Google’s New Disavow Links Tool

In my MBA E-commerce class tonight we had a very in-depth discussion about the new Google Webmaster Tools called Disavow Links tool. Before getting into the full conversation, a little background is needed.

Background

Recently Google’s “Penguin” update penalized websites for obtaining poor quality links. Web marketers and blog owners had been using tricks like “comment spamming” or mass article submission to boost their numbers and this update was a way for Google to combat this practice.

In my class discussion, it was the popular opinion that “Penguin” was a good thing because it kept search engine ranks fair to people who had the best site but were not using this tactic to gain their position in search engines.

After we all agreed that it was a smart move on Google’s part our professor brought up Google’s newest announcement about the “Disavow Links” option for Google Webmaster Tools.

Disavow Links tool for Google Webmaster Tools

When you log into your Webmaster Tools through Google you may get a scary “unnatural links”

5 Things Keeping You From Having A Successful Blog

I have been struggling with trying to create a Successful Blog for several years now.  I started writing my first blog using “front page” software for my performing website.  I had no idea people were making money online back than without a product for sale or a service they were selling.

Today it is a new world!  Wordpress makes it easy to run a blog, affiliate sales means we don’t have to have a product to make money, and information on SEO is over abundant.  Even with all these new resources it is still not easy to run a successful blog no matter how you define success.

As I am starting to see more views to this blog on a monthly basis, I have been reflecting on what has taken so long for me to find even a small audience.  I have taken those hurdles and broken them down into a list of 5 things keeping me and others from having a successful blog.  Those include:

Niche Site Journal Week 4 – add plug-ins, add widgets, and adjusting theme

How many hours in now?  That is right, we are 56 hours of work into our niche site and it is “more or less” done.  In week 4 it has been a busy week and we had a hard time finding time to work on the blog.  Leah had her baby shower and had some other baby related things going on, which left me to take up the slack.

Plug-ins

In case you are new to wordpress, “Plugins are tools used to extend the functionality of the WordPress platform. However, they are only applicable to self-hosted blogs and web sites using the WordPress.org software” (from http://en.support.wordpress.com/plugins/).  I am not going to explain how to install since this is not that kind of post.  Instead here is a list of the ones I am currently using for my niche site.

• Contact Form 7:  for my contact page I am using this form so that people can contact me without having to give out my email address.
• Disable Comments:  I didn’t want people to be able to comment on my pages because it isn’t that kind of website.  Also, I get enough spam comments on jasonloveslife.com.  I would hate to have to clean out two sites from comment spam.
• Google Analyticator:  This is how I am connecting the website to my Analytics account for tracking visitors.
• WordPress SEO:  A plug-in that is allowing me to optimize my pages for Search Engines and hopefully getting me ranked higher.

Week #4 Results

Fine Tuning the website

Your project has been successfully funded! What now?

I got this email from Kickstarter on completion of my successful Kickstarter campaign

Your project has been successfully funded! What now?

Congratulations! You have raised $1,088.03. Nicely done!

So, what now?

ACCESSING FUNDS

Amazon is now processing the transactions for your project; your funds will be available 14 days after the transactions are charged. At that point, you can request to withdraw the funds from your Amazon Payments account:

https://payments.amazon.com

FULFILLING REWARDS

Need info from your backers to fulfill rewards? No problem! When you’re ready to deliver rewards, you can easily request and track whatever info you need using Backer Reports. Select the reward tier you want to query, specify the info you need (address, T-shirt size,

Niche Site Journal Week 3 – WordPress Site Editing & Content Creation

Another 14 hours into the Niche Site Journal; this brings the total up to 42 hours of work into our niche site.  Our focus during week 3 was on filling up the website with content and adjusting the code to look good.  This entailed content creation, designing images, adjusting the look of the website, setting up the Google adsense banners, and placing the ads onto the site.

Pages for the website

Since we spent the week working on the site, I thought you might find it helpful to know what the website is going look like in regards to number of pages and what they are for.

1. Home: We are using this as the Welcome page.  It talks about the product (which is our Keyword), we make sure to give it a personal feel, and we mention the reader as much as possible.  Since our site is on pregnancy we congradulate them on their expected child or their loved one’s expected child, make sure they feel we care about them (which we do), and sell them on the idea of the product being important for their health and well being (which it is).
2. Articles: This page is in a condensed blog format.  This page will have a list of around 5 articles talking about the product. Each will show a headline with a very brief description of the articles topic.  These 5

Niche Site Duel from Smart Passive Income; I’m joining and you should too

By far my favorite Internet Marketing blogger right now is Pat Flynn from the Smart Passive Income Blog.  Even though I have been following him for over a year now, I have not had the time to go through all of his pasts blogs.  On his podcast and posts Pat often mentions his Niche Site Duel he had with Tyrone Shum, which starter in August of 2010.  I have finally decided not only should

SEO WordPress Plugin by Yoast

On page with post editing.

Just got SEO WordPress Plugin by Yoast and I have to say it is a little confusing.  I understand most of the concepts, but some of the tools I can’t figure out.  For example, I have already written a lot of this article and have used the word “seo” several times, yet it says content and page url are labeled as “NO”.

However, because of this list I realize they need to be there so I am working hard to include the words “seo”, “wordpress”, and “Yoast” in order to have a higher chance to get ranked for these keywords together.  Meaning even though the plugin’s list is not accurately showing “yes” or “no” in all sections for those keywords it still functions as a reminder for me to follow those rules.

Beyond this, the plugin does a lot more that I don’t completely understand or really want to take the time to learn.  As long as it is doing it’s job, I am happy