Which Blogs Should You Be Watching?

This guest post is by Kevin Sanders, of strongandfit.net.

What if I said you’re only as good as the blogs you follow? Maybe that’s not completely true for everyone, but I’m willing to bet all the A-listers have several blogs they check out every day.

I think there are basically two types of blogs you should follow.

Type 1: Blogging blogs

I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but I believe every blogger should keep an eye on several pro blogs in the field—whether they’re on making money or SEO tips, etc). Why? Here are three reasons:

1. Game-changer posts

Every once in a while, I’ll run across a post that radically impacts my blogging from that point forward. One example would be a post I read here that explained how to optimize the position of ads. Following that advice greatly improved the profits I made through both Adsense and affiliate banners. I don’t find these high-impact posts every day, but they easily make up for the effort I spend following the blogs I read.

2. Motivation

I wasn’t even sure you could make money with blogging when I first started. It’s hard to keep posting every day when you aren’t even sure there’s a possibility of financial reward for your efforts. Following the pro bloggers gave me the encouragement I needed to keep going, even when profits were slow (or non-existent). It also helped me to have realistic expectations and patience. Building a good blog takes work and determination; never underestimate the power of motivation.

3. SEO tips

I was completely clueless about SEO in my early blogging days. I still don’t consider myself an expert—not by a long shot. I also don’t obsess over SEO. Having said all this, I needed to learn how to work with search engines—best SEO practices, so to speak. I learned most of what I know from reading what other bloggers had to say.

I follow about 17 blogs through feeds on my Google page. Do I read every post on every blog? No. I just keep an eye on them and click any titles that get my attention. Also:

• Don’t overanalyze them. At some point you just need to shut up and blog. Don’t try to follow every single bit of advice you read—some of it may not apply to you, your niche, or your blog. You’ll even run across contradictory advice if you follow the blogging niche long enough. Just use what helps you and disregard what doesn’t.
• Don’t snub the B-listers. Keep an eye out for up-and-coming bloggers who may not be well known yet. Some of these guys really know their stuff and are more accessible than their A-list counterparts. Some of my favorite blogs, in fact, are not nearly as popular as Problogger.net. One example is SEO-Hacker, a blog created by one of my friends here in Asia.

Type 2: Niche blogs

I mentioned that I follow several pro blogs through RSS feeds. I also follow several blogs within the same niche as mine (fitness blogs). Following blogs in your niche, or related niches, can help you in several ways:

1. Potential income streams

Your fellow bloggers can help you keep an eye on new ways of making money. You may learn of a new product or service to promote by watching other blogs in your niche. Most of us try to keep track of these opportunities through affiliate newsletters, but other bloggers can help you find even more opportunities.

2. Trends within your niche

Blogs within your niche will alert you to “hot topics” in your industry or specialization. You may want to post your own two cents about those trends—there’s always a chance you’ll get ranked well in search engines on a topic that everyone’s talking about (and searching for).

This is especially helpful if you live outside the country that’s responsible for most of your traffic. I live in Asia, but most of my fitness blog’s traffic (and revenue) comes from North America. It’s very beneficial for me to follow bloggers back in the States.

3. Rebuttal posts

Following other bloggers is also an opportunity to be a voice of dissent. If you read a post you disagree with, you can give your own unique point of view on a particular topic within the niche. This would likely be a post you would have never thought of if you weren’t watching the blogosphere in your niche.

The bottom line: watching blogs within my own niche gives me lots of new ideas for producing fresh, relevant, high-quality content. I think it will do the same for you.

What should you keep in mind as you follow niche blogs?

• Be yourself. Don’t just repeat what everyone else is saying. Always try to find a way to stand out from the crowd. Loyal readers want to hear what you have to say.
• Do your homework. Hopefully you’ll inspiration from other blogs, but be sure to do your own research. You’ll need to go back to original sources and studies to check the accuracy of other bloggers. You’ll also need to carefully look at products you choose to endorse—what’s right for one blogger may not be right for you (even if you are in the same niche).

Are there other types of blogs that you consider essential reading? Share them in the comments.

Kevin is a missionary, author and fitness enthusiast. You can check out his fitness tips at strongandfit.net. You can read his devotional thoughts and personal reflections at KuyaKevin.com.

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For Bloggers, Now May Be the Time to Start Tweeting

Tweet

To tweet or not to tweet has been a question bloggers have had to ask themselves pretty much since the dawn of Twitter.

The main question is whether or not the time, effort and energy spent on creating and nurturing a Twitter profile is justified by the benefit one gets out of it. It’s always been a tough question and one where the answer heavily depends on the blogger, their niche and their audience.

Howver, with an update to Google’s “Social Search” feature today, Twitter just received a potential boost in terms of its usefulness. Now Twitter can not only be a way to communicate with your friends, family and readers, but now it might also directly impact your site’s position in Google itself.

Perhaps most interesting of all though is that, at this time, Facebook “likes” are not having the same impact as Twitter, meaning that, for the moment at least, Twitter is the only social network that can directly affect your Google ranking, other than Google’s built-in network.

So, if you haven’t been using Twitter because you didn’t see the point, now there may be one to give you a reason to start.

How it Works

SEO experts have long speculated that tweets affect search engine ranking, something that was confirmed in December of last year, but the impact seemed to be of dubious value, making other factors more vital to focus on.

However, today’s changes to social search have the potential, especially for your followers and their connections, to greatly boost your presence.

The reason is that, for logged in users who have connected their Twitter or other accounts to their Google Account, relevant links that were tweeted by the people they follow will be sprinkled in with the regular results, often bringing sites to the front page that would not have been there otherwise.

This means that, if you blog about microphones and tweet out your links, any follower of yours who searches for information on mics will, very likely, see your page high up in the results with an icon indicating who it is from.

It is also likely, though not confirmed, that these results may also help your Google ranking in broader searches, especially if Google sees that your followers find what they are looking for at your links.

In short, Twitter could become something of a proving ground for new content, letting webmasters show Google that their content is right for the search results and that, in turn, could be a powerful shortcut or boost to Google success.

How to Take Advantage of It

The good news is that, to take advantage of it, you really don’t have to do much of anything. All that you have to do is have a Twitter account, work to grow your presence and tweet out your content.

However, if you want to see results from the people you follow in Google, you have to connect your Google Account to your Twitter account, instructions for which are in the original Google post on the upgrades.

Bear in mind that this is a new Google feature that is being rolled out over time and may not be available until next week, depending on when your account has it activated.

But how big will the impact of this new feature be? That remains to be seen but there are several reasons to be wary abou spending too much time investing in your Twitter presence because of it.

Reasons to be Wary

As great as getting an immediate Google boost for relevant searches sounds, it’s crucial to remember that it only applies for the people who have connected their Twitter (or other relevant account) to their Google account and are following you.

Most likely, even if you have a large number of Twitter followers, that’s going to be a fairly small pool of people. The odds of them searching for content relevant to your links are, in truth, fairly small.

Still, those who do perform such searchers, click your links and find useful may, in turn, give your site a boost across broader Google results. It is unclear if that will happen and the issue of how Google interprets user data into its rankings is hotly contested, but it still seems that getting clicks and lasting visitors from Google is better than being ignored or sending visitors right back to the results page.

In short though, the benefits will likely be limited to a very small subset of your Twitter followers but, it is at least conceivable that it could have an impact across the broader results because of it.

However, it’s still up to individual bloggers to decide if it is worth taking part in, meaning that we are more or less back where we started on the “to tweet or not to tweet” debate.

Bottom Line

Once again, it’s up to bloggers to decide, individually, if it is worthwhile to invest the time and energy in setting up and maintaining a Twitter account. All that has changed is that now there is a new SEO benefit to factor in, even if the announcement back in December probably has a larger in the long run.

What is clear is that the search engines are taking Tweets much more seriously and, if you’re a webmaster interesting in maximizing the SEO potential of their site, then having an active and prominent Twitter account just makes sense.

Still, it is a lot of time and effort and there are many other factors that may be more important. So the decision is up to you, but if you’ve been on the fence about the benefits of tweeting for your site, now may be the best time to start.

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Free Top Ranking Keywords Report from SEO Link Wheelers

Over the past few months I’ve been getting back into the game I love, and that’s focusing on building web sites and killer content. As much as I love building web sites, it’s never fun to work on the backlinks and social bookmarks it takes to truly get a web site indexed and getting the search engines to love you. With that said, I’ve been looking at a lot of different solutions for link building and bookmarking management.

I remember when I first paid a few hundred dollars for a company to help with building links and getting my site ranked in the search engines. It was complete crap… I rarely ever hear from them and I don’t recall seeing any results. This was around seven years ago, but it’s just a reminder of how horrible the link building industry can be if you don’t know where to go. With so many to choose from, how are you supposed to know where to go? One of the most trusted solutions around is SEO Link Wheelers, and they are actually heavily promoted and used by ShoeMoney as well.

How SEO Link Wheelers does Link Building

There are many different methods for link building, such as article marketing, social bookmarks, backlinks, using anchor text and forum posting. Trading links with other web sites may seem like a good idea, but one way backlinks is where the link juice really flows. Everyone has a different concept on what works best, but SEO Link Wheelers takes a bit of everything and builds actual “link wheels” to increase backlinks to their customers web sites. In addition to backlinks being spread across article directories, blogs, and web 2.0 directories, SEO Link Builders also creates original content and YouTube videos to build quality backlinks.

SEO Link Wheelers gives you a 100% guarantee that any links they build for your web sites will be Dofollow, all content will be relevant, unique, and created 100% by hand. The video below was created by SEO Link Wheelers to give a better understanding on how their service works, and why it’s important to cover all link methods when building the right link wheel for your web site.

What are Your Target Keywords?

Before even jumping into the SEO and backlinking game, you need to take a look at what your web site is ranking for and how you can improve your results. Head over to SEO Link Wheelers and submit your url into the box on their main page. You will quickly see a report with three of your top ranking searching terms. If you want the full list, just click the “Full Report” link and confirm your email, then you will have free access to a report like the one below.

This report is an excellent summary of how your web site is listed and ranking in the search engines. You will see up to 100 keywords and rankings, along with the average CPC, traffic volume and the url of your site that is ranked for that search term. This report is completely free to access. You then have the option to choose a link wheel package to improve your rankings.

Building Your Backlinks and Putting It All Together

Taking everything we’ve covered, SEO Link Wheelers will build a link wheel and campaign just for your web site and the keywords you are looking to rank for. With three different packages available, you can choose from 37 links ($379), 74 links ($479) or 119 links ($664). When you first look at these prices, they may seem high to you, but that is because SEO Link Wheelers is actually building a link wheel with original content just for your web site and backlinks… these aren’t just links thrown around on Twitter, Facebook and dead forums. The value in these links is that they are spread across high content sites with pagerank and original YouTube video is also created. You can see a breakdown of what links are included in each package below.

At the very least, I highly recommend you head over to SEO Link Wheelers and grab your free report on what search terms are sending you traffic. If you decide to signup for a backlinks package, be sure to use coupon code “ZACJOHNSON” for 12% off your first order with SEO Link Wheelers.

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Google’s JC Penney Move Like a Grain of Sand in the Desert

While the SEO and search engine world in general is all fired up about the New York Times’ piece on JC Penney’s search dalliances it’s probably important to recognize what Google’s actions in response to the situation were: PR.

Now, that the New York Times is the new Google police (that’s for another discussion but between this, the Decormyeyes and Foundem it’s starting to look like the Times wants to make some waves by rocking Google’s boat) maybe the best way to get something done at the search engine is through the Times. When asked about this phenomenon of Google acting only when prodded by a major media outlet, Marketing Pilgrim’s Andy Beal had this to say

Google’s now too large of a company to take action that may be to the detriment of its business, unless publicly embarrassed into doing so.

So is Google losing its shine a little bit? Is all of this talk about content farms and spam and the like taken its toll on the search leader? Since most people who are involved in this dust-up depend on the engine to make a living by selling products and services either through Google or related to it, probably not.

What people really want is less junk in search results. What has happened throughout this ‘event’ is that the true situation may have some to bear. If Google doesn’t have the wherewithal or the stones to find and punish big players like JC Penney who are gaming the search results unless they are essentially cornered, then what makes anyone think they have the chops or even the desire to track down the millions of smaller search gamers out there?

Google has taken to spin on this whole spam issue by crying that Bing is copying their results. That’s just a diversion. What is kind of funny, though, is that JC Penney’s site does rank 4th in organic for the keyword ‘dresses’ on Bing’s engine as of this writing.

Google now has painted itself into a bit of a corner and it will be interesting to see how it gets out. Because of its constant harping on content being so critical to ranking (which was just a diversion from the fact that the real rank influence comes from links) it has now created a monster. Content farms have found a way to look like they are playing by the rules but all they are doing is abusing them. Quality is hard to determine when the limits of what is acceptable to the engines has been discovered. What comes out of all of this is maybe just that we now know Google can’t tell the difference between quality and junk after all.

So back to JC Penney. It looks like they have taken the link-abusing path to success which many, many, many others have and still do. Meanwhile, the other way to search success is create craptent to fill in the gaps. That makes Google sound a lot less attractive than it has been in the past.

Now, will that change anything? Not likely but let’s hope that Google isn’t going to rest on these rotten laurels.

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