use reporting on long-tail keyword searches to control inventory and cut logistics costs according to the power law distribution or Pareto distribution theories.

Perfect for application in channel marketing strategies online, long-tail keyword placement allows for flexibility after an advertising campaign goes live. An apt method of creating modular campaign design in businesses where advertising is limited to a niche segment or where product lifecycle is abbreviated, long-tail keyword strategies allow advertisers to leverage user-driven innovation, social network analytics, and multi-scale marketing components in development of an online advertising campaign.

Long-Tail Keyword Strategies

The integration of long-tail keyword strategies in PPC advertising campaigns increases competitive advantage in niche markets. Designating channel advertising placement in niche segments of a market allows a business to target customers precisely where competitors are not. Equally, ratio of quality to cost can may influence the decision to incorporate long-tail keywords in a campaign.

The most efficient and effective keyword strategy for SEO and PPC advertising, long-tail keywords are the highest caliber search results, as the inquirer has added precision to the query. Long-tail keyword strategies are higher return on investment in marketing. With visitor volume expected to be low, on demand ‘click’ through payments structured by SEO and PPC advertising hosts add value to conversion.

Online marketing studies show that long-tail keywords are responsible for upwards of 80% of visitor conversion in a SEO or PPC advertising campaign. The fact that cost-per-lead is far less than average makes long-tail keyword marketing well-suited to market entry in competitive segments.

The ‘5’ Most Effective Long-tail Keyword Strategies

Expand market reach and advance conversion by following the five ‘5’ steps to long-tail keyword advertising strategy:

• 1. Query Reports

Prior to initiating a long-tail keyword strategy, the best method of building a taxonomy is by running an AdWords query report. Running a query on a recent AdWords campaign reports terms not already listed as part of a campaign. Using an existing Google AdWords account is the most expedient and reliable method of building a long-tail keyword list. Reflecting recent user observations, the Search Query Report offers important insights into aggregate response and keyword performance. Query results inform bidding as well. Comparison of competition levels for each keyword enables calibration of an ad campaign according to the highest performing keywords at a lower cost per conversion.

Competitor keyword reporting is critical for design-in of unique advertising content. The use of competitor keyword performance in a long-tail keyword strategy will assist in filling gaps in not covered by another similar advertiser. The benefit of tools like KeywordSpy, AdGooRoo and SpyFU, is that online advertising placement can be channeled to exceed competitor reach, or to generate traffic in segments where they are not. This also reduces cost of bidding. By identifying long-tail opportunities, advertisers can increase conversion and outperform competitors.

• 2. Keyword Localization

The localization of keywords increases foreign language syntax proficiency, as well as assists in the acknowledgement of demographic values. Appending keywords with location terms (i.e. country, state, region, city, town, zip or area code) AdWords Analytics reporting will provide metric reporting on ‘click-through’ traffic resulting from keywords searches. Include qualifying terms to add definition to localization information to maximize the reach of advertised product and service segmentation. Qualifiers used in long-tail natural language searches add new keywords to those results. Supplement keywords with add-ons and commonly used descriptive terms (i.e. color, style, model, type) to structure search syntax more narrowly.

• 3. Website Search Engine Record

Reported data from a website’s search box can add further information about what visitors are searching for. Google’s Custom Site Search box is a popular tool used in long-tail keyword queries. Investigation of a website’s search box often reveals unique information not accessible on a third party site. Review searches for terminology related to products, phrases, and map directions. Reporting of exact data from a website search box adds knowledge to a long-tail keyword strategy.

• 4. Search Engine Referral Traffic

Secondary referral traffic to your website offers another compendium of long-term keyword data. Indices of organic search referral traffic identify which keywords were searched immediately prior to y arrival at a website. Although some of this traffic will be categorized as “Unknown Keywords – SSL”, the benefit to secondary search engine data is that it serves as a simple random sample of a global population of potential consumers.

Much like a snowball sample designed to capture objective response from a large general population of unknown users, search engine referral traffic data offers a natural solution to this concept, generating data about long-tail keyword searches. Tools like HubSpot’s Sources Tool and SEOMoz report on secondary search engine referral traffic, including long-tail keyword search phrases. Analysis of volume of searches redirected to your site increases the chance that the long-tail keywords selected for an online advertising campaign will optimize marketing return on investment.

• 5. Cloud Content

Third party virtualization services can also be used to gather information about search engine content from a website. Cloud aggregation of website traffic data is continuous. Advertisers can source details about website performance at anytime from storage. Cloud-based visualization capabilities optimize long-tail keyword search data in graphical illustration. Reporting of visitor frequencies, as well as trend analyses of long-tail keyword searches from website traffic data found on a cloud, can be used by marketing specialists in creation of an online advertising campaign.

Thanks to the nearly universal prevalence of the Internet, it seems like everyone and their cousin has a blog, website, or other foothold in cyberspace. Some people use their websites and blogs for fun, others sell stuff, while a rare few actually use their blogs, websites, YouTube channels, and so on to actively influence the world around them. Whatever form or incarnation a person’s web presence might take or the motivation behind its maintenance, though, traffic is the one thing everyone has in common. Everyone needs it, everyone wants it, and in most cases, the majority of users can carve out their own little group of visitors and fans. Here’s the thing about traffic, though: Getting people to visit a website isn’t the hard part. Anyone with enough time and/or money can get some web traffic to their blog, YouTube channel, or what have you. No, the hard part is keeping the traffic once it’s there. The denizens of the Internet are a fickle, flighty lot, and anyone who wishes to attract and retain their allegiance must first gain their attention. Fail in that regard, and there’s only one outcome: The dreaded “bounce”.

Read on to learn what the bounce / bounce rate is, and more importantly, a simple little trick anyone can use to decrease this most unwelcome of analytical metrics.

Bounce Rates: What’s it All About, Anyway?

Before going any further, it’s imperative to understand what the phenomenon commonly known as “the bounce” actually is, as well as what a website’s bounce rate indicates. On the Internet or off of it, knowledge is power, and only those admins and site runners with a firm grasp of these metrics and their consequences can hope to better their situations.

Quite simply, “bounces” are single-serving visitors to a website. They show up, view a single page or piece of content, and then vanish, often forever and without a trace. If you take the total traffic to a website and you parse out this element, that’s your bounce rate. Put another way, if 100 people visit your site, and eighty of them look at more than one page / one thing while five of them bounce according to the above definition, then you, which is to say, your website, have a twenty percent bounce rate.

As you might imagine, the longer a person stays on a particular site, the more interested, engaged, and invested they are in that site. The inverse is also true; a higher bounce rate can mean your site is broken, confusing, or simply boring. Of course, traffic quality can also play a part in a site’s overall bounce rate, as can a variety of other factors. Whatever the reason or problem, the most important question isn’t how to cure the symptom, but how to cure the disease.

How does one lower an unacceptable bounce rate? Simple – withdraw your visitors’ ability to ever bounce in the first place!

Setting Blank Targets, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Share My Traffic

There are plenty of methods to reduce one’s overall bounce rate, and a wise site owner / admin will use as many of them as he or she can. Make sure your website’s design and interface are pleasing and user-friendly. Make sure you have interesting content. Keep your traffic targeted to the purpose/theme of your website, and if you market to them, do it at a whisper, not through a megaphone. All of those things take time and skill to implement, at least to some degree. One of the easiest bounce-reducers, however, is the setting of blank targets. All it takes is a snippet of HTML code (the techie language that makes the whole Internet run), and voilà – watch your bounce rate drop like a stone.

Here’s how it works:

Setting a blank target is simply an instruction to your computer, or more specifically, to your Internet browser, to open external links – that is, links which point to sites or web pages that aren’t your own – in new windows. This will show your visitors the content they’ve requested, but unlike those who don’t set blank targets, it will also keep your own site open. This greatly increases the likelihood that these users will come back and visit your site after they’re done with whatever the other content is. Not only that, but blank targets mean you’re sharing your traffic with other sites instead of simply handing it over without a fight.

The setting of blank external targets is especially useful in the blogging community, which tends to be tight-knit and familial. If you share your traffic by linking to someone else’s interesting, funny, or otherwise worthwhile content, the chances are good that the favor will be returned. Setting blank targets for your external links is, in other words, a win-win situation for everyone. Your users are happy because they get to see the content they enjoy, the individual site owner – that’s you, dear reader! – are happy because their site(s) remain(s) open and available for further viewing (leading to reductions in the overall bounce rate), and one’s fellow site-runners are happy because the traffic everyone wants and needs is being shared rather than hoarded. Put another way, external targeting is a tide which raises all boats, as the old saying goes.

Dude, Where’s My Code?

Here’s the only code anyone needs to set external blank targets. The part that actually opens the new window is in ALL CAPS, but this is for illustrative purposes, not out of necessity. At any rate, the code is below:

<a href=”#” target=”_blank”>Link</a>

This code will, as previously stated, open the linked URL / Web address in a new window while keeping one’s own site open for visitors to come back to later. On that note, it’s time to discuss what not to do with this code.

Blank Targets: How Not to Misfire

If there’s one thing you should never do with this sort of link structure, it is to use it on the internal pages of a website you actually own or run. Why? Because no one likes pop-ups. If a visitor to a certain site gets bombarded with a new window or tab each time they click a link, they will quickly grow angry and resentful. Such feelings will almost certainly cause them to leave soon thereafter. Improper use of external targeting isn’t just a recipe for a significant drop in traffic and the site’s overall reputation, though – it’s also a surefire way to shoot a site’s bounce rate through the roof.

Fortunately, the solution to this grim scenario is an easy one: Keep blank targets set to external links only!

Conclusion

The prudent management of website traffic is a crucial skill for anyone who hopes to make a lasting impression on the Internet. Happily, this guide is the ideal tool for anyone, be they novice or veteran, who wishes to sharply reduce their overall bounces / bounce rate, increase their visitors’ satisfaction levels, and generally enhance the quality of their web properties and the value of their web presence. Happy coding!

More than ever, content matters, and having the right content on your websites is essential for ranking well in the search engines. In addition, great writing has a number of side benefits that can help improve visitor engagement and tertiary search engine metrics. However, most website operators are not great writers, and even those who are generally have better ways to spend their time. In order to succeed in the search engines, you’ll likely need to hire a freelance writer.

Freelance writers create the content on your website, and there a number of ways to use what they write to help your website rank better. In addition, hiring a freelance writers lets you know that you’ll have someone who is ready to create content when you need it. However, you’ll want to make sure you hire the best freelance writer for your needs. Here are a few tips to consider when looking for freelance writers and great website content.

Why Writing Matters

In the past, Google and the other search engines generally ranked websites based on off-site activity. Links to your website would help it grow, and anchor text could have a profound effect. In recent years, however, Google has developed sophisticated algorithms that help it determine if a website is one that visitors will enjoy. Since Google depends on delivering great results, their algorithms must be able to avoid recommending spammy, uninformative pages. One of the ways they do this is by algorithmically determining if the content on your website is well written.

Nobody knows exactly what goes into the algorithm as its contents are guarded closely, but most experts believe that the writing is checking for spelling errors and even basic grammar. There are a number of formulas that have been developed over the years to determine if writing is readable or not, and most believe that Google uses similar techniques. These days, fooling Google is all but impossible; you need good content that is written well.

What do Freelancers do?

The writing field is notoriously difficult, and many writers don’t have full-time employment. As a result, many depend on freelance writing for part- or full-time income. The Internet has increased demand for freelance writers in recent years, and many perform most of their work online. Website operators looking for writers will find plenty to choose from.

Freelance writers with web experience understand the importance of keywords, and they know how to perform necessary research to ensure that the content they deliver is accurate and reliable. While not all writers have the same skills, most take their jobs seriously and are able to perform great work on a consistent basis. By building a relationship with freelance writers and giving them regular work, you can stock your website with content the search engines will love.

Finding a Freelancer

Fortunately, there are a number of ways to find freelance writers online. Writers will often post on Craigslist, and some also work through third-party websites. These websites allow you to place orders at competitive prices and read the work before choosing to accept it or not. These third-party websites have a variety of different ways to facilitate the workflow, so look around to find which works best for your needs.

Many of these websites also allow you to place orders directly with writers you like best. Even though there is a charge for this service, the final prices are competitive. These websites are also great for those who want content created from different voices, and they allow you to diversify your writing without having to reach out to individual writers. For most, third-party writing websites are a smart choice.

Keeping Your Writers Happy

Great freelance writers often have more job offers than time, so they can often afford to be selective. Because of this, offering significantly less than the writer usually charges will often fail. That said, if you feel that your content should be easy to produce, you may want to see if you can negotiate a discounted rate. Similarly, freelance writers enjoy regular work, and they may offer discounts if you promise to deliver work to them on a regular basis.

One of the top complaints that comes from freelance writers is payment difficulties. The writers you hire depend on prompt payment to pay their bills, so make sure to follow through on promises. Many will also demand half of the final bill upfront, so be prepared to put down a bit of money. Great content is worth paying for, and a happy writer will often go the extra mile to keep you coming back to them in the future.

Hiring an Individual Writer

When hiring an individual writer, it’s important to determine when you’ll deliver work, what you expect and how they will be paid. Be upfront, and try to give your writer examples of the kind of work you need. It’s often best to start with a small order that you can read through their work and determine if the produced content meets your needs. Don’t ask for samples longer than a few hundred words as some website operators use this as a scam to get free work.

Freelance writers generally have portfolios, so ask to see examples of previous work before you hire a writer. There is no universal online test for determining how good a writer is, and you’ll have to use your own judgment before hiring someone. Different writers have different styles, and you’ll want to know that the tone and style they use matches your website.

Using Content

Your main website needs great content, so hire a writer if your content could be better. If you aren’t sure how good the content on your main website is, ask a freelance writer to edit it for you. Even small mistakes can hurt your website in the search engine rankings, and potential customers and clients will find misspelling and basic grammar errors to be signs of poor professionalism. Many websites suffer from basic structural issues; freelance writers can help.

You’ll also need content for your blogs and supporting websites, and you’ll want great content for your social media properties. Freelance writers can help you meet all of these goals, so hire a writer with experience writing for different types of platforms. Doing so can allow you to focus on SEO and advertising campaigns while still having great content delivered for your website.

In the past, it was sometimes possible to get mediocre websites to rank well. These days, doing so is nearly impossible, and Google will eventually sniff out any shortcomings eventually. By focusing on creating great content and hiring great freelance writers, you can separate your website for the competition and see long-term, durable results.

In addition, succeeding on today’s web requires regular updates, and most website operators lack the time or expertise needed to continually create top-notch content. Freelance writers depend on their writing for their livelihood, and their experience can help you succeed online. While they aren’t cheap, the service they provide is worth what they charge, and hiring a freelance writer can be the difference between a website that languishes near the bottom and one that climbs to the top of the rankings.

Many small business owners have built a website, and a large percentage of them have a blog on their website. However, a lot of business owners want to know how often they should be posting to their blog.

There are several reasons why business owners might want to know the answer to this question. One reason to keep a blog fresh is because the major search engines reward fresh content.

Another reason why a business owner might want to know how often to update their blog is because they want to keep new and existing customers satisfied. Fortunately, the answer to this question can be quite vague.

Posting one time per week

A lot of businesses are posting to their blog once every week. Every week, they create a new blog post and add it to their website blog. Small businesses have been doing this for quite some time, and for most of them, it appears to be working quite well.

Why post once per week?

There are several reasons why once per week seems to be the magic solution. One of the main reasons why this works very well is because it’s beneficial for maintaining customer relationships. It’s useful to view a blog as a courtesy call, and this call is sent to all of your profitable, important customers.

When a business owner releases a new blog post, he or she makes sure that the customer is thinking about their business. By posting a new blog post every week, business owners are actually strengthening their relationship with their customers.

Aside from strengthening existing relationships, a weekly blog post will also create a rhythm for the relationship that exists between customers and business owners. In many cases, it almost becomes a ritual. Customers will start to look forward to the weekly blog post, so they will check back at least once per week.

By creating a weekly blog post, the website owner is able to provide useful updates and information to his or her readers. Although this article is primarily for business owners, any website owner can benefit from a weekly posting schedule.

Get a feel for content

By posting at least once every week, website owners create a useful skill. When business owners force themselves to post every week, they’re building a valuable skill, and this skill enables them to constantly think about how they can provide more value to their customers. The new skill gives business owners a competitive advantage.

What weekly blog posts do

There are many benefits of doing weekly blog posts. Such a post can be used to set specific buying criteria. Website and business owners can use a weekly blog post to establish true credibility and authority. They can use weekly posts to explain why customer service is so important.

For search engines

Website and business owners want to keep the search engines happy. A lot of blogs receive the bulk of their traffic from the major search engines, so it only makes sense to want to keep the search engines happy.

It’s nearly impossible to find any conclusive studies that show a specific posting frequency significantly impacts search engine rankings. However, that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to start posting once per month. Search engines love fresh content, which is why they encourage website owners to update their blog frequently.

However, many people find it interesting that search engines look more closely at writing style than posting frequency. It couldn’t hurt to add new blog posts frequently. From an SEO perspective, there are several benefits to frequently updating a blog. Google absolutely loves fresh content.

By posting at least once per week, website and business owners can keep the search engine spiders coming back frequently. If the search engine spiders are frequently visiting your blog, then they will quickly index your new content.

It’s pretty obvious that content is what drives search engine traffic, so by posting to their blog regularly, website and business owners can increase their search engine traffic. Currently, many people have an infrequent posting schedule.

They might add one post to their blog and wait several weeks before adding more content. Even if you only post one new blog post per week, it’s best to maintain a consistent schedule because it will keep the search engines happy.

It’s great for sharing

There is something that webmasters can learn from the NBA. Basketball has a handful of top scorers, and there is a specific reason why these individuals score more often than most other players.

Put simply, it’s the players who take the most shots who score more than the rest of the players. This is also true for baseball players. Statistics show that the top-scoring baseball players also have the highest number of strikeouts.

Every new blog post gives webmasters the ability to score more points, but in the case of websites, points would be considered traffic. By posting a new blog post every week, website and business owners create more opportunities for their content to be shared, which increases online visibility.

What about every other week?

Many webmasters would like to post once every other week. Although they can post as often as they want, it’s almost pointless to post less than once per week.

A small group of individuals say they do just fine posting once per month, and while it might be working for them, posting once per week seems to be much more effective. If you imagine the main blogs that you visit, then you will probably realize that these blogs are updated every week. There are several other reasons why it’s important to avoid posting less than once per week.

Frequent blogging helps grow business

When you blog often, you’re effectively growing your business. Many studies show that frequent blogging has a significant impact on business growth. Frequent blogging attracts more leads and traffic, and there is plenty of data to back this up.

On average, updating a blog once per week provides double the amount of traffic than blogging less frequently. Studies also show that companies that blog more than 15 times every month can have as much as five times more traffic than companies that don’t.

Small business owners have the most to gain from blogging regularly. By posting at least eight times a month, companies can significantly increase their sales.

What is most important

Some people cannot post more than once every two weeks. What is really important is creating a posting schedule and sticking to it. Consistency is extremely important. At the end of the day, there is no magical posting frequency.

Since every situation is unique, the answer to this question is different for everyone. However, it’s best to post at least once per week. This is the frequency that seems to produce the best results for webmasters and business owners.

If it’s possible for you to post more often than once per week, then you should strive to do so, but it’s crucial to maintain a consistent level of quality. It makes no sense to post once per week if all of the posts provide almost no value.

Twitter is arguably the most popular and powerful social media platform of the day. Promoting your product or service on Twitter is essential in 2014, particularly if your target demographic is the 30-and-under group. Consumers expect to see relevant businesses successfully utilizing the platform to promote their brands.

Twitter now offers advertisers several options for promoting their brands on the platform. Promoted tweets, trends and accounts offer advertisers a wide range of opportunities for raising the profile of their products and services on the Twitter platform.

Promoted trends and tweets can display in the timelines of users who are targeted using several methods. Ads may be targeted to users who search for a specific term or hashtag. Ads can also be targeted to users based on cookie data stored in their browsers. For example, if a Twitter user visited a particular brand site that saved cookies in his browser, advertising software can be configured to respond to the user’s past visit to the brand’s site with a targeted tweet for the brand on Twitter.

Promoted Tweets

The most basic form of paid advertising on Twitter is the Promoted Tweet. A promoted tweet is targeted to one or more audiences, and the post is highlighted in users’ timelines. Promoted tweets can appear in users’ timelines as the result of searching for a particular hashtag or search term, or the ads can appear in timelines of users identified as being a member of a targeted demographic. Users do not need to follow the brand account to receive paid tweets in their timelines.

Cost-Per-Engagement

Twitter utilizes a cost-per-engagement price structure to charge for promoted tweets. Advertisers are only charged when users interact with the post. In other words, the advertiser only pays for the ad if users click on the post, reply to, favorite or retweet the post.

User Privacy

Promoted tweets appear at the top of users’ timelines when the page refreshes to accommodate new tweets. The “Dismiss” icon appears next to a promoted tweet so that users have the option to delete the tweets from view. Users can also completely disable promoted tweets by deactivating the option in their Twitter settings. Additionally, the Twitter platform supports the Do Not Track (DNT) feature, so users who have configured their browsers for DNT will not see tweets based on their saved cookie data.

Promoted Trends

Promoted trends are sponsored hashtagged topics that advertisers can purchase to expand their reach on the platform. Promoted trends display at the top of users’ Trends list on their timeline pages. The word “Promoted” displays next to the tagged term. When the user clicks on the hyperlinked term, a search results page with tweets tagged with the promoted tag opens. The user can then save the search by clicking the “Save” option in the upper right corner of the search results page.

Analytics

Twitter provides a unique dashboard for each promotion type. The dashboard provides the business user with analytic tools and performance indicators with which you can assess the performance of your campaigns.

Efficacy Comparison

Analysts report that tweets and trends targeted based on searches are more effective than tweets that display in users’ timelines. This assertion stands to reason because users who are actively searching for a certain topic will be more likely to respond to an ad promoting a brand relative to the topic they are researching. Note that targeted tweets based on searches receive considerably less exposure than those blasted to timelines of the target audience.

Promoted Accounts

Marketers can also advertise with promoted Twitter accounts. Promoted accounts are devoted entirely to a brand, and can be timeline-based or configured to respond to user searches, as well. Additionally, promoted accounts display in users’ “People to Follow” lists. The main goal for many with promoted accounts is to build a follower base for the brand’s Twitter account. Research shows that users who follow brand accounts are much more likely to engage with the brand, both on the platform and in terms of product purchases. One study found that Twitter users who follow a brand are 72 percent more likely to purchase the brand, and 85 percent of users feel more connected with the brand when they follow the business on Twitter.

Followers

When advertisers promote a brand account on Twitter, the goal of most is to attract followers. Followers are important to a brand’s Twitter account for a few reasons. First of all, accounts with a large number of followers get noticed on the platform. Studies find that 73 percent of users who follow a brand account do so to obtain timely updates about the product or service. Sixty-one percent follow a brand in order to provide feedback and share ideas with the company.

Beyond Followers

Promoted accounts get noticed even by those who do not follow the brand. Thirty-four percent of users in one study interacted with a small to medium sized business based on seeing the business’ Twitter handle in an ad. Moreover, 32 percent indicated that they would be more likely to use the business or purchase the product as the result of seeing a paid tweet.

Reaching a Target Audience

Twitter now supports advertisers’ CRM contact lists for creating targeted audiences on the platform. Businesses working with Twitter ad partners can cross-reference email addresses from CRM systems with addresses associated with Twitter handles. Promoted tweets can then be created to display only to these high potential leads.

CRM

If your CRM system collects Twitter handles or IDs from leads and customers, advertisers can utilize publicly available information, such as users’ profiles, followers list and public timelines to create a targeted audience list.

Twitter Ad Partners

Twitter works with several companies to provide integrated ad services to businesses of any size. As of early 2014, Twitter’s ad partners include:

• – Adara
• – AdRoll
• – BlueKai
• – Chango
• – DataXu
• – Dstillery
• – Lotame
• – Quantcast
• – ValueClick
• – [x+1]

Getting Started

Twitter provides an online tool to help advertisers get started promoting their brands on the platform. Just open the Twitter Business Start Advertising page in a browser and answer a few questions. Create a business account, or add advertising functionality to your existing account, if prompted. Provide payment information. You must have a payment source on file in order to create your first campaign. Identify where your business is located, and then select a general monthly budget for your digital advertising campaigns.

Take advantage of Twitter creative partners and advertising consultants if you need assistance identifying your target audience and creating a campaign that will generate a significant ROI. You also have the option of exploring the well-documented processes for advertising on the platform, then moving at your own pace to create and conduct your campaigns. Remember that, with Promoted Tweets, your account is only charged when users interact with your ad. Explore the possibilities and get your brand known on this year’s hottest, most influential social media platform.

The general opinion of guest blogging has dropped in recent years due to the distressing trend of spam guest blogs. Many blogs that publish guest posts regularly find themselves assailed by webmasters attempting to pay for dofollow backlinks, a practice which is strongly discouraged by the search engine king of SEO, Google. Accepting such a guest post can put your blog at risk of a penalty from on high. Thankfully, there are a few rules you can follow to protect yourself against these sorts of spammers.

First, a note: guest blogging is swiftly becoming a poor SEO strategy. For several years, it was a valid strategy to gain powerful dofollow backlinks from authority sites. Now, with the rise of spam in the guest blog world, Google is likely to remove most of the benefit that comes from these links, even so far as levying penalties against the worst offenders. However, this does not mean that guest blogging is a bad thing. It simply means that you need to be careful about the links in your guest blogs. Guest blogging is still a valuable tool for networking, exposure, branding and community formation. With that in mind, feel free to accept guest posts, just be cautious about their content.

Rule #1: Scrutinize the Author

When an author offers to write a guest post for your blog, the first thing you should do is search their name and look up two things. First, look into their own personal blog or blogs. What sort of content do they publish? If their content looks in any way low quality, you can bet that the content they provide for your blog will be of similar quality. If their content is high quality — that is, something you would want to see on your own blog — then you can open up consideration.

The second thing you want to check is if they have guest posted on other blogs. What is the quality of their other guest posts? It’s always possible that they try to outsource their writing, and the quality of that writing may vary. Guest posts may get the short end of the stick in these cases, so watch out.

Any author you accept to write on your blog must have a track record for high quality content, particularly content relevant to your industry and niche. You should also make sure they don’t use spammy tactics for linking. Your goal is to only publish content from authors who provide quality and depth in their writing.

Rule #2: Scrutinize the Links

You need to have a consistent link policy for guest posts. Some sites are known for stripping any and all links from the content they publish. Other sites will allow one or two links, and others will allow as many as the author can reasonably include without coming across as spam. The exact number of links should vary according to the quality and depth of the content provided; deep, well-researched content is likely to have more research citations, after all.

The basic policy should look something like this:

• • A minimum of two or three links. No maximum beyond the discretion of the writer
• • A maximum of two links to the author’s sites, including social media handles and personal blogs
• • As the publisher, you should reserve the right to remove any link that you deem suspicious or potentially detrimental, either to the content or to your site. Make use of this rule to remove any link that leads to a site that does not provide value to your readers. Use the same quality indicators you use for links in your own posts

Rule #3: Scrutinize the Content

What is the quality level of the content this guest author has provided? That’s the most important question you should ask once you’ve determined that you’ll accept anything at all from the author. No matter how good their reputation may be, you need to make sure each individual post is something you want on your blog. Ask yourself a few questions about the content on offer.

• • Is this content something I want to have published on my blog?
• • Is this content written about a subject that’s been done to death online already?
• • Does this content offer something new and thought-provoking to an ongoing discussion?
• • Is this content copied or spun from another source? (Use tools such as Copyscape to check)

You want unique, powerful content for your blog, even if the primary purpose of that piece is to provide a gateway back to the original author.

Rule #4: Own the Content

This rule is important for two reasons. The first reason is that you need to reserve the rights to any content published on your blog. Google penalizes copied content. Even posting content you own on two individual pages is enough to get that page penalized. If a guest author offers a piece of content without the guarantee that you own the content, they are free to post it on their site as well. Instantly, Google sees copied content and penalizes both sites.

Note that this doesn’t mean the content is attributed to you. Unless you paid for the content to be ghostwritten, the original author should still receive credit. Half of the point of guest blogging is to spread the name and brand of the original author, after all. You don’t need to take credit for their work; simple make sure they won’t repost the content elsewhere.

The second reason is to make sure that you’re the one in control of the content. This ties into another general guideline, which is to never give out author accounts on your blog. Even reputable blog authors may stoop to underhanded tactics when they are given control on a site, with the right incentives.

Sure, it’s a bit of a headache to go in and format a post to publish yourself. On the other hand, it guarantees that the author won’t come back in a few months down the line and add unwanted links to a piece, edit it in a way you don’t want, or delete it entirely. If an author is requesting an account on your blog, at best they don’t know what they’re doing. At worst, they’re trying to get an interior access so they can perform some kind of attack.

Rule #5: Encourage Community

Guest posts shouldn’t be content airdropped from a passing website. They should be thought-provoking, powerful pieces of content that foster a discussion and a community. This means they need to encourage community on your own site. It also means they need to encourage an interaction between your site and that of the author. Sending traffic back and forth for discussions is a great way to build a community.

Guest blogging is a powerful tool for building community, even if its power in SEO is fading. Google is not going to penalize your site for guest blogging, as long as you stay within the linkspam guidelines. Keep an eye on the content you publish, make sure it’s as useful as you can, and you’ll receive the full benefit of an interested audience.

Live chat is often used by businesses to lock into the untapped potential that is often missed by other forms of communication. When customers are online and trying to purchase a product, live chat can address any problems that may exist before the customer navigates away from the sale. This form of communication is convenient and easy to use and thus, is a good investment for businesses. Here are some ways that live chat can help to improve your rankings. Before we explain the ways, let’s explore what components influence Google’s algorithm and influence a website’s ranking.

What Influences a Website’s Ranking

A website’s web ranking is affected by numerous factors including backlinks and keywords. Appearance, picture upload times, and natural content also affect a website’s ranking, but the two single most important elements to increase rankings include backlinks and keywords.

A significant number of high authority backlinks in a website will increase the ranking significantly. Companies are available that can generate backlinks and increase website ranking. Incorporate as many relevant and authoritative links to help increase the website’s ranking.

In addition, keyword selection is highly important. When the most relevant keywords are selected, the website ranking will increase. Many people are not aware of how difficult it is to select keywords that won’t attract the wrong type of traffic, but it can be difficult. That’s why it’s important to be cognizant of keyword selection and get some expert help to increase the website ranking.

The location of the buttons and live chat features will also play a role in the appearance and ease of use of the website. This will increase the website and raise the website’s rankings. If you want Google’s algorithm to recognize your website, you should put the website’s live chat feature in a location that will be easy to reach.

A good website design will improve the website ranking. Any images associated with the website or the live chat box should load instantly to increase website ranking. Hiring an expert is recommended to ensure that the website will appeal to visitors and the algorithm.

If you want to learn more about the ways live chat can improve your website ranking, continue reading to learn more. Most people do not associate live chat with increasing website ranking, but it can play a role. Here are some ways that live chat can improve website ranking.

1. Live Chat Could Increase Traffic

While adding live chat to your website will not increase your traffic, it can help people revisit your website if they know that they’ll get good customer service. For instance, many people go online before making a purchase to read reviews or blogs. If they have questions, they will navigate to the manufacturer’s website to learn more about the products or services through live chat.

As long as the service is prompt, and the information is useful and accurate, customers will be pleased with the experience, and they’ll be more likely to buy from you. This is an added benefit. Good service will generate repeat traffic and more sales. Live chat combined with retargeting can help with traffic generation significantly. More traffic will drive traffic up.

2. Live Chat Can Increase Convenience

Many people who are not in a location where they can talk on the phone will engage in live chat. Some people simply prefer live chat because they are already online, and it’s simply easier to engage in live chat than to dial a number. Many companies have a live chat window open as soon as the person logs into the website or begins to peruse the product or service offering. They want to make the process as easy as possible.

If the process is easy, more people will navigate to the web page and engage in chat. The button for chat should always be accessible, and this will make it easier to respond. Convenience will reduce the impediment that often occurs with online transaction. This can also increase website ranking.

3. Saved Live Chat Can Increase Traffic Through Keywords

If the live chats are saved for future use, the keywords, if relevant, can play a role in driving up the traffic. Keywords are just one component of website ranking. Keywords must be carefully selected in order to capture the attention of Google’s algorithm. When this happens, the website’s ranking is likely to go up instead of down.

Most companies do not save live chats, but some will save the questions and answers and post them on a frequently asked questions page. This type of knowledge-base can help people save time. If no personal information was exchanged during the chat aside from a name, then, it’s safe to use to help others answer similar questions that they may have. It improves the efficiency of the company and also improves the website ranking.

4. Ranking Increases When More People Shop Online

Studies have shown that nearly two out of 10 chatters will complete more than 75 percent of their holiday shopping online. Twenty-five more percent of chatters will make between 51 percent to 75 percent of their purchases on the web. This means that the traffic is likely to increase for companies with chat features than companies without the features.

Most businesses are not aware of the ability of the live chat functionality to generate more online interest. More interest means more traffic and a higher website ranking. Live chat is becoming instrumental to many companies who want to increase website ranking and have good customer service.

5. Live Chat Inspires Blogs to Increase Traffic

When companies read live chat, they are inspired to write blogs that address the issues that they are experiencing. Companies that address the issues will earn more traffic from visitors looking for information on the topic. Backlinks to articles with authority will increase the website ranking.

Backlinks play a huge role in increasing website rankings. The algorithm is placing a higher level of importance of backlinks. The more backlinks a company has with authority, the more likely they will be to have a higher ranking. This is why companies create blogs from live chats with the hopes of increasing website ranking.

The blogs will create opportunities to convert sales. People feel comforted when they think that companies are proactively addressing problems. They are more likely to navigate to the website over and over to read the blogs and also to purchase products or services. This will increase website ranking when people are repeat customers and value the information on the website.

Trust is an important part of making a sale, and blogs can help to establish trust. Most companies neglect to include blogs to increase traffic, but the blogs are highly effective and should be used often.

Can Having a Live Chat Increase Your Website Ranking?

Yes, live chat can increase your website ranking, but it’s not a stand alone solution. You must work and use live chat in such away that it will increase traffic to your website and also increase your website ranking. If you want to increase your website ranking, consider adding live chat. It’s worth the effort and the investment.

404 pages are considered by most to be an extremely bad sign. Although they are commonly called errors, they are technically the page that shows up when a website is not able to perform a request. The most common action that results in a 404 page being displayed is when there is a person clicks on a link that has a URL that is not able to be delivered. It’s common knowledge that people who click on links with URLs that cannot be delivered have the tendency to become frustrated quickly and abandon their search for the page. If too many customers become frustrated, a business has the potential to lose a lot of web traffic and therefore a great deal of money. Experts in search engine optimization, or SEO, even goes as far as to have every 404 redirected to another page, such as the homepage or a page that is close proximity to the page that was requested.

This is not advisable because, in reality, 404s are not horrible. Those who work on web pages even consider them to be part of a normal web experience. Most of the worry about 404s stems from the belief that Google will cause the search page result rankings to go down if there are any 404s that exist. Another common concern is that a great deal of link equity, or the number of in bound links that connect to any page of a given website, will be lost should quality links direct to 404 pages. Despite the fact that this latter concern is actually valid, 404 pages are fairly normal and not ordinarily threatening to a website’s rankings on any search engine.

When They Are Dangerous:

A website that has a lot of 404 pages, meaning a number that is abnormally high, does have the potential to be rated lower on a Google search results page. When a customer clicks on a link, that means that there is information that he or she needs. If the link does not connect to the page that is expected, instead redirecting to a 404 page, then the customer will not be able to have access to that information. This will reduce the efficiency of the SEO system that the website is currently using to remain high on a search page. When a customer is not able to get the information that he or she wants, then he or she will not use the site. This will reduce the amount of traffic on the site, as users travel elsewhere. The search engines follow the users and, if a website is not getting a lot of views, then the search engines will turn away from that website.

Another issue is if a URL has a lot of valuable links. Link equity does not demand that every single 404 be redirected to a valid page. A 404 page is never a good reason to direct a link to a page that is in no way relevant to the page where the link was supposed to go. However, if the links are hard to obtain and secure on a site, then it’s recommended to create relevant content for the link that exists, or finding a page that approximates what is supposed to be on the page.

Ideas for Dealing With 404 Pages to Help SEO

Assure the User that it is Just the Page That Doesn’t Work

Users will often feel as though a page that is directed incorrectly is indicative of the entire site not working. This will cause them to leave the site and reduce the amount of web traffic. If the customer is told that the overall site is working and provided with links to get to the site’s homepage, less web traffic will be lost.

Tell the User Exactly What is Wrong

It is best to be upfront with the user and let him or her know why he or she has reached a 404 page. Explain that the link might have been bad and the page might have moved, or talk about how the URL might be misspelled and resulted in the incorrect redirect. This will make the user feel empowered and give clues as to how best to find the information that was originally being sought.

Post Helpful Links on a 404 Page

Another excellent way to deal with 404 pages in an SEO friendly manner is to have the 404 able to be used as a springboard to get to other information pages. It is important to always let the user know that he or she has reached a 404 page in order to clarify his or her experience. Then, some of the website’s most popular pages, or pages that are relevant to the page that wasn’t able to be returned, can be linked to that 404 page. This will allow the users to continue onto the site, so that no web traffic is lost. It will also increase the chances that the users to find the information that they were searching for and be satisfied with their experiences on the site.

Provide a Way for Users to Report Broken Links

Another way to deal with 404 pages in an SEO friendly manner is to provide users with a way to report broken links. This could simply be adding a link to the 404 page redirecting the user to a contact page where he or she can enter the URL that didn’t work. This will cut down on the total number of 404 pages in the system and reduce the chances that Google or other search engines will no longer index it.

Use the Enhance 404 Widget

Many search engines provide tools that allow web developers to customize the 404 pages. This customization tool lets developers create pages that, when accessed because of a broken URL, provide ways for the customers to find the information that they need. There are various ways to do this. A list of different alternatives or common misspellings will help users fix the URL themselves. A search bar will allow users to search for the information that they were originally looking for. Both of these ideas will allow users to find the information on the website and prevent the loss of traffic.

Update the Website’s Address

A common reason for an increased number of 404 pages is because a website might change its web address. Most search engines will provide a page that allows the web address for the website to be updated so that it is correct. It essentially tells the search engine about the new URL and will result in the pages being directed correctly.

Use a 301 Redirect

It is possible to take a link that directs to a 404 page and label it with the HTTP status code 301 Moved Permanently. This will allow anyone who tries to click on the link to be permanently redirected to whatever new URL is provided by the company that is hosting the website. The response is entirely cachable and will prevent 404 pages from ever being formed.

So you’ve been handed a manual action penalty by Google, have you? What have you done, you naughty webmaster? The good news is that you know about it – you may not have even been made aware of the penalty before the 2013 rollout of the manual action viewer within Google Webmaster Tools, so you’re already ahead of a site that was penalized before the rollout. Now, what do you do with this information?

On Google’s Manual Actions page, you will find a brief description of the problem that resulted in your site’s penalization. It is of immense importance that you visit this page and discover the reason for your penalty, as each different type of penalty has its own method of resolution.

Here’s how to view Google’s Manual Action page:

• Click on ‘Search Traffic’ on the Webmaster Tools Dashboard

• Click on Manual Actions

• Note any actions that may be listed

According to Google, your next action is to ‘fix it’ and request a review – but what does ‘fixing it’ entail? That’s what this article is all about.

In general, if you’ve participated in any questionable endeavors to increase your website’s ranking via PageRank, cut it out. We’re not here to judge, but Google takes a certain stance on such actions, and many penalties are the result of such actions. Everyone makes mistakes, but cleaning up after them isn’t always easy.

Some actions impact your whole site, while others only involve a few specific links, and there are different ways of dealing with every sort of action that’s taken. Let’s take a look at each type of manual action penalty, and the methods you can employ to remove your site from Google’s penalty box while working to restore its previous glory (or, at least, it’s previous Google ranking).

Unnatural Links to Your Site – Impacts Links

In this case, your site has been noticed by Google as having a recurring role in a pattern of ‘unnatural, artificial, deceptive, or manipulative’ links that point to, you guessed it, your website. Sometimes this is not the fault of the website itself and, thus, there is no action you can take. Google realizes this and, as such, your site’s ranking is not affected by this particular action.

That said, if you do happen to know of any artificial links to your site, it is certainly in the best interest of your site to do whatever you can to have them taken down. If you don’t explicitly know of any artificial links to your site, search for them and, when you find them, do whatever you can do to have them taken down.

Whether you’ve been able to locate any ‘unnatural’ links removed from your site, look harder. Google has taken this manual action against your site for its own reasons, and it is in your best interest to take action. Google your site’s URL, and if you find any links that don’t seem quite right, do whatever you can to take them down.

The easy method of having these links removed is requesting that the linking site’s webmaster remove them entirely. Unfortunately, this is not always an option, and the question of whether or not you should endeavor to take more drastic routes (e.g. changing the URL of the destination to which the questionable URL linked) depends upon the specific site being linked, and the overall rank of your site. For example, if the link is nested deep within your website’s structure, changing the filename of one page might do the trick; however, if the link is directed towards your root page, and you still have a respectable PageRank, you may not wish to take such an ‘evasive’ approach.

Unnatural Links to Your Site

This is a more serious version of the ‘Unnatural Links to Your Site – Impacts Link’ action, so here are some additional steps you can take in this case.

• Download the list of links to your site from Google’s Webmaster Tools. You can do this via the following route – Links to Your Site > Who links the most > Download more sample links (or) Download more latest links.
• Familiarize yourself with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, and compare the links that you’ve downloaded to the Google’s guidelines.
• If any links do not meet Google’s guidelines, try to contact the webmaster of the site hosting questioning links to your own, and ask them to remove/prevent the pages hosting those links from PageRank (you might suggest the “rel=’nofollow’ attribute.
• Finally, use the ‘Disavow Links’ tool, within your array of Google’s Webmaster Tools, to ‘disavow’ links that you were not able to have removed.
• Request a reconsideration of your site from Google and wait (patiently) for a response within your Webmaster Tools account

Unnatural Links from Your Site

In this case, you will again wish to revisit Google’s Webmaster guidelines. Remember, knowledge is power! Next, look for links on your site that Google might think you’ve paid for, or that might have violated Google’s Webmaster Guidelines in any other way (excessive link exchanges, for example).

If you found any, either remove them entirely, or use the “rel=”nofollow” attribute to redirect them away from Google’s PageRank algorithms, and request a reconsideration from Google.

Hacked Site

Well, this is no good. No webmaster on Earth wants to wake up to find this action on their Webmaster Tools account. But what on Earth should you do, if you do?

This one goes beyond the scope of this article, unfortunately, but help is out there! As Google says, ‘Unfortunately, it’s likely your site was hacked.’ And they say that right here</a>.

Visit the site linked above (here’s that link again, because if your site has been compromised, we strongly encourage you to visit it: http://www.google.com/webmasters/hacked/). Take all of the necessary actions and precautions.

The short version of Google’s instructions involves taking your website down until the method of attack and the extent of the damage can be reviewed (use Webmaster Tools to help with this process), identify the specific vulnerability that allowed the attack to occur, patch the vulnerability and deal with any recognizable damage, then request a review from Google.

Thin Content with Little or No Added Value

There are a number of reasons this action could have been taken, but they all typically involve associations with low quality, shallow websites. Google has basically deemed your site to be of limited value and low quality, so we do hope that you didn’t spend too much time working on it.

Your first course of action, in this case, is to follow some recommended actions, such as:

• Review Google’s Webmaster Guidelines concerning…

• o Automatically generated content
  o Affiliated programs
  o Scraped content
  o Doorway pages

• Use a service such as CopyScape to identify any content within your site that duplicates content found on any (or any number of) other sites 3. Check your site for doorway pages (pages that have been created for the specific purpose of ‘spamming’ search engines, utilizing certain content to accrue clicks and relay them to a different page)

• Google’s official suggestion, at this juncture, is to ‘think about whether your site provides significant added value for your users.’ This suggestion suggests that Google is interpreting your site as nothing more than an advertisement for another site. If it is, consider other means of promotion. If it is not, find ways to prove it to Google (by, for example, adding unique and valuable content via content brokers such as Textbroker.com).

• Implement Google’s suggestions and request an official review.

Pure Spam

You will only see this, or any of the next few actions, if your website is doing ‘spammy’ type actions of which you’re likely aware. While we can offer our best advice in this matter, Google is rather adept at staying on top of this sort of thing.

If you see the ‘Pure Spam’ action attributed to your site, you’ll want to remove any aggressive spam techniques that may be currently in use on your website. These techniques include scraping content from other sites (thievery), cloaking (black ops), and generated gibberish (trying to fool PageRank). If you wish for your previous PageRank to ever return to normal, it is in your best interest to remove these features from your website.

User-Generated Spam

This one involves users and form sanitization, basically. If you’re flagged with user-generated spam, it’s time to look at any portion of your website in which users can generate content. Forums, profiles, and blog comments are all possible suspects.

Check these areas out. Look for posts, or even profiles, that seem to be advertisements, or even those that include out-of-context content and/or links. Anything that’s user-generated, and doesn’t look like it quite belongs on your site, should be firmly dealt with.

Once you’ve sterilized your user’s content (and hopefully sought methods of keeping it sterile for the immediate future), request a review from Google.

Cloaking and/or Sneaky Redirects

This is a dark area in which we hope that you are not purposely treading. When you are flagged with this action, it means that your site could be showing different pages to viewers than it is showing to Google, or even directing users to different site than those that are shown to Google.

We’re going to assume that you don’t know anything about this, so take the following actions:

• In your Webmaster Tools, use the ‘Fetch as Google’ tool to compare the content that is fetched by Google to the content that is seen by a human user (this would be you) whilst visiting your website.
• If the content differs in any way, immediately remove the portion of your website that is serving different sorts of content to Google than it is to regular viewers (again, you, using the ‘Fetch as Google’ tool).
• If the content differs in any way, immediately remove the portion of your website that is serving different sorts of content to Google than it is to regular viewers (again, you, using the ‘Fetch as Google’ tool).
• Once you’re absolutely, positively sure that your site follows Google’s webmaster guidelines, request a reconsideration from Google. /LIST

Hidden Text and/or Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is largely considered to be an unethical search engine optimization (SEO) technique, and Google is among those companies who believe it to be unacceptable.

If Google has accused you of keyword stuffing, here’s what to do:

• Using Google’s Webmaster Tools, use the Fetch as Google tool to check your website for content that may be visible to Google’s webcrawler but not to the human user.
• Check the text.

• o Make sure that all of the text on your website is the color that you want it to be, and not the color of your site’s background.
  o Look out for any text that’s hidden in any way, or unavailable due to certain types of CSS styling.
  o Look for text that’s repetitive, or text that doesn’t include any observable, valuable content.

• Find any hidden text? Unhide it. Make it discoverable by both search engines, and human users. If your content is to blame, make sure that it offers a sequentially observable value to regular, human users of your website.
• Re-check your entire site for strings of repetitive text, and remove any redundant data.
• Once your site has been sanitized using the above guidelines, request a reconsideration of your site from Google.

As we wrote earlier, we’re not here to judge, we’re here to help. Google does its best to keep its search results from displaying spammy content that offers little value to users who are searching for meaningful content. The best advice that we can give? Use that to your advantage – the more value you add to your content, and the less tricks you use to draw viewers to your site, the more likely it is that your site will earn a good value within PageRank, and the less likely it is that you’ll be penalized with a manual action.