Ran out of ideas to write about on your blog?
There are times when it is hard to write about your business. You’ve covered all of your products or services, talked about your company’s history, vision and future, and so on. Well, now you are stuck and don’t know what to write about but you want to create something you think the search engines will like. Well there’s hope and it comes from insight about Google’s latest change.
Fist I’ll cover a quick way to regenerate content. That’s right. But not taking an old story and re-write it as a new one. Rather, take a look at that old article and see if there is room for improvement. Google’s newest changes were Panda 3.5 and Penguin. Now, Penguin has to do with on-page filtering of content that was poorly written while they seek well organized paragraphs, no typos, consistency in context and low over use of optimization. In other words, they now seek those pages that keep it VERY real (there are pages ranking well for certain keywords where the article is a spot on match even though it didn’t use the exact keyword searched).
From this information, you’ll want to review your entire website’s content and make sure it’s solid. I love this since optimization to me has always been just that — optimal changes for best practices for search. Make edits where needed but don’t re-write and save as an entirely new document. That could be seen as similar content. I didn’t say duplicate (where it’s an exact match) but similar enough to where search engines find that you’ve already covered this content elsewhere and they won’t use this new similar article for your benefit.
Next, as you are reviewing your articles, see if something was left out or that changed which can be covered on it’s own in a new article. If you think you can cover it in a 300-500 word article, start writing. But if you still find yourself caught without anything to write about, think about creating a writing plan. My mother owned and published a magazine and would have monthly editorial calendar to coincide with each new issue. She’d know what to cover in the “Spring Issue” or the “Holiday Issue”. Your business too can succeed from this. Think of your products or services and how they relate to seasons, times of the year, tax time, spring break, etc. and create an editorial road map to make finding ideas easier.
Here’s a quick list of take-a-ways from this article. See anything you’d add to make writing easier? Leave comments below and like if you found it useful.
- Don’t get caught up in keywords and phrases to use.
- Instead of writing while thinking of keywords, think of a topic.
- Instead of using exact keywords, use your real way of communicating.
- Use parts of existing sentences rather than keywords to link to other pages.
- Describe images to the blind in ALT tags rather than written for search engines.
- Have a plan for your entire year to use for writing articles, news and publications.
Quick Points about Fixing Google Penguin Issues
How can I fix my site after the Google Penguin update?
If your site was indeed affected and needs fixes, look at the keywords that dropped. Did you over optimize those words, are there pages that are affected more than others? Was the over optimization over zealous links externally pointing to your site? If it’s links you will need to remove the spammy links if you can or call and ask site owners to remove them for you. If this isn’t possible you’ll just have to over time have quality links added to your site. I say have added since Google is looking for you adding links. Read more →
Google Penguin Insight Using Google’s Webmaster’s Tools
Out of all of our clients only one site was hit by Google’s latest update called Penguin so I needed to do a little digging. A drop in traffic according to Google Analytics is not fun to see. Especially for me, I’m the SEO guy, right? Plus, I am highly competitive so I next want to know why this happened, was it us or something prior to our work, and most importantly is it something that can be fixed.
If you’ve come to this post because you too see a site that has lost traffic and are worried about what this means and are looking for answers you may be at the right place. I say “may” since this post is more about finding answers than just handing out the general do’s and don’ts of Google and their best practices guide. Google Penguin is more than just finding sites that are over optimized or seo spammed. Think of what Google is trying to accomplish. They are trying to get better results, especially the right results for the right people matched with the best website. Read more →
Google Launches Two New Updates for Better Results
Is my site safe from Google’s new Penguin update? In Google’s continuation to better their search results (and to directly fight the cheating SEOs we’ve discussed) they have just rolled out a new search code algorythm called Penguin.
It’s a cute name but a serious update for the spammers out there. We’ve worked hard to keep sites high in the search rankings while sites employing bad SEO tactics still quickly chased at our heels despite our safe “white-hat” SEO methods. But hasn’t Google always been fighting this? What’s new about Google’s latest search code update?
All About Yelp for Business
Yelp reviews explained and how to manage them.
Don’t bite the hand that reviews the hand that feeds you.
Let’s clarify a few things before we get too deep. You don’t have total control over which reviews are posted and which are not. You can not prevent people from posting on Yelp bad reviews. Nor can you post fake yelp reviews. And lastly, Yelp does not manipulate your reviews for any reason unless they are outside of Yelp’s terms of use. I’ll attempt to explain how you can manage your reviews to keep them fair and honest while giving you more from Yelp. Plus tips on dealing with negative reviews and Yelp’s review filter. Read more →
Block Facebook Apps From Sending Requests
Tired of getting tons of requests from people for Facebook apps? If you ignore them and don’t block app requests for good, you are still setup to get more later. So, next time you get one and want to block game requests take the extra time to block the app forever. Read more →
Google Changes Things in Search… Again
Changes Google is making about their search algorithm and how to protect your website’s position online.
Word got out about new changes at Google with their search algorithm (code methods). The truth is that there are many changes which Google releases — sometimes daily. These changes are mostly to improve the results people get when they search online. It’s a balancing act of posting the best results to maintain your trust in their search while offering ads that may be best related or even better matches. Read more →