Time To Freshen Up Stale Sites & Perform Some Niche Site Spring Cleaning

Spring is here and now is the time of year when I like to take inventory of my sites that might be lacking freshness as far outdated products and models go. Now of course if you are in the cellphone or smartphone niche, this could be a constant ongoing process, but not all niches are that fast moving.

Usually I will start by going to Amazon and taking notice of any new items that might be best sellers and work backwards from there. I firmly believe older models, depending on the niche, have their place as well as most end up on eBay. That of course is right up my alley as well.

Depending on where I am in my other content creation, I may or may not decide to farm out the product info writing to my writers. Over the years I have found that I can use my time more wisely by paying them to research and write these. There are some niches though that I enjoy more than others and will sometimes tackle that content myself. It just depends site to site.

The best thing about adding new products is the appearance that the site is being updated in the eyes of both the surfer and the search engines. If the site has any age to it and a little authority, these pages can rank almost instantly and reward you in organic and search traffic much quicker than say a brand new site.

Not every niche is a winner as I hit duds like everyone else from time to time. Start with your best producing sites and work backwards. It will take some time, but usually well worth the time to do. While your at it, have a look around at any updates or errors you might need to take care of and treat the site like you are giving it a Spring cleaning.

Cutts On Article Marketing

Matt Cutts recently commented in the video below his thoughts on article marketing. Even though he frowns on it, you can tell if done right, it can help in your back-linking process. The problem is that not everyone does the process right. They do not start with a good high quality article to spin. They then do not spin it thoroughly using The Best Spinner, do not spin and rotate their anchor text and they likely do not belong to some good networks such as SEO Link Vine.

Article marketing should only be a small portion of your back link building strategy as well and all back link building should be slow and as natural looking as well. As best as you can get it. People hate to hear that it takes a good 6 months to a year to get a site seeded real well and producing a reasonable income. The old days of knocking out 1000 directories and submitting one article to 50 article directories in the first week is over.

Although Matt says they frown on article marketing, it can still be effective if done right. I have many sites that are proof of this. If you do it like 80% of the masses try to do, it will not help one bit. Take your time, spin them good, rotate the anchor text and pages they link to and submit over time.

Also be working on building other as close as natural backlink methods too. Not just through articles.

Recovering From Google Farmer Panda Update

Not sure how I missed this, but the great Vanessa Fox has a fantastic post up on Search Engine Land about what to do if your traffic has gone down since the Google Farmer/Panda Update. It is quite a long post, but she covers it pretty thoroughly. I have had a handful of sites affected by the last update, but am pretty sure what changes I need to make. Not drastic mind you. Pay close attention to the authoritative Content and duplicate content. While not surprising, many sites might fall into the more ads than content category. She also covers how Google recently launched an algorithm update intended to address scraper sites, but I know for a fact that this still needs tweaking on their end. I see scraper sites outranking some original sites everyday. Web spam is always changing and sometimes Google seems to chase their own tail in this department quite often. Anyways, read it slow and absorb it as it is a great post. She really writes great stuff and is worth following.

Video On Outreach For Linkbuilding

The latest Whiteboard Friday on SEO Moz is fantastic this week as it is done by Tom Critchlow and he covers what he calls Outreach for Linkbuilding. None of this is earth shattering and you will of course recognize that he mentions Twitter, which I have had great success with in certain niches. He gives great tips on how to reach out to other webmasters and online marketers for backlinks. Plain basic stuff, but broken down for you to easily understand.

Awesome Twenty Ten Weaver

I have been quite busy with doing a few new builds and recently was turned on to the Twenty Ten Weaver Wordpress themes. Everyone has seen the new default Wordpress theme, Twenty Ten, well the Weaver child themes makes easier than ever to customize. The theme extends the Twenty Ten theme by offering much more functionality such as customizing design colors and inserting code into the head area of your site as well as other areas. The best thing many of you will like is that it is easy to use and free. The video below does not do it justice, but the Weaver system is great for a newbie or advance webmaster. I have always liked themes with easy to add headers and this theme will let adjust sizes very easily. You need to play with this as it includes several child themes that look great and are easy to change colors on as well. Try it, you will love it too.

CloudFlare Free Content Delivery Network Service Review

A reader recently asked me if I have ever used CloudFlare, a free and paid Content Delivery Network service. I had never used it but recently put it to the test on a few sites without any problems. It is very easy to set up and point your nameservers in their direction. It honestly took me only 15 minutes from, start to finish. I am putting it to the test on a few moderately heavy traffic sites along with the W3 Total Cache plugin and am impressed with load times. I will let this run on these sites for a few months now to see how it goes. Here is the promo video below and a full tour here.

Us in 90 Seconds from CF Vimeo on Vimeo.

Site Structure By Yoast

Joost de Valk tackles Intelligent Site Structure for better SEO in his latest post and it is a great one. Yoast walks you through developing a good site structure, naming your sections and internal link structure. Such an easy to follow post with great images to illustrate the flow of the structure as well. Best thing about it it that it is nothing new as Yoast later reveals that the post was originally wrote in October 2007 for dev.opera.com. He says the only thing that has changed since is it's appearance and the adding of a few reference links. As you can see there is nothing magic, mostly common sense, but easy things like this are easily overlooked. Great post for a Friday. Have a great weekend everyone.

Cutts On SEO Misinformation

Stumbled across a video I missed on Matt Cutts where he covers some examples of SEO misinformation that is floating around at there. Meta keywords, links & etc. I always enjoy watching these as they are short and to the point and Cutts does a great job simplifying the subject matter.

Joost de Valk Video: Making Sure Your Content Is Found

I try to keep my eyes open for so many things and stumbled across a great video by Joost de Valk below from the WordCamp in Bulgaria back in October. The audio is a bit hard to hear and it is a long video, but I think you will enjoy it just the same. Joost or Yoast as he is commonly known is one of the people I follow closely in regards to SEO and Wordpress usage. He is the master at both. Enjoy.

Is It Shareable?

If you truly want to become an authority over time on an authoritative niche you might have, you need to ask yourself if the content you write is shareable or if people will share it. That is hard to explain until you see it in action and it is in action every day on Twitter and Facebook for starters. There are groups and followers of every imaginable niche out there, you just need to find them. They do exist. Some bigger than others, some smaller. Once you have a handle on your niche and research done, you can build the product pages. I must admit that these are not shared as much as articles and blog post are, but keep the reader in mind when building them. When adding articles and blog post later, make sure they fit a need, a search need and the content is the quality that others would share it. You can post this on Twitter and Facebook your self, perhaps on some group pages in Facebook even, but the true magic happens over time as others share it naturally. It does happen. Watch what type of content others are sharing in the niche? Videos? Toplist? Pictures? How to? You should get the drift by now. Sure you can build automated sites. I do, but my big, big money comes from several, several niches I am high in authority on and the content is VERY shareable. Look around. What is being shared in your niche on Twitter or Facebook?

Easiest Way To Make Money Online?

I get this question a few times a month, maybe more. It comes from both newbies and people that have been at this a while. Everyone wants to know the easiest way to make money online, but nobody likes the answer. It is funny how that works.

Everyone knows something about something. We all know how to do something most others don't. We all have favorite things we like to do. It may be bird watching, playing an instrument, cake decorating, keeping up with the television show Hawaii 5-0. You get the drift, I am sure. Do you blog about your favorite thing or things? Why not? Is it because you can't write? Please. I still can't write the way I want to. I am much better than what I was when I started though years ago. I have told the story plenty of times. I hated writing. My high school English teacher would be doing backflips right now if she saw me. You don't have the time? Please. If you don't have the time, you really need to start making some money so you can free yourself up some time. Give me a break. You don't make the time. You don't like to work? Stop reading this now.

If you have struggled to make money in this business, go back to step one and start building a site around what you like. Set up a Twitter and Facebook account for both and start following those that like the same thing as you do. Post EVERY DAY at least once. Yes, EVERY DAY! Share those links on Twitter and Facebook. Write interesting articles and rewrite the news associated with it. Get the drift? If you like the subject matter, it will be much more enjoyable. Post as if 1000 people are anticipating every post you make, write stuff others would like to link to and share with others on Facebook and Twitter. Become an authority on your subject if not already.

If you have not read and done the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog work book by Darren Rowse, you are missing out. It is easy to understand and easy to complete. Buy it, read it and do it. Stick with it and commit yourself to your blog or blogs. That my friends is the easiest way to make money. Many of you will not want to hear that though.

$20 Off Coupon Code For ReviewAZON Wordpress Plugin

I like to pass these along when I stumble over them. The ReviewAZON Wordpress Plugin is not new at all. It is a very powerful plugin I have used in conjunction with several other great plugins for some time now. The support and forum are fantastic as well. If you do not own this plugin or have not seen it in action ever before, you can watch the video below. There currently is a coupon code that will allow you to get this great plugin for $20.00 off the regular price. The coupon code is autoblogging. Make sure to update your cart after typing it in and you should see the discount applied before purchase. I do not know how long the discount is good for.

Free WP Article Fetch Plugin

This may or may not be of use to you, but it is free and I like to give readers an alternative. The WP Article Fetch V2.0 is a free Wordpress plugin designed to rival ultimate content fetcher, caffeinated content and WP Robot. The power and ease of use this plugin offers will help introduce into the auto blogging arena field. Wp Article Fetch v2.0 allows you to create just a few hand full of post or thousands of targeted post. I doubt you will want to use this long term though as you get what you pay for sometimes and I have not looked at how clean the code is yet. A video is below on it and there is no opt in either. So try it and you might consider getting into WP Robot or Keywords To Websites after playing with it.

2 Left Feet With 10 Thumbs Attached

I live in a pretty perfect environment and setup for what I do and have developed a work ethic that not many can compare to. I am addicted to what I do and the lifestyle I live, but believe it or not I have un-perfect days. Thankfully they are few and far between, but they do happen. It feels like you have 2 left feet with 10 thumbs attached. Know the feeling? I am sure you do. It might be interruptions, technical errors, piss poor planning, sickness or whatever. These days happen. When I feel I am slap middle in one of those days, I try to push through it. If it gets worse, I get up and go take the dog for a walk or go lie down for a bit and listen to some music. I try to get my mind right so-to-speak. It might take an hour or so, but I try to resume work from an easier starting point and choose an item on the long list I know damn sure I can accomplish. This might be as simple as home computer maintenance or updating a few plugins on some sites. My goal is to get back accomplishing task. Any task. When I knock out a few of these easy task, I then try to start back at the begging of the task I originally left off at to see if I messed anything up or did anything wrong and continue onward. If I still run into problems I just might wrap it for the day. It is amazing how a good night's sleep can make you get back your right foot and all of those thumbs disappear. Is today one of those days for me? Absolutely it is. This blog post is one of my little task I know I can complete and get me back on track. Thanks for listening and I hope this post will help you on an upcoming two left feet day that you might have.

SEO Moz On Site Age & Domain Name Registration Length

If you have 10 minutes, you will not be disappointed with the latest Whiteboard Friday video from Rand Fishkin of SEO Moz. Rand touches on site age, domain registration length and age of backlinks and his answers are very encouraging for those of you that may be new or just getting back into the swing of things. Rand points to recent chatter on the forums about these very subjects as the reason for readdressing these topics and talks in a very understandable manner. Rand is one of my favorites in the business to learn from and I owe quite a bit of my success to things I have learned from him along the way. This is a great video and dispels several myths at the same time.

SEOmoz - SEO Software

SEO Checklist For The Social Media Marketer

A bit under the weather tonight as the weather pops back and forth to warm and cold. I hate this time of year down South. I wanted to make sure I passed on this absolutely great post by jennita on SEO Moz in which she gives a complete SEO checklist for the Social Media Marketer. Read it slow as it might be tough to digest if you are new, but she does a great job explaining the why and the why nots. As you should already know by now, Google and Bing use Twitter and Facebook to influence regular search results. If you are using Twitter and Facebook in certain niches, especially ones you might be or close to authoritative, this will certainly help. I have to admit that I am using Twitter more and more as a search engine for timely updates of news and recent blog post. This is a great post and worth book marking.

Affiliate Recruit Wordpress Plugin

I have not quite formulated a plan yet for this free Wordpress plugin I have stumbled upon, but I have a few ideas. The free plugin is called the Affiliate Pro Plus plugin and lets your registered users get credit for new users they recruit by sending people to any url on your wordpress site with ?affid=username appended to the end. This could be for a contest perhaps via Twitter or Facebook and might be a great way to have a traffic promotion. I think you can probably come up with several uses for it. I have not used it yet, but the description claims members can be redirected to any page you want when logging in while admin users will not be redirected. You can also see who has been referred by whom and how many new members have been referred by each user on the user list. Of course this will not be a practical plugin for every site you run, but it is worth bookmarking and playing with should the need ever arise.

Building Coke Machines

This time of year you always see people making a push to get back going in the business as the New Year has that effect on people. I would like to offer those just getting back in the groove an analogy of sorts.

I was luckily raised to never 100% depend on a job. I was mowing grass and collecting soda bottles at a very early age not only for my own spending money, but to help the family as well as we were not well off. I was taught though to always look for multiple outlets of income and never be opposed to doing multiple things to bring in money. At a very young age of about 8, I was a helper to a guy that owned a few coke machines and always helped put the bottles in the machine when I would catch around the grocery store. We lived right caddy corner to it and I always rode my bike around it looking for bottles. That man taught me years ago that each of his machines worked while he was not there and installed the duplication process in my head as a way to earn money. Those machines of course would need to be fixed every now and again and needed to be refilled, but for the most part, they earned money without him needing to be around.

You can relate niche sites to the same lesson. Not every site you build needs to be one that needs to be attended to daily. I have a handful that I tend to daily, but I also have a much larger group that needs attention only twice a month. Now not every site brings 100 plus bucks a day of course, but many earn at least a buck or better a day and many more do even better than that. Sure, I have my golden coke machines that you could say sit outside a Wal-Mart and some that sit outside a corner grocery. The more coke machines you put out though, the more you will learn how to get them closer to a Wal-Mart and not near a corner store. There will be occasions even as you get better that you will swear you put one out front a Wal-Mart only to find out the Wal-Mart moved. See the picture?

The best thing about these coke machines is you can build and design them anyway you want and most only cost around 10 bucks to build (domain name). If you have a good hosting plan, the rent is cheap to place these coke machines everywhere you feel the need to. In addition, these machines can be changed and are not bolted the floor forever. The more of these you put out, the better you will get and the more money you will make.

This post has made me real thirsty. Off to get a coke. I hope you see the big picture.

WP Spin Wordpress Plugin Now Available

Not going to bog you down with details here, but a few post back I told you about the new WP Spin Wordpress plugin that works in conjunction with The Best Spinner will be available for purchase soon. Well that day is here as it is now for sale for just $47 bucks. If you have used The Best Spinner, you know how awesome it is and can certainly see the benefits of this great plugin as well. Watch the video below if you are not clear what the plugin does. Also Mike is offering a 59 day money back guarantee as well. I bought it and it is as advertised.

Critical WordPress Update

Happy New Year everyone. I hope everyone is hard at it already. The 2010 Christmas season was FANTASTIC. If you use Wordpress as a CMS, and I suspect many of you do, many are suggesting to update as soon as possible to version 3.04 that contains the fix that founder Matt Mullenweg calls critical. Supposedly there was a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability that can be used to steal login information or other sensitive information from visitors to a particular site. The XSS vulnerability is similar to the one that affected Twitter users recently. You should get updated to version 3.04 as soon as possible.