Ouch! Page Dropped By Google! April 19, 2011 | Posted in Traffic Generation | Leave a Comment

Traffic Generation

There are many reasons why a page could be dropped from Google. The key for you is to figure out why and whether you should do anything about it. Let's start with these general possibilities...

• Pages have duplicate content. This could be from using an article from an article directory, without reworking and adding lots of original content to the page. Or it could be from affiliate products, where the same wording about the products is found on dozens of other affiliates' pages.

• A site has copied another site's content. That duplicate content may affect the latter's rankings.

• Google doesn't trust the links into the site. They may come from spammy neighborhoods, link farms, or from sites known to sell links.

• Google doesn't trust the links out from the site. These links are going to sites unrelated to the content of the page or site.

• Pages are orphans (pages that have lost all links in to them), or are very far from the home page, with just one link to them, likely from the next higher level. If Google has to do a really deep crawl to find a page, it is more likely to get dropped (if it ever lists it, that is).

Beware of Article Spinning: Why Put Your Business At Risk? February 21, 2011 | Posted in Traffic Generation | Leave a Comment

Traffic Generation

Article spinning is an artificial way to obtain additional inbound links to your site. It does not reflect a "keep it real and add value" philosophy.

What Is Article Spinning?

Article spinning is basically creating several to dozens (some people create hundreds) of slightly different versions of one article. Those articles are then posted to several dozens (or hundreds) of article marketing sites, with the goal of receiving a link back to the author's site from each article, and the hope that the article will be published on several other sites... 

Trick or Treat? February 16, 2011 | Posted in Traffic Generation | Leave a Comment

Traffic Generation

Many Webmasters, experienced and otherwise, fall into the trap of excessively adjusting or tweaking their Web pages in order to improve search engine (SE) rankings.

The term "Search Engine Optimization" ("SEO") includes both keyword tweaking on a Web page ("on-page criteria") and orchestrating certain off-page criteria, such as inbound links to a website, all with the goal of manipulating search engine rankings.

SEOers are kidding themselves if they think their tricks are anywhere near what search engines really want. SEs are getting better and better at recognizing reality.

So jump one big step ahead of SEOers. Don't fake it. Simply keep it real... 

The Mobile Search - Facebook Page Connection for Local Businesses February 13, 2011 | Posted in Traffic Generation | Leave a Comment

Traffic Generation

What is the single most important thing you need to understand about mobile usage and search? And by mobile, we mean smart phones (iPhone, Android, others that build that type of capability into their phones).

It's all about how and why folks use their phones.

Mobile is about "short and sweet and now." Or as Seth Godin said, it's about "where to eat, who's near me, what's the weather, get me a cab right now -- is all about me and now and here."

Websites are still about traffic-building through search engines, because those folks are sitting down, searching for stuff, ready to invest more time in that type of research.

Meanwhile, social marketing is an adjunct to traffic-building and PREselling, not a replacement...