Do you know all about Google Panda? I decided that I would do a little research on it because when it was introduced in March 2011 some sites benefits with a rise in rankings while other sites lost out and started sliding in rankings.
The person responsible for Panda is a Google engineer named Navneet Panda. What he did was change the machine learning scalability of Google.
This means that sites are now rated for quality. Google now looks to see if the site is trustworthy and is credible. The sites that people show they like are placed in one group and the sites that are not favored are put into another group. The sites that are liked less are downgraded using Google’s Panda system.
So Panda has really done something new and different regarding SEO. It is now not just a matter of including all you keywords and getting the search engines to visit, you also have to think about the people that want to come to your site knowing they can trust it. Links are not as valuable as they were with Panda.
Panda relies on the popularity of your site and you should know how they do that. They measure how many visitors are coming to your site and how many pages are they reading while they are there. They measure this through Chrome, Android and Google toolbar. The more pages read, the more popular your site is. The more people that tweet or forward your site address to others will help increase your popularity.
Unique content is not as important as it was. How popular your site is, will now allow Panda to increase or decrease your rankings.
Now that I have read up on Google about Panda, I believe they are ready to make changes within a few weeks, so we are in for interesting times.
Is there room online for everyone? Can anyone become successful online?
To be successful online requires that you have to work for success. There are no “push button” methods out there. The only person making money from these methods are the people selling the products.
Success comes from hard work and having the right mindset. Everyone who wants an online business has to know what they are doing and the only way to do this is to follow a system and have a coach/mentor.
Many people buy courses to study and a lot of them are never opened. People find it daunting when they are not sure exactly where they should start. There is so much information now available online that it can be overwhelming. This syndrome is commonly know as information overload.
There are some well known internet marketers that are now teaching online for a very small amount or even better for free. The reason they give is that they want to give something back. If you find a teacher for free, and you like what they are teaching, you are probably inclined to buy their products.
Most people who start online learn the basics in the Internet Marketing niche and this is a very broad niche. Once you have the basic skills you can go into whatever niche you desire. The best niche you can go into is the one where you have an interest and some knowledge. This makes it a lot easier for you.
If I could stress one thing about working online – it is a business – your business and treat it that way. If you have a job in the outside world, you are required to work x amount of hours each week and do the work that is required of you. An online business is the same. To be successful, you have to be prepared to work x amount of hours online – in a structured manner. This requires that you have a written plan of what you want to achieve and you stick to that plan.
Anyone can be a success as long as you follow the plans that you have set for yourself.
Do you know how to get the maximum visitors to your site? I have added a very cool plugin to my site that will help my visitors stay longer and decrease my bounce rate.
For the maximum amount of traffic you must be prepared to get the maximum exposure for your site. If you are going to do this yourself you will be doing a lot of work but be assured it is well worth it.
Google is the largest search engine followed by Facebook and coming in as number three is YouTube. There are some people who believe that Facebook is number one and that is why Google is introducing so many changes. So if you want to be noticed, you have to let the search engines know that you have added more content.
Social bookmarking is another way to get noticed. Go check out these ones:
Make sure that you also post you new material on Facebook and send your URL in a tweet to Twitter. If you are writing articles on other sites like Ezine, Hubpages, Squidoo or Tumber, make sure that you use pingler.com to ping those articles. It is just as import to ping these as it is to ping your blog. You have to aim for the maximum organic traffic that you can get to your site. There is no point in writing these articles in other places unless you also link them to your main site. Pinging and linking are often not done and if not done you could lose a lot of free traffic.
If you are prepared to do this you can potentially increase your traffic and get subscribers signing up for your gift that you are offering.
The WordPress dashboard for most blogs is underutilized. There are so many features available that most users never bother with.
There are two areas that I would like to take a closer look at today. The first one is “Publish.”
The top row says”"Save Draft”and “Preview.” These are really self explanatory. You can save your draft and then preview it.
If you go down to Visibility: Public and click on Edit there are three categories that appear. The first is public and most people would want their blogs to be seen by the public. Here you can also make the post sticky which means it will always stay on the front page. The second in the drop down box is Password protected.This allows you to protect your post from everyone viewing it and you have to create a password. Only the people you give this password to will be able to visit it. The third drop down box is “Private”and if you click on the radio button here, you blog will not be visual.
Now a feature that I use a lot is the “Publish.” When you click on “edit” you will find that the date and time appears and you can change the date to schedule your posts to a later date. This is very good if you are going on holidays but still want to publish content while you are away. You can set it so your blogs to appear on the date and time you have chosen.
The next section that most people do not use is the “Screen Options” at the top right hand corner.
Did you realize that you can totally change your screen layout to four columns? There are some people that will have up to four columns.You can un-tick some of these features. If you do not want to see “Quick Press”because you never use it, just un-tick it. This can change the appearance of what you will see on your screen. It is up to you.
So go and have a look at what you can do. Remember you cannot break WordPress.
This is the year of the Dragon and it is going to be a great year for all who want to take action and move forward with their business online.
Don’t think of your site as a blog, start thinking of it as a business that you are going to receive the money flowing from it. If you think of it as a business, you will approach it differently. Admittedly, it is a lot cheaper than running a business off line but is a growing business that needs input from you and others to make it successful.
Well now that I have mentioned your business online, there has been a massive change from Google and this is going to affect your business. The change has been made to the search engine algorithms.
I think rather than me try and disseminate all that Matt Cutts has said, I will just post a link to it here. Even the Internet Marketing Junkie just copied and pasted.
You will see that you may have to change your site. You may have to change any ads so that they appear below the fold. By doing this, you should be able to maintain or increase you ranking with Google.
By changing just this simple thing, your visitor will have a better experience when they land on your page.
Well the basic idea of SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) is to stop pirate sites selling counterfeit physical products like fake watches, designer clothes, electronics etc. This bill is currently with the US congress and, if passed, would allow the US Government to add certain sites to a blacklist and this would prevent access to anyone in the US to these sites. It will not only have ramifications in the US but potentially world wide.
The intention of such a bill is good but if passed it could be a disaster.
We all know that there is theft and fake goods on the internet and it has to be stopped but the majority think that this bill would cause sites to be shut down that should not be shut down.
If anyone is advertising a fake product, their site would be shut down, even if they were not aware the product was not the genuine article.
The payment processors that accept these payments would also be closed down.
This bill could also affect copyright both the written word, graphics and photographs. This could result in many sites being closed down because they have copied some graphics or used someone’s photos.
If the US starts closing down foreign sites you can imagine that there would be some form of retribution. Other countries from around the world would retaliate. This could be an internet disaster.
The pirates, if blocked, would just find new methods to distribute their goods. They would not just go away. They would be losing millions. Can you imagine if there are people selling fake goods on ebay?
So what can be done? If you live in the US, you should contact your Senators and Representatives and tell them to vote against SOPA . When you contact them explain the damage that this could do to the business online. Advise them that you agree with the goal but not with the legislation. Always give your name and where you live as this will let them know that you are one of their constituents. You can either phone or write and make a stand against SOPA. Every US citizen must be heard – do not leave it to a small minority but become part of the majority.
If you want to read what Wikipedia has to say- read it here.
For the latest news on Google. On Tuesday 10 January 2012 Google updated its search engine to include personal info from Google+.
This has been a total change for Google because now when people now type in for a search, Google will include personal information. This update is called “Search, Plus Your World.”
The Google robots are going to incorporate any data from Social Networks and from the public internet sites when it carries out its search.
They are promoting their Google + and they want to become stronger competition with Facebook. They are losing huge market share to Facebook. Facebook has taken a lot of revenue from Google by allowing advertising. The Facebook ads are a lot less expensive than Google is charging for the same keywords.
This is what Danny Sullivan said -‘On the prominent blog Search Engine Land, Danny Sullivan writes that the updates fundamentally change the way Google’s search engine functions, calling it the “most radical” change ever.
“The new system will perhaps make life much easier for some people, allowing them to find both privately shared content from friends and family plus material from across the Web through a single search, rather than having to search twice using two different systems,” he writes.’
So if you are searching on Google, today you will get a totally different result to what you have before. This update includes social and personal content and you will receive date and images from Google+.
There has been some talk that there could be some privacy problems that could arise. I think Google would have thought of that before they updated.
I personally think it is a good move but there may be some that do not like it. It is going to interesting to see what the next move is.
Is your WordPress site secure? I am asking this because so many people do not back up their site and worse still do not have a secure password.
When you first set up your WordPress site you select a user name. This name cannot be changed. If your password is not secure when you log in, I would suggest you change it immediately. I find it difficult to believe that people do not use a secure password. If you are one of these people, change it now. Go to your dashboard and go down to click on “Your Profile.”
Go to the bottom of the page and you will see where you can change your password. Type in your new password, you have to do it twice and don’t forget to click “Update Profile.” An easy password to create and have no problem remembering is to take the first 3-5 letters of someone name who is close to you and then at the end of this put in a date that you associate with them – it could be their birthday or the date they graduated college or an anniversary date.
The choice is your. So you should end up with a password that looks something like: MiCk040166. You can have a mixture of uppercase and lower case to increase the strength of your password. You will be able to remember this type of password very easily. You can add other symbols to make it even more secure such as: MiCk*040166! You now see how simple it is to have a secure password.
It is essential that you do both of these things. To have your website backed up, it is as easy as installing a plug in. This is the one I use.
To set it to automatically back up your blog site, click on “Tools Backup” and go to the bottom of page and select how often you want to back it up. Put in your email address and click on “Schedule backup.” I only do a backup once a week.
The hosting company you are using should also backup your blog, but if you are on a private server, they may not backup on a regular basis. So be safe and secure.
What we all need for this New Year is to make the right decisions and take the action to accomplish our dreams. If we do this, that means we are not making any excuses or procrastinating. Do not doubt yourself and have no fear that what you are doing will get the results you are wanting.
We can all, from time to time, allow some form of doubt to creep in but that is allowing yourself to slip into a negative frame of mind. If you find that you doubt anything, including your own ability to be successful, take affirmative action. Action is the key to success. If you attempt something and you fail, try again. You will have given yourself a valuable lesson and when you try again you will know where you failed on your first attempt. Your only failing is when you stop trying.
Don’t let other people’s doubts, destroy your dreams. You will always have the well meaning friend or relative who tells you to give your dreams away and be realistic. They mean well but they can also try and change the direction you are headed. Just smile and tell them “thank you for your advice and I will think about what you have said.”
Very important -that you have all your dreams written down as goals so you know where you are going and how long it will take to get there. Always do one task at a time – otherwise, if you are attempting many things, you will tend to be over whelmed. If you reach this point, you sometimes find that you can do nothing because you have not prioritized your work load. I have had friends that have reached this point and then they start making all the excuses they can think of.
So this year are you going to be the one making excuses or are you the one who will take action? Only you can decide. Others can encourage you but you have to be the one who takes action and works towards achieving all you desire for yourself and your family.
So if you think that you do not have it easy, watch this video and rethink it.
Well we have arrived in 2012 and it is very exciting with all the plans I have made. What makes some people so successful while others fall behind? Two people can be give the same education, same opportunities and the same lifestyle but one person can far outstrip the other and become very successful. Why is this so?
Again we should all know the answer because I talk about this in several blogs – mindset. Your inner world will create your outer world. The thoughts you think, and the actions you take, are directly responsible for the results you receive.
Anthony Robbins put it very well when he said “in those moments of decision, your destiny is shaped.”
Take the plans you have made for the New Year and chunk them down into manageable parts. I heard on television this morning that the most resolutions revolve about your health. Examples given were:
You want to lose weight.
You want to exercise on a more regular basis.
You want to stop smoking.
You want to eat a healthier diet and cut out the junk food.
There were several others given but these were the main ones. So, if like the bulk of the population, some of your New Year’s resolutions are similar to these, then we must make our plans on how to do this.
They say if you have bad habits you have to replace them with good habits.
One of my resolutions revolves around my health and that is, not to sit at my computer for long periods of time, and not getting up and walking around. Sometimes we can be our own worst enemies here because we keep telling ourselves – just a little longer and I will have finished what I am doing. Wrong, get up and take a break and stretch your arms and legs.
Another thing I want is to create more products. I believe that I can make some good money this year and I want to go on another overseas holiday. I really love to travel and there are still so many places that I have on my bucket list. So I have to take action and make things happen.
Do you know all about Google Panda? I decided that I would do a little research on it because when it was introduced in March 2011 some sites benefits with a rise in rankings while other sites lost out and started sliding in rankings.
