Fact is that when it comes to organic search webmasters have to follow whatever Google says. So, really there is no point in lamenting about Google’s policies and discussing how every update has an ulterior motive.

There’s one rule of survival in the SEO world: ADAPT AND ADAPT FAST!

What is the Penguin?

The Penguin was launched on April 24th and according to Google’s webmaster central blog the algorithm change is likely to affect only 3.1% website. Now that the dust has settled down, the key targets of penguin have emerged more clearly. These include:

• Spammy websites, or those that use duplicate and spun content
• Sites wherein keywords that have no relevance to the text are stuffed randomly in the content. Here’s an example of the kind of content that’s been targeted (the screen shot has been taken from the Google webmaster blog)



Sample Links and Content That Can Get You in Trouble

• Websites that practice keyword cloaking (hidden keywords and links in the text).
• Sites that have too many inbound links from spammy websites, through dubious link exchange programs or low-quality guest posts, etc.
• Sites wherein the content is not relevant to the anchor text of inbound links (see the screenshot above).
• Webmasters who haven’t diversified their anchor texts, as in are using exact match text for a majority of their inbound links. For example, if 60% of the inbound links to your site are embedded in the anchor text “best online marketing’, there is a good chance the penguin has already given you a sharp peck!
• Sites where the Meta and Title tags are stuffed with keywords are also likely to be affected.
• Websites that haven’t struck the right balance between relevant content and over-optimization.
• The site’s SEO violates Google’s Webmaster guidelines, or if the content is low quality.
• Sites that have a huge number of links coming from a single source.

How do I know if I have been hit?

If you have seen a drop in your organic search traffic or your rankings for certain keywords have dropped in the last one-week or so, you may have been hit.

The Penguin Had You For Dinner?

How Do I Recover From The Penguin’s Peck? Top 5 Tips

Whether you have already been hit, or think you are on the borderline, pressing the panic button (to be read, submitting a reconsideration request to Google when you really know you’ve been bad) is the last thing you should be doing. Your rankings may have tanked, but you can still get back up on your feet with a little spring-cleaning and change in tactics.

To make matters simple, here are the top 5 steps that you should take:

1. Clean Up Your Mess

If you think you have been affected, don’t start hacking your old links left, right and center. Take a deep breath and perform an audit of your inbound link profile calmly. Your best bet would be to get rid of those links that look blatantly spammy and bought. The following fall in this category:

• Paid links
• Site-wide links with an exact match anchor text
• Irrelevant exact match links placed in low-quality spun content
• Links from de-indexed private blog networks and sites

2. Examine Your On Site SEO

• Get rid of keyword stuffed Meta and title tags, this means don’t use permutations and combinations of the same keyword repeatedly.
• Add relevant content to your pages and do not exceed keyword density of 2% on any page.
• Add social sharing buttons to your website. This is more of a preventive measure, to ensure that your site’s content can be shared and bookmarked easily, thus helping you create natural backlinks.
• If you have multiple pages with similar content, or targeting the exact same keyword on different pages, get rid of the junk.

3. Submit A Re-consideration Request

If you feel you have been unfairly targeted, you may submit a re-consideration request through Google Webmaster tools. This is only for those who didn’t do anything black hat. Google is out there fishing for webmasters to confess something, and if you mistakenly reveal a tactic that has not been the target of the Penguin update, then you put yourself into the lion’s cage, all covered with blood.

The Penguin Feedback Form

4. Diversify Your Anchor Text

You should use various permutations and combination incorporating a part of, or the whole keyword you are targeting. So, for instance, let’s say your targeted keyword is “stock investing”, instead of using this as your anchor text for all your blog, article marketing and social bookmarking links, and use different versions like:

• Smart stock investing
• Stocks
• Investing options
• Stocks and investing
• Investing in the stock market
• Stock market investing; etc.

It’s not a bad idea to create some non-keyword related anchor texts as well, like, click here, my website, etc.

The idea is to make your links look natural and not spammy. Also make sure that all the links in your anchor text do not point to the same page; it will raise a huge red flag.

5. Diversify Your Inbound Link Profile

Placing all your eggs in one basket will eventually land you in trouble. One of the most time-tested and successful SEO strategies, therefore, has been diversifying your inbound link portfolio. The following are some top strategies:

• Going social: Bookmark each and every blog post on your site to multiple sharing sites. You can use varied versions of your keyword in the title of your bookmark to diversify your anchor text content as well. Remember to put together a good mix of Do-follow and No-follow social sharing sites for creating bookmarks.



Social plays a role in SEO nowadays

• Article Posting: Post only to reputed directories that do not accept spun, or poorly written content. If you have been using automated services or software tools to upload articles, re-evaluate your strategy.
• Guest Blog On Authority Sites In Your Niche: Platforms like MyBlogGuest, Bloggerlinkup, etc, can help you find guest blogging opportunities on authority sites in your niche. The process is time consuming, but the inbound links that you will get through guest blogging will be worth your while.
• Write and Distribute Press Releases: A lot webmasters ignore the relevance of press releases in creating a diversified link profile that Google seems to like. Don’t do that. If you have anything newsworthy to share, create a press release, it will get you attention and valuable natural looking links.
• Post quality content on your own blog: This is the best and safest strategy for generating natural backlinks. Create content that’s relevant and newsworthy for your readers and you will get several tweets, diggs, stumbles, etc, without trying too hard.

What’s Next?

Google has made it clear time and again that their way is the only way to play. Every black and gray hat technique is eventually discovered and taken down. Looking forward, the best strategy, therefore, is to play safe. Keep your house in order, make sure you have diversified natural looking inbound links, avoid buying links, and even social media likes and followers.

This is a guest post and the views of the author do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of this site. Traian Neacsu, is a professional search engine optimizer who writes for Pitstop Media Inc, a top rated SEO company that provides search engine optimization services to businesses across North America. For more information please visit www.pitstopmedia.com

Image sources:

In case you weren’t sure what a copywriter was, the definition is “a person who writes copy for the intention of advertising a particular person, business, idea or subject.” But why would you want to do this? Well, it’s a great way to get your ideas to a wider audience.

For example, think of the guy who worked in advertising when Nike asked for a great slogan (copy) to advertise their brand. I’d like to think it was late in the day and the copywriters were getting nowhere. One of them was probably saying to themselves “C’mon, I just need an idea brain. Give me an idea brain. Just do it already.”

“Hmm, just do it. That’s pretty good.”

And a slogan was born. Short, simple, memorable. Sometimes it’s that easy. Most times, it’s much harder than that. When you are given a brief, you have a vague idea of the direction you want to take your writing. Of course, it’s not all based on your opinion, you have several factors to consider. The thing you are writing about, the intended audience it’s for, specific phrases or keywords that might have to be included.

There’s a lot to consider here is what I’m saying.

I work for a domestic appliance company. This doesn’t mean every piece of writing has to do with appliances. Basically, I will be given a brief and it’s my job to think of a unique and appealing way of getting the information out there.

If it’s about appliances, maybe I want to go down the home design route. I’ll write about colourful decor and how it benefits the home. Maybe a colourful appliance would be nice? That’s all it takes. You don’t have to bombard people with the idea, as long as you give them a reason for it to stick in their minds. I’ll write press releases to various media outlets too, which involves rearranging existing information into a way that’s interesting and informative.

I think a creative mind is definitely something you need as a copywriter. Your job is to get your business or idea noticed through reams and reams of content. You’re writing constantly. And every piece needs to be different from the last piece. The more interesting an idea, the more likely it is to get written, and therefore get noticed. If you are passionate about writing then this should be no problem for you.

Although it may seem tough at first, you’ll start to see that what you have written is making a difference (if done well), and is getting read by people (again, if done well!). You’ll want to do more. You’ll want to keep going and keep writing.

Guest post by Halit Bozdogan is a Copywriter for Appliances Online, the UK’s largest retailer of online white goods. His favourite novels are ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’, ‘Dune’ and ‘The Princess Bride’. He supports Bolton Wanderers Football Club and loves a nice espresso in the morning.

As is often the case, Google did not say what exactly it meant by ‘over-optimized websites’. The only concrete piece of information that Matt Cutts provided was that the update would target those ‘throwing too many keywords on a page or exchanging too many links’. Well, what if I exchange not ‘too many’ links, would I be OK then?

OK, seriously speaking, what strikes me as odd is that this time Google decided to pre-announce the change, which is NOT what they normally do. I wonder if that’s just another Google’s stunt, intended to get SEO’s spooked out, so that they just roll over and stop their ‘malicious’ SEO practices?

SEOs’ response

Across the SEO community, the signs of mild panic have been showing. Even though the majority of SEOs maintain their cool and the most experienced ones are saying ‘you know, we’ve been there before’, some guys have begun to freak out. The latter is especially true of the SEO newbies who do not really know whether doing something or not doing anything will save them from Google’s wrath.

And, what’s interesting (as Ben Cook of Direct Match Media shrewdly pointed out) the penalty is more likely to affect unaware site owners and webmasters, rather than savvy SEOs who know better than stuffing their pages with keywords and are good enough at covering up traces of link exchange.

The report-your-own-links innovation

Speaking of backlinks. At the news of the upcoming update, many SEO’s scorned: “Pff, c’mon! If Google penalized sites for suspicious-looking link profiles, it’d be easy to destroy a competitor by just hitting them with a bunch of junk links”.

Well, guys, guess what Google did the other day. Some webmasters reported receiving warnings in their Google Webmaster Tools accounts about “possibly artificial or unnatural links” pointing to their sites and were told that “if they [webmasters] find unnatural links to their sites that they are unable to control or remove, they should provide the details in their reconsideration requests.”

Is Google trying to trick webmasters into reporting their own links? And, again, what links?

Google’s official response was that the e-mails were part of Google becoming more vocal about what backlinks they distrust or do not attach much weight to. Well, Google, something is off with this statement of yours. In your messages, you do not really tell what particular backlinks you’re talking about, instead, you expect webmasters to guess. Another stunt by Google? Perhaps.

Is Google pushing SEOs into disarmament?

Lately, some people on SEO forums have been coming up with quite bizarre ideas like reverse-engineering their backlink profiles or NOT building any links right now to avoid potential penalty. Well, I think those guys must be anxious by nature (or SEO-ignorant), because, to me, there is no material reason to be worried at this point, since Google has not even released the much-hyped update yet.

Could it be that Google is bluffing and trying to push SEO’s to play in its hands, while it continues to work on a secret ‘over-optimization’ detection algorithm, which may not be even ready yet? We shall see. Meanwhile, your thoughts and ideas on the matter would be highly appreciated.

In the blogosphere, this sort of virtual socializing is known as guest blogging. Guest blogging is a perfect opportunity to engage with wider audiences, flaunt your resource and, perhaps, make a friend or two.

Are you a GUESS blogger?

If done improperly, guest blogging is like trying to crash a random party in the neighborhood – you are likely to show up under/overdressed, not know most of the guests and have no idea who the host is.

What would be the use of such party-crashing? Little to none, I’d say. Not only are you going to waste your time and annoy other merry-makers, but also get a crappy reputation that will be hard to get rid of in the future.

When the same ‘strategy’ is applied to guest blogging, it means you are doing GUESS blogging – not really knowing what you are doing on a particular online resource and why you’re doing it.
The opposite of GUESS blogging is – what a surprise – guest blogging, which lies in adequately contributing to someone else’s blog and creating good karma for yourself as a blogger.

You will know a guest blogger by…

How does one tell a guest blogger from a GUESS blogger? Guest bloggers:

• Know why they want to contribute to a particular resource. They know they have something relevant to say to one of the topics covered on the blog.
• Give the host blog a thorough read before they write anything for it. It’s not the best practice to first write a post, and then look for a resource to publish it on.
• Don’t approach the editor asking her/him to suggest a topic. If you have a mind that can produce a killer blog post, you should be able to come up with a topic, too.
• Don’t spam dozens of host blogs with irrelevant/off-topic/likely-to-be-rejected posts, hoping that at least one of them will publish their ‘works’.
• Have a ready-to-go post in HTML prepared, formatted in accordance with the formatting standards on the host blog.

What are the wins from targeted blogging?

Even though it’s been said many times, let me say it again: picking quality over quantity is almost always a win. Same is true of blogging. It is better to write 1 smash-hit blog post and get it published on a stellar resource than be dashing out 2 posts a day and submitting them to low-quality resources.

In addition, the ‘spray-and-pray’ approach increases your chance of spraying large areas of fruitless soil and submitting to blogs, on which your target audiences are nowhere to be found. This way you will be doing quite a lot of spraying with more than mediocre results.

The opposite approach (choosing quality over quantity) is, on the contrary, rewarding. When you get familiar with the resource before writing for it, this increases your chances of getting the attention of just the right people. Not to mention that a well-tailored post that’s been written for a specific blog stands a better chance of being published.

So, are you a guest blogger or a GUESS blogger? Take my word, guessing will lead you nowhere. So, do not guess, know what you’re doing. Here is a great resource (SEO Blog) to start out with.

Happy blogging!

Post image credits:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikedefiant/4366147903/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rikomatic/5610683006/

Several days ago, Google made some significant technical changes to its services that make it impossible to reliably perform large volumes of free queries.

To tell the truth, the post shades no light on any details and looks more like Raven Tools promo: Eugene Ware recommends it as a Market Samurai alternative (read the full text). More to this, he doesn’t elaborate on the treacherous ‘significant tech changes’ in Google. By the way, no other rank tracking software developers are reporting any issues.

We decided to check what functions became impaired and how it may affect current Market Samurai users. We downloaded and installed a fresh build of Market Samurai. It now welcomes you with a new splash screen:

First thing we surely clicked Rank Tracker tab. It welcomed us with another warning:

Wait, checking only 10 keywords per run?? Are they kidding? Sure, there might be the guys around with up to ten keywords per project but they all are on the endangered-species list. We picked up twenty keywords (the minimal reasonable amount) and ran the rank check… Bing and Yahoo passed well, Google stalled on the seventeenth keyword… It can’t be worse.

What about the second (and the last one) core function of Market Samurai – keyword research? – Another epic fail! Keyword suggestions tool is screwed up and returns this error (thank God and Majestic ,the keyword analysis tool is still working).

How are the users supposed to “find and target profitable niches”?? – Hell knows… wait wait… Eugene Ware blessed his ‘samurais’ to try Raven Tools. That’s another entertaining point.

Up to now Market Samurai was sold on a fixed cost basis. It is one of the cornerstones in their sales pitch. Their ‘samurais’ would cut throats on forums in the Holy Wars with the developers, supporters and users of the software for which you’d need to buy a subscription or sort of a live plan. According to some samurai code of conduct a subscription is a rip-off and unfair business practice.

Now Market Samurai unexpectedly states:

So, we’re left with the difficult decision of having to pass these costs on to our users in some fashion (most likely a monthly paid service).

They are going to fetch ranking data from Raven Tools and sell it on the subscription basis. By the way, Raven Tools in their turn are fetching, at least partially, the ranking data from AuthorityLabs (let’s hope AuthorityLabs are getting the information directly from Google). The supply chain obviously has some redundant elements. This weird business model alone should urge users to switch to other service providers.

Any Market Samurai alternatives over there?

If you are among those few guys with ten keywords per project and have a need to check rankings occasionally – try Rank Ckecker. It’s a free add-on for FireFox from SEOBook. It’s pretty lightweight and fast. You may use it directly from your browser. On the other hand, it can’t bypass captchas, it has no human emulation mode or proxy rotation features. Thus, it stalls after 20-30 consequent queries to the search engines. Also, it can’t store rankings history.

If you are serious about SEO, check out Rank Tracker by Link-Assistan.Com. It’s a fully functional keyword research and rank checking tool with a bunch of options and additional functions. It includes a proxy manager, task scheduler, human emulation features, anti-captcha module. Using this armory a skilled SEO may check rank for hundreds of keywords. Unlike Market Samurai it works smoothly despite any ‘tech changes’ in Google.

Any ideas for Market Samurai alternatives are welcome in comments section.

- Do, or do not. There is no try. – Yoda

I love Star Wars. I think it’s the second greatest sci-fi movie ever after The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (sorry, George Lucas, no offence). And, one of my favorite Star Wars characters is Master Yoda, a walking oxymoron (a powerful shorty) and a talking inversion.

I think some of his teachings are actually encoded Internet marketing messages, since here is what I discovered while listening to his words of wisdom:

1. Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? – Yoda

OK, I guess this one pertains to content. Some people believe that the longer a blog post or the bigger a website, the better. Like, it’s more presentable this way. Well, guess what, sheer volume does not mean better rankings, nor does it mean more visitors. Think of Seth Godin and his brevity.

So, here is what I learned from this one – make your posts/articles as long as is required to convey your message, but not longer than that.

2. Luke: “I don’t believe it…” -Yoda: “That is why you fail.”

Here is what I learned: you gotta believe in what you do and you gotta be sincere with your audiences. We hear it a lot and yet NOT many of us, Internet marketers, take this simple rule seriously.

Thing is (and you’ve probably heard about it) that SOMEHOW, in an almost magical way, people are always able to sense whether you believe in what you say or not. And, if you don’t, they do not either.

3. If no mistake have you made, yet losing you are … a different game you should play. – Yoda

Sometimes you may be going by the books and doing everything correctly, and implementing all these proven SEO/IM/social media methods on your site, and YET not getting the results. Why? Cause in online marketing there are lots and lots of variables, and you will barely find a one-size-fits-all recipe for success.

So, what to do if certain methods are not working out? Change your ways! There’s no point continuing doing it just because everybody else does it. You gotta tweak your ways to accommodate them to your particular campaign.

4. When all choices seem wrong, choose restraint. – Yoda

I think this is true of certain reputation management situations when taking no action works best. For example, consider this great post by Dominique Ellis called “How NOT to Tweet With Your Customers”, in which she describes how responding to some meaningless (and sometimes rude) comments about your business in the same manner can be harmful.

So, sometimes, not taking any action is the best way to act, if all other choices seem wrong!

5. Luke: “Vader… Is the dark side stronger?” -Yoda: “No, no, no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.”

Now, this is soooo true about the black hats, really! If you choose the Dark Side, yes, you will succeed, and it will happen quicker and easier, but your success will not last long, because you are not STRONG enough to pull it off in the long run. And all weak things are to be destroyed sooner or later.

Hence, better safe than sorry: stick to ethical, white-hat ways, while this is where the strength lies.

6. Ready are you? What know you of ready? – Yoda

Dear Internet marketer, what do you know of ready? Do you believe your site should be ranking #1 for this keyword, but it’s not ranking? Means you are not ready. See, Google knows better. Sometimes a final touch is required, some extra intuitive THING to influence Google’s subconscious.

So, if you are not ready, keep up the good work, keep searching, don’t give up, cause, sometimes, only Google knows when you are ready. And, when you are, you’ll know it.

7. Decide you must how to serve them best. If you leave now, help them you could. But you would destroy all for which they have fought and suffered. –Yoda

Sometime Internet marketers believe their audiences need an extra push or another reminder to visit their (Internet marketers’) site or blog. However, when overdone, this may even put the audiences that were already half way to your site OFF your site, which would be counter-productive.

So, be careful not to overdo. Know when to stop. Pushing your agenda too much can destroy all that you have fought for.

8. If so powerful you are, why leave? – Yoda

It makes me sad when people discard some good content or decent webpages just because they cannot use them right away. Never let a potentially powerful page/content go wasted. If you cannot use it immediately, save it for later (or for some other project).

For example, sometimes, instead of casting away a webpage that is not ranking highly enough and creating a brand-new one, give the underperforming page a boost. Might save you time.

9. When you look at the dark side, careful you must be … for the dark side looks back. – Yoda

This is how I deciphered this one: when looking Google’s way, be careful, for Google looks back. This is true of bringing your site to Google’s attention at Google’s Help Forum, filing all sorts of requests, and maybe even using Google Analytics (after Panda, Google now looks at your analytical data to determine the quality of your site). So, beware of that!

Ok, these were the 9 IM lessons I learned from master Yoda. And, in case I missed something, do let me know!

Michael Gray of Wolf Howl tweeted on December 31, 2011:

Ok, jokes apart, let’s get down to some serious stuff.

Social Media

According to Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz, there will be no such thing as SEO without social media this year, as the two will walk hand in hand in 2012. Well, social media started playing a big role in SEO when search engines began considering site’s social media popularity (to some extent) in their ranking algorithms, and the influence has become even greater with the introduction of Google’s +1 button and the birth of Google+.

Besides, SEO has been moving beyond site rankings and towards social media (among other things) for quite a while now.

Google+

As far as Goolge+ is concerned, SEO bloggers are not unanimous as to its fate in 2012. Some think that, despite all the hype around this Google’s own social network, it will remain 2-nd to Facebook, while, according to Paul Allen, the unofficial Google+ statistician, Google+ is expected to hit 400+ million users by the end of 2012, which would definitely change the balance of force in the social media world.

At the same time, some SEO folks look at Google+ from a different perspective and believe that its impact on site rankings will only increase (especially with the recently introduced author tag), and, therefore, the social network should be taken seriously in any case.

Twitter

Craig Kilgore of Mainstreethost is certain that, despite becoming increasingly popular, Twitter will NOT reach the 7 billion users they have set as their goal for 2012. Just think about it, 7 billion people is actually the world’s population! Couldn’t agree more, Craig.

Content Marketing

This year, great content will be as important as ever. In the post-Panda SEO world, great content means more visitors, more time on site and lower bounce rates, which ultimately equals higher site rankings.

E-mail Marketing

In 2012, email marketing will remain vital. Better targeting and a more delicate approach to subscribers will be the trend, leaving the “batch-and-blast” method behind. So, leveraging such intelligence as products left in online shopping carts or abandoned subscription forms may become a norm.

Mobile Search

Due to intense iPhone and tablet sales, the number of mobile Web users has mushroomed over the past 2 years and is expected to surpass the number of PC Internet users by 2015. So, in 2012, optimizing websites for mobile users is likely to be on many SEO’s agenda.

Local Search

Chris “Silver” Smith of KeyRelevance is certain there are many more online resources that local businesses can leverage nowadays, which will most definitely lead to further growth of Local Search. Just think about Foursquare, a website that “helps one find the best in any area”, or the improvements Google is constantly making to Google Places and Google Maps.

Search Engine Ratings

AJ Kohn of Blind Five Year Old believes that DuckDuckGo will become the world’s 4th largest search engine, besting both Ask and AOL. We’ve already mentioned this young yet powerful search engine in our blog post called Vertical search engines: taking over search.

DuckDuckGo provides different thematic categories of search results, is significantly less commercialized than Google, and the relevance of the listings it returns is also quite impressive. So, if you have never tried using or optimizing for DuckDuckGo, it’s probably just the right time to check it out.

Anchor Texts

Multiple bloggers predict that anchor texts will play a significantly LESS important role in 2012. For example, consider the post by Zac Grace, in which he states that, in 2012, link building will have to look even more natural than before, since Google now seems to attach little to no value to links with many identical anchor texts.

SEO tools

SEO software provider Link-Assistant.Com predicts that SEO SpyGlass will become the most popular backlink checker, used by approximately 40% of SEO’s around the world. Backlink checkers have been in high demand lately, ever since the termination of the uber-popular and FREE online service, Yahoo! Site Explorer, which ceased to exist on November 21, 2011.

SEO certificates

There is likely to be a major breakthrough in SEO certification and standardization this year according to Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz. Quite a few companies provide SEO certificates for their trainees ALREADY, but there is no centralized program or common standards that have been agreed upon on either a national or an international level. Will that change in the nearest future? We shall see!
And what are your SEO predictions for 2012? Do share!

Is there a way out? Sure, there is. There are several simple techniques one can use to generate a virtually limitless number of blogging ideas. What’s important to understand is that A NEW IDEA IS NOT THE SUM TOTAL OF YOUR OLDER IDEAS, and the most unproductive way to create something new is just to reshuffle or amass something old, in a technical sort of way. While in fact, each new idea requires some creative thinking, a new twist and a fit of inspiration, I’d say.

So, let’s see what those creative thinking techniques are.

Different perspective = novelty

Which one do you see: a young or an old lady in the picture?

Sometimes, it’s all a matter of the perspective. Most things and concepts are multi-facet. So, by exploring new facets, you come up with new ideas.

Say, a hot topic has already been covered dozens of times on dozens of blogs in your niche. Well, so what? Has anyone considered looking at it from a completely different angle? In my experience, posts covering a hot trend often echo one another. So, find an interesting stance that no one has assumed yet and write about the subject from THAT perspective!

Dig deeper

Very often, it helps to look for scalable subtopics on the Web (or in real life). For example, there is a blog post that you liked. And there was one point in the post that was very interesting, but the blogger didn’t dwell on it too much and had not exhausted it completely. So, you’d like to add something.

Well, you could just leave a comment, or you could zoom on that particular point and turn your comment into a full-fledged blog post!

Leverage the power of association

Another thing about things and concepts is that, as a rule, they are interconnected. Think of it as the World Wide Web – a huge interlinked space with lots of hyperlinks leading from one webpage to another, etc.

I came up with lots of blog post ideas in the past JUST because of the things other authors had mentioned in their blog posts, often in passing. In most cases, there are many ways to navigate from the main topic and tap into another one connected with it. So, use such hints if you see them. The trick is not to overlook those possibilities.

Quite often, these would be little-explored or complicated topics that no one dares to go too deep into.

Make a U-turn

What happens if you turn the mug upside down? It does look different, doesn’t it? Sometimes, changing the polarity of the viewpoint brings forth a completely new idea.

Have you always believed that chocolate was good for the brain? Try looking at it from a diametrically opposed point of view. Could chocolate be harmful? Huh?

Get inspired – draw parallels

Think of something that you enjoy doing, something that fills your heart with joy and always puts you in a good mood. This could be a hobby or some small things that you fancy.

The point is to draw a parallel between the things that inspire you and the topic you’d like, or perhaps need, to blog about. Sometimes, brilliant ideas come out of things not connected with your professional life, for example, friends, family, hobbies or passions.

I have a friend who admires Brazil. She simply likes the culture, the people, the music – everything about this country. So, when she needed an idea for an advertising campaign, she made it Brazil-esque. Came out splendid, I must say.

Build up on non-verbal content

Sometimes, you may come across a really inspiring, niche-related image, video or infographic. In which case, don’t miss the opportunity to convert it into a blog post. There is nothing wrong with spreading the word and providing your own interpretation of it. Well, just remember to credit it the appropriate way.

The mistake that some people make is they assume that, beyond any doubt, everyone has already seen this awesome piece of content. Hence, there is no need to talk about it. Well, this is often not the case.

Seek and you shall find

The last tip I’d like to leave you with is to NEVER GIVE UP. One may argue that it should not be singled out as a separate creative thinking technique. However, I believe that inspiration plus zero hard work creates nothing.

As the French saying goes, “appetite comes with eating”. Same is true of creativity – it comes when you simply get down to the creative process. What I’m trying to say is that, perhaps, even with all the tips provided in the post in mind, you might not come up with tons of ideas right away. Let that not discourage you. Keep on using the techniques, and you shall succeed!

Google Base?

Many of you must have heard of Google Base. As Google is keen on restructuring and renaming its different services – what used to be called Google Base is now called Google Merchant Center. The service allows business owners to create listings of their products that will later appear on Google Product Search and will be included into Google’s Shopping search results.

Google Product Search and Google Shopping

Just to make things clear for you: Google Product Search is Google’s database of different products that are submitted by merchants through the Google Merchant Center. If you search the database for a particular item, the results will get displayed in Google’s Shopping search results.
Another thing is when those Shopping results (just the top 3 listings) get incorporated into Everything search results on Google.com if Google considers them relevant for a particular query. However, this feature that is called Local Shopping (Google serves you items that are being sold in your country) is only available to merchants targeting the following countries – the U.S., U.K., Japan, Germany, and France.

Google Checkouts

Another major service that should be considered in regards to Google Shopping is Google Checkouts – a popular Google-powered shopping cart platform that, in addition to being a shopping cart, also allows users to review products and services.

Why bother optimizing for Google Shopping?

All in all, Google Shopping is not as popular with SEO-optimizers as Google Places, so, some SEO’s do not even bother optimizing for Google Shopping.
However, we believe that, in the nearest future, Google Products search will become more widely used than it is used now. What points to that?
-Google Products homepage has been recently redesigned and now offers one to compare different categories of products in a hit, contains snippets from Google Catalogs and Google Offers, has a “Popular This Week” section and other sections.

-Google has just launched the much talked-about Google Wallet. Google Wallet makes shopping easier than it has ever been before. It’s now unclear how Google Wallet will interact other Google’s services, but Google have already said it is possible that, in the future, “receipts, boarding passes and tickets will all be seamlessly synced to your Google Wallet.” Why not expect Google to incorporate Google Product Search into Google Wallet as well?

Where do I start?

So, say, there is something that you’d like to promote on Google Shopping. Where do you start? First off, you need to set up a Google Merchant Center account.

1. Get an account with Google Merchant Center

Here is where you can sign up for a Google Merchant Center account.

You have to provide:

• Website URL (needs to be verified and claimed)
• Store name (must conform to the service’s guidelines)
• Business name and address
• Country and region of your business (cannot be changed later)
• Contacts

You can also get a multi-client account (for big e-commerce portals), in which case each vendor will be able to have a distinct store name and URL. You can request a multi-client- account here.

To find out whether Google Product Search and Google’s Local Shopping is available for the country/countries you are targeting, have a look at the following chart:

Please, note that to make your products appear in Google’s Local Shopping results, your business has to be listed on Google Places.

*A tip for those targeting the countries where Google Product Search is not available yet – optimize for Google Images! Ranking highly in the Images search results can attract lots of customers to your site.

2. Prepare product data feeds

A product data feed is a structured description of your product that’s normally submitted in a particular format. First, make sure that the products you’d like to submit are eligible for submission. Then, check for the requirements to product listings in specific countries.

When preparing your product feed, fill out as many fields as you can. It is believed that the more information you provide about a product, the better it will rank on Google Shopping. Now, some things to pay attention to:

• You can target several countries. The target country is specified right in your feed. Please, do not confuse the country/countries you are targeting with the country your business is associated with (this one is specified while signing up for a Google Merchant Center account).
• You are not allowed to use redirects or pop-ups on the landing page associated with the product you are submitting
• On the landing page associated with your product, the submitted product must stand out
• No promotional language is allowed in a data feed
• It’s recommended to use your main branded or your main non-branded keyword in your product’s title, if appropriate
• Remember to make your product’s description keyword-rich (but not keyword-stuffed!)
• The price on the landing page has to be equal to the price in your feed

3. Submit your product data feeds to Google Merchant Center

For that you need to upload your feeds through your Google Merchant Center account. It’s recommended to upload a test feed first, and then submit a regular product data feed for review.
Also, Google says that it may take several weeks for first-time feeds to go live in the search results if you are submitting them to other locales than the U.S., U.K. and Germany.

Here are some product data feed requirements to help you upload your feeds without errors.

4. Add Google Checkouts to your site

If possible, integrate http://checkout.google.com/seller/integrate.html your site with Google Checkouts. As I said above, it is Google-powered shopping cart software. Well, what does it do for your site? First, if your site accepts Google Checkouts, a small blue shopping cart icon will be appearing right next to your listing in Google’s Shopping search results. This may boost your conversions substantially.

However, the biggest advantage of Google Checkouts is that, once a shopper places an order, Google sends them an invitation to review the seller.
Also, here is what Google charges you for using the service.

5. Get rated and reviewed

Getting ratings and reviews of your products is key to higher Google Shopping rankings. Google considers ratings/reviews from Google Checkouts and other third-party sites, such as ResellerRatings.com,TrustPilot.com, Epinions.com, BizRate.com or RateItAll.com, to give your listing a particular ranking.

Snippets of those ratings/reviews are displayed along with your product, and its average rating is calculated. However, for your product’s rating to EVEN APPEAR on Google Shopping, it needs to have at least 30 unique reviews, associated with your store name and the name of your domain.

What if someone posts a review that does not sound fair at all? Unfortunately, you can’t reply to reviews right on Google Product Search. But you can contact the rating/review site in question. If the review gets removed, it might take some time for the changes to be visible on Google Shopping.

6. Track clicks and impressions

Within your Google Merchant Center account, you can see the number of impressions and clicks each of your product listings receives.

7. Update your product info at least once in 30 days

Thing is, all your products expire after 30 days. So, a product data feed for each product needs to be submitted as least once every 30 days.

Other useful resources to check out:
Google’s E-commerce YouTube Channel
Google’s Commerce Blog.

Well, guys, this is NOT just another post that gives you tips like, oh, you gotta make your site unique, make it stand out, be passionate about what you do, yada yada.
What it IS about is a life-changing, revolutionary idea by Simon Sinek that I’d like to share. It will virtually transform your business, and, by doing that, will ultimately change your life.

Like all genius ideas, it’s plain simple. And it’s not based on anybody’s years of experience as the head of the marketing department, and not even on human psychology – it’s based on BIOLOGY.

Why do you do what you do?

One day, it simply dawned on Simon Sinek that what made all uber-successful brands uber-successful was one simple thing – they were not selling WHAT they did, they were selling WHY they did it.
Let me explain. The part of your brain responsible for rational thinking is called the neo-cortex. This is what the brands that sell WHAT they do appeal to – they appeal to your reason. They advertise their products’ advantages, features, and so on and so forth.

Now, the limbic part in the human brain is responsible for emotions and behavior. And emotions are something that DRIVES us in life, something that actually makes us do things. And it is to this part of the brain that companies that sell WHY they do what they do appeal.

So, Simon Sinek pictured in his mind the “golden circle” of success that shows how different companies function. Thing is that most companies and individuals know WHAT they do and HOW they do it, but very few realize WHY they do it.

First, state your cause

So, here is the most important part of Simon’s concept:

Communicating from the inside out of the circle, instead of communicating from the outside in, makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE!

In other words, first you tell people WHY you do what you do, and then you talk about HOW you do it, and WHAT it is that you actually offer.

This is what makes really outstanding companies and individuals really outstanding. This is what makes Apple fans wait on the line for 18 hours to get the new iPad, while many people believe that Dell makes just as great computers as Apple.

It’s just that when you look at apple.com, you see that Apple talk about WHY they do what they do FIRST, and only THEN they tell you what’s in it for you.

Can you see through their cause? They are set to change your entire computer experience. This is their goal. Does it resonate with what you’d like? If it does – get yourself a Mac!

Now, let’s see how many online business have their cause stated. Actually, not that many. It’s quite rare that you see a website with the company’s motto clearly spelled out.

However, here are some examples. The Tropical Rays Tanning homepage:

The Aggressive Marine group:

Well, I personally think that by simply saying, oh, we are passionate about what we do, you don’t achieve much. You must put some blood and sweat and tears into working out your motto. Only then will it work to attract like-minded people. And those will be your most loyal customers!

Moreover, they’ll spread the word. Thing is, the WHAT-sites need to promote what they do, while the WHY-sites promote themselves.

Still missing your WHY? It’s never too late to add it to your site – and rule them all!