… and that is especially true with content writing.

As you know in this post Panda/Penguin world, content is everything. But the
biggest problem with content has been the expense and the quality. In my testing of over 20 companies, I have found a strong team of content writers and we’ve been really pleased.

The solution? http://www.GetArticlesDone.com/

That’s a straight referral link. No affiliate code and no cookie. These guys are good. They can deliver large amounts of original, CopyScape checked articles with quick turn-around time. In the last 10 days they did over 9,000 articles, for example. They also do article submissions.

They have UAW and AMA style articles which fully support article spinning if that’s what you need. They even provide writing of extra articles titles and extra resource boxes and also offer an integrated article spinner with their platform or ready for cut and paste into third party spinning software.

Don’t sit on this, your sites need more content and this is a great solution right now and an offer which expires in a week. Tackle it right now. Injection of fresh content with solid marketing is showing great recovery from drops in the Google SERPs.

A few things you want to tackle …

1) Unique Titles are a must. Don’t forget this step. Audit your site. Look at the Titles through a program like Screaming Frog SEO. Any titles that are duplicate or near duplicate, you want to change those.
2) When is the last time you have run a complete CopyScape analysis of your entire site? I thought so. Get that done this week. You just maybe shocked at what you find.
3) How are your headlines? Are they targeting what you want the user to do or does it get your point across?
4) Review your Call to Action. Improve it.
5) New information to inject? If the article is “stale” or just isn’t cutting it, look to improve the lead in, the narrative, the closing. Add pictures, graphs, quotes, etc. Drive your point home, sell it, convince them. Lead them down the path they need to follow.

Most web masters who are having the most success overcoming Penguin are saying the same thing … they are getting back to SEO/Marketing 101 and doing the little things right. I cannot emphasize this enough. Doing the basic things right will lead to a faster and more complete recovery.

SEO Revolution Blog

There is a great line in the movie “The Adjustment Bureau” where Matt Damon’s character, a politician, is giving a speech …

“We had a rule in my neighborhood. When you got into a fight, it wasn’t whether or not you got knocked down. It is what you do when you get back up.”

Can you get back up? Yes you can, as we did it.

Below is a screen shot from Google Analytics and it is real. The site is an affiliate site and is a PageRank 7 site. Very authoritative in the market and was generating solid traffic and fantastic conversions. Then Panda came and you can see the huge drop-off and even a period where the traffic literally “flat-lined”.

Panda Before & After

It sucked.

But you see in the screen shot that the traffic not only came back, it came back stronger than ever. What did we do? Well, we did a laundry list of things, but not just on this domain, on dozens of others. Of the 800+ domains we manage, we had about 40 get hit hard with Panda. And in the test we did, we grouped them and tested some same methods and some different to see the reaction.

And every site that came back from Panda had one common theme…and this was the only consistent factor amongst our testing group.

A listing in the Best of the Web directory.

If you have been following me over the last decade, this is THE directory to be listed in to get your site the biggest push. Yes, better than the Yahoo! directory in terms of juice given to you. And now is a great time to get listed in BOTW as their 18th birthday is here and they are offering a 50% off coupon, just click the link and you’ll be redirected with the coupon code at the top, so when you checkout, you have the coupon code right there instead of trying to remember it, writing it down, or worse, copying and pasting it, as we all know what happens when you do that … something comes up which forces another copy and you have to go back and get the code again which is a royal pain.

Do yourself and your site a big favor, get a listing in Best of the Web right now…and make sure you get the lifetime listing…and with the savings, I would get every major site in your portfolio a listing. It will do your site a world of service.

Get Your Site Listed Now!

SEO Revolution Blog

You are probably wondering where in the hell have I been? It’s been seven months since my last post … a lot has happened. The biggest change was I received custody of my two teenage sons in March, and while I was elated at the time, I had no idea how much of a challenge it would be. I know, stupid me, I will know better next time.

Nordstrom Epic Win for the Holidays…

Okay, let’s talk business strategy and how to set yourself apart from your competitors. Too many companies follow instead of lead. It used to be that you knew Thanksgiving was close when the Christmas decorations went up. Now they are often up before Halloween hits. That’s just wrong. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and as my “protest” I would never set foot in a store that had their holiday decorations up before Thanksgiving (and yes, I kept a list). It was so bad last year that I did all of my holiday shopping online. There was no where I could go.

I can understand retailers reasoning, they do the bulk of their yearly sales during the holidays and since their competitors are getting into the Christmas season they need to as well or they will lose. That is one way to attack the market, or you can be totally awesome like Nordstrom … and take the high road.

This is a shot of the signs they have before you enter their store. These signs do a few things. First, it informs you when the holiday decorations will go up; Second, it tells you why, because they believe in celebrating one holiday at a time; Third, it is giving the bird to all the competitors for “Thanksgiving Creep”.

Look for obnoxious things your competitors do. Look at their ads, their sites, call their order numbers, do they have a phone system from hell that makes you press one to proceed in English? If so, make fun of them. “We never make you press one to proceed in English because I live person answers your phone and can help you right now. Your call is important enough for a live person to answer it.”

In this crappy economy do something that is completely outrageous, give great customer service and treat your customers as actual people instead of objects. You might be stunned to find out how awesome they really are and how much they like giving business to you. But first, you have to quit being such an idiot just because your competitor is.

SEO Revolution Blog

It struck a lot of Webmasters as ironic that Google made page speed a rank signal when AdSense scripts was one of the factors slowing sites down. According to Google, it slowed publisher sites by about 12%.

Gone are those days. Google developers improved the show_ads.js JavaScript needed by AdSense publishers and sped up delivery of ads. Google claims the changes will speed up publisher sites by a half second or more. After running Page Speed and YSlow tests, we’ve seen a noticeable improvement in scores. Publishers don’t have to upload new code since the change is automatic. Right now, the changes are working with Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer 8, with more browsers and versions included soon.

If you need to block the new ad version, set “google_enable_async = false” for each ad slot.

SEO Revolution Blog

Amazon sent a “Notice of Contract Termination” to all Illinois affiliates today in response to a new law in Illinois. The law, sponsored by Rep. Patrick Verschoore (D-Rock Island) and Senate President John Cullerton (D-Chicago), requires online retailers with affiliates in Illinois to collect sales tax and submit it to the llinois Department of Revenue (IDOR).

The email reads, “Unfortunately, a new state tax law signed by Governor Quinn compels us to terminate this program for Illinois-based participants. It specifically imposes the collection of taxes from consumers on sales by online retailers – including but not limited to those referred by Illinois-based affiliates like you – even if those retailers have no physical presence in the state.”

Govern Quinn says the goal of the bill is to level the playing field and make things “fair” for brick and mortar main street companies that currently collect sales tax. The fact is Illinois is beyond broke and the state needs revenue. Instead of getting rid of redundant programs and wasteful spending, they looked to the Internet. The Governor also believes this will help create jobs. Guess he thinks consumers are going to shop more on main street and less online because of this legislation. Poor fella.

Amazon is fighting this new law calling it, “unconstitutional and counterproductive.”

Even though the damage this does won’t officially be reflected in unemployment figures, Governor Pat Quinn has caused people in his own state to lose jobs–at least temporarily, entrepreneurs always bounce back. Unlike the millions of Americans on unemployment, that won’t be an option for affiliates who made a FT living with Amazon (not that entrepreneurs would collect). Unlike union members protesting in Wisconsin for more more more, online entrepreneurs have no collective rights–and quite clearly no one looking out for their interests. —Maybe that needs to change.

In the meantime, if this creates a significant decrease in your income, contact a good attorney and tax account to come up with solutions, because there are solutions! Best Buy, Walmart and many other stores have also said they’ll welcome Amazon’s booted affiliates.

SEO Revolution Blog