A quick note:

I created a draft of this post weeks before the Penguin Update from Google.  While many people are still dealing with the aftermath of Penguin and Panda, building backlinks by syndicating your documents and articles via document sharing sites is still a great way to be heard…and pick up a backlink or two along the way.

Most people know that in order to rank for certain terms in the search engines like Google, they need to build quality, keyword specific backlinks to their website…but, don’t know where to start.

Enter this series of posts where I will walk you through great, free backlink ideas that anyone with a computer, website/webpage (there is a difference) to promote, and an internet connection can do when they have some time.

Quality Backlinks From Quality Content

First, lets talk a little bit about content.  Content has always been and will always be king.  In my opinion, if you want long-term, lasting backlinks then you need to create good content.  This is not hard if you: 1) are know a lot about your product/industry 2) are passionate about what you do.  By creating good content, be it a report, how-to, review, video, podcast, or blog post, you are giving yourself a great platform for quality backlinks (as well as doing a host of other things like building your authority).

More important than the “backlink opportunity” is that you might get someone to read / watch /listen to your content that you would not otherwise have been able to get in front of had you not posted your document on this site.  That IS the goal.  The backlink is really a side-benefit.  Keeping this in mind with all of your link building efforts will pay dividends.

In short, I am going to assume that you are not reading this because you are lazy and uninterested in what you are doing with your online venture(s).  If you are looking for quick link ideas so that you can build links to your Acai Berry affiliate page, sorry…but, I am gearing this towards people will real, unique content.

Building Links With Document Sharing Sites

With that out of the way, let’s talk about today’s idea: Building Backlinks With Document Sharing Sites.

Why Document Sharing Sites?

Document sharing sites are a great way to publish your content in a professional format or simply in a different format.  You can share PDF files, Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files.  You can share simple text or RDF files.  There are a host of other file formats that many document sharing sites support, but it really is not important to list all of them here.  What is important is that the major search engines (and a bunch of smaller ones) have the ability to parse or read these files.  It is also important to realize that using one of these formats might be a big help to a potential user or customer.

For example, you might have a checklist put together for traveling with a small child.  Using the PDF format would be great to use because when people print it out, it retains your original format and layout.  Printing from a web page will probably not do that.  Maybe you have created a Powerpoint presentation that explains the benefits and features of your new product…this might be a great way for you to present your product to a new customer or client.

In my mind, and this is simply my own opinion, it also seems more natural to me that if you are really in business, you will have content created in a host of different formats that can be found all over the internet.  If you are a car stereo manufacturer, it would stand to reason that your installation manuals, product brochures, press releases, catalog(s), product lists, price sheets, promotional videos, podcasts, radio ads (audio), and any number of other items would be found on retail, personal, and other websites.  As someone who has always been working with search engine optimization, I have always tried to think about what would make any website look “natural.”  Publishing content beyond basic HTML is something any company is and has been doing.

The reality is, these are another great opportunity to get your content seen.  AND, it is a great and legitimate way to get a backlink to your site.

List of Document Sharing Sites

I am writing this post in Mid September, 2011…and this list is sure to change and evolve as time goes by.  A good way of finding sites to submit to is to use the “related” operator in Google (here is a great guide to Google search operators).  Once you have a good site that you like to use, type in related:websiteyoulike.com on Google.  You will get a list of websites that are probably good candidates for you to submit to.  Here is a list of sites that you may want to post your content to:

1. Scribd
2. Docstoc
3. Google Docs
4. issuu
5. box.net
6. 4shared.com
7. esnips
8. mediafire
9. Zoho
10. Docshare
11. authorstream
12. divshare
13. slideshare
14. yudu

This is by no means the end-all-be-all list of document sharing sites.  This is just a starting point.  If you are looking for sites to share Powerpoint presentations, then search for “powerpoint sharing” or “powerpoint sites”.  You can even use the “filetype” operator and search for Powerpoint documents in Google (filetype:.ppt).

What Should I Publish?

We touched on some ideas of things you can publish above in the talk about your assets.  Anything that is or could be of value to your clients or customers…or to anyone really, is something you should consider publishing.  But, don’t just start submitting stuff willy nilly.  Read over everything you are considering publishing.  Be sure that there is a way for people to get more information, know how/where to order your product, sign up for your newsletter, or whatever you are trying to get them to ultimately do in at least one, prominent location in the document, video, or audio.  Give them a little blurb about you or your product and with a link using descriptive anchor text.  Don’t just whip through this without much thought.  You will be surprised at how much traffic this stuff can generate.

If you are really good, you can use Google’s URL builder so that you can track every link in every document (if you are using Google Analytics).  Yes, you will get your link juice using this stuff…it may just take a little bit longer to kick in.  Having this information is great.  Or, you can leave out the Google URLs. I have seen one person in particular mention that he doesn’t think it is a good idea.

Submitting Content

There is never a substitute for doing something yourself.  The reality is, nobody will do something as well as you will.  But, there are a number of different options when it comes to submitting your documents to these sites:

1. Do it yourself – Yeah, this is the best option, but submitting to these sites can get pretty boring.  Worse is actually setting up the accounts…see below for help with that.
2. Pay someone to do it for you – There are tons of people out there who are waiting to take your money to submit documents for you.  IF you go this route, be sure that you will get a detailed list of what was submitted, to what site, when, and the document URL so that you can make sure the document is available online and can be found.
3. Use software to submit – This is probably going to have the lowest success rate, but can obviously cover a lot more ground than you or the human you are going to pay to do it for you can.  The reality is, most of the people you might pay are probably using some kind of submission software.  There are a couple of big software platforms out there
• SE Nuke – I am not a subscriber…it just felt a little slimey to me when I went to check it out.  It has a ton of features beyond simple submissions…but, I cannot speak to it as I do not subscribe to the service.
• Magic Submitter – This is a much lower cost alternative to SE Nuke, and I have seen it work.  However, I think the days of automatic submissions is really numbered.  Completion rates/success rates for these applications is not good. And, if you are writing real content (like you should be) then you want every single submission to work, right? Do it manually.

 Rich Snippets

One final thought for those of you wondering why you want to publish your hard work on someone else’s site.  There are a number of good reasons that come to mind.  First, diversity.  While some people (like Warren Buffet) think diversification is not a good idea, in this case, I think it has merit.  Not only are you able to leverage the authority of some of these big document sharing sites, but you are also making sure you do not have all of your eggs in one basket.

Today, with Google’s Penguin update giving many webmasters pause, those who published real, quality content (not spun articles) on 3rd party sites may have more traffic coming their way than they did before Penguin, or more than they would have had they only published content on their site.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in building a strong website with great content as the cornerstone, but diversifying with 10 or 20 percent of the content you create is not a bad idea.

The point of this section though is to talk about Rich Snippets.  You can add Rich Snippets authorship to many 3rd party sites…and I don’t see any reason why it will not be a part of just about all of them soon. So, this is a great time to get on this before everyone is doing it.

No related posts.

Copyright 2011 ©Jason Golod.

The beauty of the internet is that, well, things started off free.  There is still a ton of information that is readily available out there, but a lot of it is junk.  The USENET is great because much of it is well moderated.  In the early days, every ISP (that I ever knew of) had free USENET feeds and their own news servers.  Eventually, the news hosting was outsourced to companies like Giganews and other companies that specialized in newsgroup access.

Today, most major ISPs no longer provide news feeds of any kind.  Some still do provide text newsgroup access, but I don’t know of any that supply binary newsgroup access.

Today’s News Server Options

Today, we are presented with two options. First, you can search for a list of open or free news servers (NNTP is the acronym usually used). Second, you can pay for access.  The question is, how do they differ?

Free Access Options

I have posted a list of (current as of 5/2/2012) free news servers.  NOTE: I have no idea how secure any of these are…USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.  Got it?

The free options usually have limits on posting, do not allow binary newsgroup access, limit speed, and a number of other items.  Most importantly, none I have seen offer all of the ALT heirarchy, which seems to be what most people are looking for. They are all different.  Here is a list that I have found to work today:

• AIOE.org
• X-Privat.org 

Paid Access

If you don’t want to hassle with the above options and you are willing to shell out a few bucks for a reliable connection, high download speeds, and full newsgroup feeds you are going to want to pay for your USENET access.  I use Giganews.  I have been using the USENET since before the World Wide Web was created, I get it.  I would recommend you use Giganews.  If you get their Diamond package you get free use of their super-fast newsgroup application MIMO, free VyprVPN access (their VPN service with machines in the US and other countries), SSL access, and a huge feed.  I have not had one problem with them as I used to with my previous news provider.

Related posts:

1. Usenet Newsgroups
2. USENET Newsgroup Glossary
3. How to Search USENET Newsgroups

Copyright 2011 ©Jason Golod.

Thanks for visiting.  This site is in a constant state of flux, so forgive me if some things may not be right at your fingertips.  Below you will find a list of what you will find on this blog.  The short version is that I write about search engines, marketing online, tutorials for geeks, some reviews and everything else depending on my mood.

If you would like to contact me or hire me for SEM or Video production/marketing, please use the email address found in the header above.   I usually respond to email relatively quickly depending on my schedule and your reason for contacting me.

Related posts:

1. How To Articles and Tutorials

Copyright 2011 ©Jason Golod.

Here are some items from this morning’s reading list that are worthy of a look:

Social Media Marketing

5 Ways to Optimize Your Facebook Page

• Leverage the use of photos in your photo feed
• Optimize the order of the “left side” links
• Use “Rolling Feedback” to see trends of user interaction
• “Like” as your brand, not just as a person
• Optimize your default page layout

6 Tips to Increase Your Facebook EdgeRank

• Publish Objects that Encourage Interaction
• Create a Forum for constructive discussion
• Leverage photos and videos
• Share links of interest to your base
• Keep it fresh by repurposing content
• Ask users for action

Tweaking WordPress to Avoid “Duplicate Content” Issues

Tags, Categories, Author ARchives, Image Attachments, “ReplytoCom”, Cononical URLs, and dealing with content theft.

Finding Questionable Links Using Open Site Explorer

While Penguin has a lot of people’s attention, here is a good primer on using Open Site Explorer to investigate a website’s link profile.

 Understanding the Facebook Like Button

Not all Facebook “like” buttons are created equal.

Related posts:

1. Content is King in 2012…STILL
2. Google Adsense Goes Ford Explorer
3. Google Adsense Targeting

Copyright 2011 ©Jason Golod.

Ok, so maybe that is a little too much, but then again maybe not. Let’s take a look…

Before Penguin and Panda

Believe it or not, this blog has had +/- 1,000 unique visitors a day for many years.  With all of the stuff on my plate right now, I don’t pay too much attention to the analytics for this site…and it turns out visitors dropped to ~650/day at some point recently, probably after some Panda related business.

After Google rolled out the Penguin update on April 24, that traffic dropped to about 100 visitors a day.  Yeah, so I figured I should look into things and see what was going on.

Where to Begin?

I started taking inventory, as a lot of people have been doing lately, to see what sites that I work on may have been affected by Google’s Penguin update.  It turns out that two sites which have the same setup I am running here (WordPress running the OptimizePress theme) with some minor tweaks, were affected negatively.

After poking around online, checking out the standard SEO news houses, I didn’t find much outside of a lot of sob stories and angry people.  I headed back to Google’s Penguin announcement to see if there wasn’t something that caught my attention.

Duplicate Content, Sigh

After that, I ended up on the Webmaster Tools Duplicate Content page, when something finally caught my eye…

I had to laugh a few times when I found myself on that page.  It seems this discussion never ends.  Anyway, I started to wonder if Google didn’t finally do something about how WordPress typically gives you the same information chopped up in 62 different ways.  The Panda update was supposed to do a good job of removing a lot of the crappy content/noise on the web; having little to go on, I began looking into this more.

WordPress Tag/Category Pages

What I began to notice was that some of the best ranking/traffic generating pages were not showing up in the SERPs anywhere near their previous levels.  A few of these pages were “tag” or “category” pages.  For those of you familiar with WordPress, you know that it gives you the ability to add one or more Categories and all the Tags you can handle (I don’t know the max or if there is one) to a post. 

For those of you still confused about when to use each, see this post on Categories vs Tags.  This has always seemed to fly below the “duplicate content” radar with Google.  I typically think about this when people mention duplicate content and it has always helped me to conclude that it really wasn’t a big deal in actual practice.

Looking at a site we have been building over the past year, it turns out it is not ranking for a tag page anymore.   It used to rank on page 1 in or around the 3rd position.  However, that page is now gone.  On page  2, there was a different tag page from the same site that was ranking for that same query. Strange.

I checked the pages in the Google index for the site in question and searched for all of the pages with “tag” in the url…the original page was not listed.  Clicking the “omitted results” link displayed the page. Hmm.

Kung Fu Panda

I didn’t really have too much information to work with, so I kept poking around.  I began looking at the pages indexed in Google and pages indexed with tag or category in the url.  Everything seemed fine.  So, I started checking for this site.

No pages indexed with tag or category in the url.  Maybe, I was doing it wrong and my Google operator kung fu was weak?

So, I checked everyone’s favorite WordPress guru’s website:

(he has a subdomain named xref that I wanted to eliminate to see only the main site’s pages)

Yoast had 111 pages with tag in the url…just about all of them were “tag” pages.  Hmm.

So, I looked at his category pages…he changed the name of his categories to “cat” btw:

9 pages came back…and if you check his sitemap indeed, he has 9 categories.

WTF?

Well, let’s take a look at the holy grail shall we?

0 Results

Matt apparently has changed his default “category” name to “type.” There are 25 results for that…and I could not find a sitemap.  You will also notice that he does not appear to use tags on any of his posts…

Time for Another Look at My Site

I began to look at what pages did come back for golod.com using the site: operator.  Turns out I started seeing a lot of pages that looked like /page/2/ or /page/23/.  Crap.

The front page of my blog is simply a list of the most recent posts.  At the bottom of the page is a bunch of pagination links.  OptimizePress is an amazing theme that is built for deploying sales pages, squeeze pages and the like very quickly and beautifully.  In one of the last updates, James added blog functionality and on the home page, these pagination links are displayed.

Conclusion

My hunch at this point, is that Google saw the links to these pages, linking to all of the posts, on the Home page of the site…and naturally figured those would be considered the best ones to use…as they are on the Home page after all. They then ditched all of the category and tag pages which link to the exact same content from their respective pages.  IF that is in fact what I am seeing (I can’t really think of any other logical explanation as to why the category and tag pages are gone from the index), then I am actually pretty impressed.

Feedback

I would love to hear if you are seeing anything similar with your WordPress sites or if you are able to blow some holes in my theory.

Related posts:

1. Google Directory Gives No Results for Banned Sites
2. Google Updates – Are We Back on the 30 Day Cycle?
3. SOLVED: Site Title Appended to WordPress Title

Copyright 2011 ©Jason Golod.

In my quest to have Google’s Rich Snippets display for all of the content that I have  created on the web, I have been trying to find a way to have my Rich Snippets author bio linked to my Twitter profile.

Unfortunately, I have not been successful at this point.  I am posting this in hopes that either someone on the Rich Snippets team, Twitter team, or an at-large super geek will be able to shed some light on a technique that will get my author data shown next to twitter posts in the the Google SERPs.

To be honest, I am not sure there is a huge amount of value here, but my thought is that Google will probably be using (if not already on a small scale) Rich Snippet/Google+ profile data as a ranking signal in their SERPS.  I am sure that this will increase in the near future as this product matures.

So, here is what I have tried at this point, I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences trying to get this to work on your own.

1. I have included a link to my Twitter profile in my Google+ “Contributor to” list
2. On my Twitter profile, I added a link to my Google+ profile with rel=author as an html anchor tag (Twitter strips html tags in the description area)
3. On my Twitter profile, I added a link to my Google+ profile with rel=author as plain text (which my browser displays as a link, but in the source is not an html anchor tag)
4. On my Twitter profile I added a link to my Google+ profile with rel=author in the “website” area.  The script code that Twitter includes the link in does not appear to be validating using the Rich Snippets Testing Tool.

So, that is when I decided to shelve this little aside and get back to work. But, if you have any ideas, please let me know!

Best,

Related posts:

1. How to Add Rich Snippets Authorship for HubPages
2. Google Rich Snippets – Read This Now
3. SOLVED: Site Title Appended to WordPress Title

Copyright 2011 ©Jason Golod.

Following up on how to get your picture next to your SERP listings, I thought I would show you that you can also get Rich Snippet goodness for authoring articles on OTHER sites as well.

Today’s example is going to be HubPages.  I am not going to get into “what HubPages is” other than to say, it is a site where authors can publish articles.  They have a lot of authority in the search engines as HubPages has a lot of content to offer users.  So, if you are an aspiring author or publisher, it is a great resource to help build your own authority.

NOTE: This tutorial assumes you already have Rich Snippets showing for your own website, or you have them showing for a website that you contribute to.  If not, please see this Google Rich Snippets How-To….and that you have a HubPages account. =P

Now, on to getting Rich Snippets to show for your HubPages listings in the SERPs…

Edit Your HubPages Profile

The first thing you are going to want to do is log into your account on HubPages.  Once in there, you will click on “my profile”…

…and then click on the Edit Profile link…

In the text box you are presented with, you will want to modify your bio so that you have a link pointing to your Google+ profile.  The link will have to have ?rel=author appended to the end.

I would recommend the anchor text (the text of the link you will create) be your name with a “+” on the end (no space).

Clicking on the hyperlink button in the text editor will give you a pop-up like this one.  Use the URL to YOUR Google+ profile and add the ?rel=author as shown below:

Ok, so save all of that business and let’s move on to the next step.

Add Contributor Link to Google+

The other part that makes all of this work is “claiming” your profile on Google+ by adding a link to your hubpages profile FROM Google+.  So, as we did in my Rich Snippets tutorial, we are going to add a contributor link.  Rather than rewriting it all here, please just see my original Rich Snippets tutorial if you are not sure how to add a Contributor link to your Google+ profile.

Testing Tool Time

Now that you have added a link to your Google+ profile from your HubPages profile, and vice versa, we are ready to test things out.  Using my wife as our example again, we will put her HubPages profile URL into the Google Rich Snippets Testing Tool…

You should see your picture displayed next to your listing when you enter your HubPages profile URL (danielle’s is http://daniellebianchi.hubpages.com) into the testing tool.  If that works, you should also be able to enter the URL for a piece of content you have uploaded to HubPages:

It is really pretty simple.  If you run into problems let me know in the comments below and I will see if we can’t get it working.

Best,

Related posts:

1. Google Rich Snippets – Read This Now
2. SOLVED: Site Title Appended to WordPress Title

Copyright 2011 ©Jason Golod.

If you are living in a cave or just had a baby, then you are excused.  Otherwise, I am sure you are aware of Google’s Rich Snippets…or at least have seen them in the SERPs.  Rich Snippets can be anything from an author picture, thumbnail image of a video, stars from a product or service review, list of audio files, or even the breadcrumb navigation from your website.

Tracking people’s eyes has shown that there appears to be a positive correlation between having an image next to a SERP listing and interest.  So, the bottom line is, if you want people to check out your listing on the Google search results pages…getting some images next to them is a great idea.

Rich Snippets is one of Google’s advancements that, I believe, will pay huge dividends to those who choose to be early adopters.  Not only does Google get to jazz up their SERPs, they get some additional benefits as well…

Author / Publisher Association

That’s right, part of the deal here is that Google is able to associate (or authenticate if you like) authors and publishers.  The Author Snippet (your mug shot) is provided by associating a piece of content (article, video, blog post, etc) with a Google+ profile. You link your content to your author page on your website OR you can link a piece of content or author page on a 3rd party website to your Google+ profile as well. 

IF you do it right, you get the disco lights.

How Do I Get Rich Snippets Next to My Listings?

Armed with the right knowledge, you can easily add Rich Snippets to your web pages displaying your photo next to your SERP listings in just a few minutes. You need to accomplish 5 things the first time you add Rich Snippets to your website (we will cover all of them in detail below):

1. Create a Google+ Profile if you don’t have one
2. Add your website to your Google+ Profile
3. Associate your content with your author profile on your website
4. Link your author profile on your website with your Google+ profile
5. Notify Google that your website is Google Snippets enabled

Here is a breakdown of how I would attack the Rich Snippets program:

• Add Author Rich Snippets
• Add Rich Snippets to 3rd Party Websites
• Adding Rich Snippets to Youtube Videos
• Adding Rich Snippets to ArticlesBase
• Adding Rich Snippets to Tumblr
• Adding Rich Snippets to Hubpages Author Page
• Add Rich Snippets Breadcrumbs
• Add Rich Snippets for Audio Files or Podcasts

But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  We will start with the most important one and go from there.

 Adding Author Rich Snippets to Your Website

Rich Snippets Author Example

Sexy, right?  So, here is how we accomplish this…

Setup Google+ Profile

First, you need to setup a Google+ profile.  So, run over to the Google+ sign-up page and either associate your Google account with Google+ or create a new account.

Add Your Website to Google+

Second, we need to add your website / blog / whatever to your Google+ profile.  The way you do this is by adding yourself as a “Contributor” to your site.  So, click on the arrow next to your avatar in the upper right hand corner (when logged into Google+), then click “View Profile”, and finally click “Edit Profile.”   If you scroll a bit, you will see “Contributor to”…click on it.

Edit Google+ Profile

Next let’s click “Add Custom Link”:

Adding Contributor to Google+

Next, we will enter the URL (aka website address) of your website:

Entering Contributor URL

The first box is what you want to have displayed on the screen (“golod.com” and “Jason on Youtube” in this picture).  Next is the URL of your website.  Click “Save.”

Click the “Done Editing” box in the bar at the top of the screen and we can move on to the next step:

Associate Your Content with an Author Profile

Now, we need to associate your content with your Google+ profile on your website.  There are two ways to go about this:

1. You can associate your content (blog posts, articles) with an author profile on your website AND then associate your website profile with your Google+ profile (yeah, that is two separate steps…stay with me).
2. OR, you can associate an individual piece of content with your Google+ profile.

Now, you have to make the decision here.  Obviously, if you have a blog or a website that you have authored lots of articles or posts on, you are going to opt for door #1 above.  If you only have a few pieces of content or pages, you might opt for #2…but, I would not recommend it…here is why.  It would be more flexible to use the proper markup to associate each page or post with your website’s author page.  This gives you the option to expand or change things much more easily down the road should things change (and they always change, right?).

Creating an Author Page on Your Website

If you use WordPress, please see my (upcoming) post on how to add an author page to your WordPress blog.  For the rest of you, here is how you can add an author page.  Most of you already have an “About” page on your website…if you do, you can skip to the next paragraph.  If you are still reading along, then you will need to create a page on your website that will be an author “bio” for you.  You can put whatever you like on the page.  The key for right now is that the page exists.

Create the Author “Relationship”

Now that you have your author page, we are going to let the world know that you are the author.  Well, the reality is there is going to be next to nobody that will see what we are about to do…but, the search engine bots will.  We are going to use the rel=”author” attribute to let the search engines know that your author page tells them who created all of this junk.  So, if you have an “About” link on your navigation bar (you should, btw), we are going to add a rel=”author” attribute to the anchor tag.

On my blog, I have an “About Jason” link on every page as it is located right at the top in my main navigation menu.  If we take a look at the html anchor tag for my navigation bar, you will see this for the “About Jason” link:

<a rel=”author” href=”http://www.golod.com/jason/“>About Jason</a>

As you can see, the anchor tag has some additional info in there…  rel=”author” is making an association that every page that I am the author of this website.  If you add this to every page on your site, you should be fine according to option 2 of the Google Rich Snippets Authorship page.  However, I actually do what both steps on that page indicate….for a couple of reasons:

1. I wanted to make sure it worked
2. I want to give people a chance to read more about me should they find something I wrote interesting. My profile doesn’t have anything super-awesome in it right now, but I can add it in the future if I would like.

So, you will need to add a byline like “Posted by” or “Written by” or “Author: ” to your articles or posts. Of course, you will add your name after the byline and link your name to your author profile page on your website.

Link Your Author Page to Google+

Stick with me, I know this is tedious.

Now, we are going to want to add a link from your website’s author page to your Google+ profile.  We accomplish this by adding another attribute to your Google+ profile link.  In my case, my Google+ profile url looks like this:

https://plus.google.com/105529091549806108461/about

According to Google, you can simply append (add for you illiterates) ?rel=me to the end of the URL.  But, I have had issues with the Rich Snippets Testing Tool recognizing that method.  Instead, I simply add it as an attribute in the anchor tag as we did above.   So, we get something that looks like this:

<a rel=”me” href=”https://plus.google.com/105529091549806108461/”>Jason Golod</a>

In this example, the numbers are unique to my profile. You will want to go to your profile page, copy the URL and paste it accordingly.  The key is that you add the rel=”me” attribute to the anchor tag.

The Rich Snippets Testing Tool

OK, so we only have one step left.  But, we have to make sure it is all working properly.  So, let’s head over to the Rich Snippets Testing Tool and verify that your markup is correct.

1. Copy the URL of your author profile on YOUR website.
2. Go to the Rich Snippets Testing Tool
3. Paste the URL  and click submit

You should see something like this:

Rich Snippets Testing Tool Sample Output

If you see your mug instead of mine, move to the next paragraph.  If you don’t, be sure you have done all of the following:

1. Created a Google+ profile complete with your picture
2. Linked TO your website FROM Google+ as a Contributor to link
3. Linked TO your Google+ profile from your website’s author page with the rel=”me” attribute

If you have and it still doesn’t work for you, leave a comment below and we will get you straightened out.

For those of you in the front of the class, now we are going to copy a URL from a blog post or article you have written on your website and past that into the tool.  You should see something similar as before.  The title of the page will likely change, but the important thing is that your mug is showing up to the right.  If there are any major errors, you will see that below the listing, but if your picture is there, you are a happy camper.  Now we can move to step 5.

Telling Google You Are Rich Snippets Ready

They don’t make this page easy to find, but here you go:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHdCLVRwcTlvOWFKQXhNbEgtbE10QVE6MQ

Go to that page and fill out the form.  In a couple of weeks your mug will start showing up.  Google needs to re-crawl all of your pages after they “flip the switch” before it will show up for a particular page.

Hope this helped.

Related posts:

1. SOLVED: Site Title Appended to WordPress Title
2. Google Trusted Host Followup

Copyright 2011 ©Jason Golod.

Content is King 2012...STILL

On the heels of Google’s latest update announcement, I thought I would take the time to write a little something about what I consider to be the most important factor for anyone publishing anything. Yeah, you guessed it; it is time for the obligatory “Content is King” post.  This time, I have decided to date them, and here is the 2012 version.

Google Update? Huh?

Yeah, I am not going to bore most of you with the details about Google, or how it operates, because in my experience most people really don’t give a crap about how things work, they just want to eat their cake.

But, there is something that I think you should understand and it is fundamental understanding how Google does in fact operate (with regards to search engine operations).  Google always tries to do things programmatically.  While it is convenient and even rational to think that Google is like a person, cleaning up their house when it needs it, it is not in fact how they do things.

Google’s search team tries to accomplish what they would like to see in the results pages by adding tweaks and filters to their search algorithm…so that the computers can do all of the work on their own (so to speak).

Why Would Google Do This?

Google’s goal is to index the world’s information and deliver the best of it to people when they are looking for it. 

If they had to hand deliver it to you, you would not be willing to wait for it.  So, they have to teach their computers to do it for them.  You have to respect their ability to do this whether you are a super-geek or not.

Panda Updates

Panda, the codename Google has been using for a filter it put in place last year (named after its creator), has seen a few updates since its debut;  we apparently are still seeing them today.  To give you a little refresher course on Panda, here is a great infographic printed with permission from Search Engine Land (Source: Original Panda Infographic Post):

So What Does This Have to Do With Content?

Simple really.

If you are not creating great content for publication on line (or anywhere else for that matter) then you should not plan on being “in it” for the long haul.  Panda is doing a good job and “filtering” less than ideal content.

Sure, scraper sites can get you some flash in the pan action…heck, they can even make you a lot of money quickly…but, if you are a real business or a real freelance professional that is looking to build a stable and long-term business then you better be putting out some A+ content.  Your prospects will find information that they find valuable somewhere else.  You probably have one shot to make that first impression that YOU are the one they should be listening to.

The people at Google seem to understand that this IS the core of their search business.  Reducing the noise floor so that the real signal is heard.  Right now, Google is giving those creating rich and valuable content a leg up.  The noise has been reduced, can you be heard?

So, I am and will always be on the Content is King bandwagon.  There will always be people that are able to have success by skirting this golden rule.  Should you try and follow them, you will probably find yourself in the same situation that many before you have…back in the crapper wondering why you didn’t spend all of that time, effort, and money doing the “right” thing.

Listen to Spike Lee.

Related posts:

1. Content / Site Developers Wanted

Copyright 2011 ©Jason Golod.

The Video Boss Course is BACK

I just got a very exciting email…exciting if you are a total geek like me I guess.  If you are at all interested in making video, making video for online marketing purposes or otherwise, you are going to want to get on this.  The Video Boss, Andy Jenkins’ amazing video production course, is apparently coming back for 2012…on April 16th or so.  This is great because the free “mini video production course” Andy gave away the first time he launched his Video Boss product was simply awesome. There were 4 or 5 videos (some that were an hour or so long) that were just jammed with great information for aspiring video creators and online marketers alike.  Really great stuff.

Now, I did get a chance to go through the original course, and I was truly blown away. It was hands-down the most comprehensive course I have ever seen anyone put together on ANY subject.  One of the first thoughts I had was to look and see if he had created any other courses because he really did an incredible job with the Video Boss.

So, go and sign up now or check it out next week. Good stuff!

Related posts:

1. Back to Homebrewing

Copyright 2011 ©Jason Golod.