Pre-Challenge Day 2 - Twitter
Twitter is simply part of the landscape these days. If you're new to Twitter, start with a personal account and be sure to follow all the recommended accounts found in the Related Resources column on the right side of the page.
In the Post-Penguin world, nothing changes.Your niche account is one you will use to build authority, by regularly posting quality content for your niche. When it comes to content, I like to use the "3 to 1 Rule." I post three pieces of content that is not self promotional for every one piece that is.
To put it in the most simple terms, I would promote three posts on other niche leading blogs or post three helpful tidbits before I posted about a new post on my own blog.
You need to genuinely be a source for helpful information about your niche.And it doesn't need to always be about business. Post about your personal hobbies or pet projects. Give your presence some personality.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
My Personal Penguin Update - Pre-Challenge Day 1
Day 1 introduces us to Ustream.
If you go to The Challenge TV channel, you will find many recorded videos you can watch whenever you have the time or inclination.
But Ustream is more than just a place to watch Challenge videos, Ustream is where you can build your own channel and build your own following and thereby create your own authority.
As far as Penguin is concerned, Ustream is exactly the sort of social sharing site that Google is looking at these days for the new ranking signals. Ustream is an excellent place to build your personal authority by creating a channel for your niche. The more followers and views you get, the more authority you build.
When creating videos for Ustream, focus always on adding value. Give people good stuff. Be legitimately worth following. If you fell you don't know how to create good stuff, then simply look around for the best material you can find and talk about why you think it is good.
I never start with a blank page. I always look to see what I can find and then I ask myself, how can I make this better?
Get yourself out there, get on Ustream.
If you go to The Challenge TV channel, you will find many recorded videos you can watch whenever you have the time or inclination.
But Ustream is more than just a place to watch Challenge videos, Ustream is where you can build your own channel and build your own following and thereby create your own authority.
As far as Penguin is concerned, Ustream is exactly the sort of social sharing site that Google is looking at these days for the new ranking signals. Ustream is an excellent place to build your personal authority by creating a channel for your niche. The more followers and views you get, the more authority you build.
When creating videos for Ustream, focus always on adding value. Give people good stuff. Be legitimately worth following. If you fell you don't know how to create good stuff, then simply look around for the best material you can find and talk about why you think it is good.
I never start with a blank page. I always look to see what I can find and then I ask myself, how can I make this better?
Get yourself out there, get on Ustream.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Recommended WordPress Plugins for Challengers
There are many reasons that WordPress is the platform of choice for internet marketers and one of those reasons is the ability to customize the way it performs through the use of plugins.
Here is the current list of recommended plugins for Challengers as taken and adapted from construct.ly, (which I highly recommend using if possible). However, many of us have older blogs that we still want to keep current with regards to plugins.
All in One SEO Pack - Allows you to control what Google sees when their spiders crawl your site.
Google XML Sitemaps - Automatically creates site maps in the XML format that search engines prefer.
Jetpack by Wordpress.com - Connects your blog to the features of WordPress.com such as visitor stats and a ton of other services.
linkDaemon - This is one of Dan Raine's plugins that comes automatically installed if you use construct.ly - if you're not using construct.ly, then a similar pluging to use would be the "SEO Internal Links" plugin. This creates links to pages within your site based on keywords.
Pretty Link Lite - Tracks link activity on your site and allows you to create custom redirected links.
PubSubHubbub - A better way to tell the world when your blog is updated.
Robots Meta - Allows you to control how robots will index your site.
SEO Friendly Images - Automatically adds "alt" and "title" attributes to images which is great for SEO and something that is easy to forget or ignore if you're doing it manually.
Social Metrics - Social Media Analytics tool you can use to track your WordPress blog performance on popular social networking websites and services.
Twitter Facebook Social Share - This is another of Dan's plugins that comes with a construct.ly installation. A similar replacement would be "GetSocial" which makes it easy for your visitors to share your content with all the social sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Ultimate Google Analytics - Links your blog to your Google Analytics account.
WP-DB-Backup (Wordpress Database Backup) - Don't learn the "you need to have backups" lesson the hard way. Be safe.
WP-Sticky - Allows you to make "sticky" posts that always stay on top. Very handy for creating a "landing page" setup and still retain all the SEO benefits of a post.
WP No Category Base - Removes the '/category' string from your permalinks and improves your keyword density.
WPTouch - automatically reformats your site to make it smartphone compatible when it is accessed by a mobile device.
You may find other plugins useful for specific purposes depending on your niche, but you don't want to overload yourself with plugins - too many can lengthen your loading times.
Here is the current list of recommended plugins for Challengers as taken and adapted from construct.ly, (which I highly recommend using if possible). However, many of us have older blogs that we still want to keep current with regards to plugins.
All in One SEO Pack - Allows you to control what Google sees when their spiders crawl your site.
Google XML Sitemaps - Automatically creates site maps in the XML format that search engines prefer.
Jetpack by Wordpress.com - Connects your blog to the features of WordPress.com such as visitor stats and a ton of other services.
linkDaemon - This is one of Dan Raine's plugins that comes automatically installed if you use construct.ly - if you're not using construct.ly, then a similar pluging to use would be the "SEO Internal Links" plugin. This creates links to pages within your site based on keywords.
Pretty Link Lite - Tracks link activity on your site and allows you to create custom redirected links.
PubSubHubbub - A better way to tell the world when your blog is updated.
Robots Meta - Allows you to control how robots will index your site.
SEO Friendly Images - Automatically adds "alt" and "title" attributes to images which is great for SEO and something that is easy to forget or ignore if you're doing it manually.
Social Metrics - Social Media Analytics tool you can use to track your WordPress blog performance on popular social networking websites and services.
Twitter Facebook Social Share - This is another of Dan's plugins that comes with a construct.ly installation. A similar replacement would be "GetSocial" which makes it easy for your visitors to share your content with all the social sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Ultimate Google Analytics - Links your blog to your Google Analytics account.
WP-DB-Backup (Wordpress Database Backup) - Don't learn the "you need to have backups" lesson the hard way. Be safe.
WP-Sticky - Allows you to make "sticky" posts that always stay on top. Very handy for creating a "landing page" setup and still retain all the SEO benefits of a post.
WP No Category Base - Removes the '/category' string from your permalinks and improves your keyword density.
WPTouch - automatically reformats your site to make it smartphone compatible when it is accessed by a mobile device.
You may find other plugins useful for specific purposes depending on your niche, but you don't want to overload yourself with plugins - too many can lengthen your loading times.
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