Ok, so Akismet handles quite a bit of spam and it’s a good system but there’s another kind of comment spam that’s manually being done by the so called “SEO” firms out there. They are trying to leave comments to get a link from your site.

I really have no problem with that except if they are not contributing to the conversation or adding value. That’s spam to me if you just say something like “What you say here is something everyone should know and I am glad to be seeing what is here for you” (with the broken English and all). Yeah, that’s spam.

I run many WordPress sites and manage comments all day. If you have something that contributes to the conversation, then I’ll gladly give you a link because you’re writing content for my site. If you’re not – if you doing it half assed, then you will be marked as spam and you’re just wasting your time. So why do it?

Sorry for the rant there but evidently people from other countries doing this don’t quite get it. They probably just figure that a certain amount of blogs out there will accept it and give them a link and it’s just a numbers game. I get that but that’s not how I would do it.

-T

Related articles

• How to Be an Awesome Blog Commenter (hubspot.com)
• How to Get Rid of Spam on your WP Blog? (forthelose.org)
• Akismet Gives Spammers 20 Billion Reasons To Hate WordPress (blogherald.com)

You know that more I’ve been using them and the more I think about it, these 3 WordPress SEO plugins that I found really are great and do exactly what you need them to do – automatically!

For a while, when I would look through my Google Webmaster Tools or Google Analytics account, I would wish there was a way to automatically add the keywords that the site was showing up for. These WordPress plugins do that. People type in the weirdest things into search engines, so these plugins let you grab those queries and rank for them. Meanwhile, your site is ranking higher and higher!

Related articles

• 6 WordPress Plugins That No SEO Should Go Without (agent-seo.com)
• The Top 8 Killer Alternatives to Google Analytics (appreaders.com)
• The WordPress App, and the Power of the User Review | SEO Consult Blogs (seome.me)

You see all these offers for some really cool WordPress plugins out there. I’m talking about the ones that people develop and you have to pay for.

Oh wait, before that – I found 3 really awesome WordPress plugins that you have to get. I can’t believe that these are out there and free still. They’d be worth paying for definitely, so get them now:

1. SEO SearchTerms Tagging 2 – What this does is analyze the keyword phrases that people are finding your site with and then it adds them as links to your article in your article. It’s great because you’re getting those keywords on the page, which helps to strengthen that page’s keywords. It works automatically, too.
2. LJ Longtail SEO – This one’s similar to the tagging one but it’s a widget that you place in the sidebar. The main terms get posted, then, on every page of your site. It works automatically, too. Amazing!
3. Keyword Insertion Plugin – This one puts in the right keywords for you, wherever you want. Could SEO get any easier?

Utilize Pingbacks?

Ok, if those two we’re already cool enough, there’s another one I just found and really like. It’s called the Pingback Optimizer. It’s not easy to explain, so bear with me (there’s a video that explains it all on the site if you want to just watch that instead).

When another website links back to your site, it does what’s called a “pingback.” If you have a WordPress website, then it is already set up to receive pingbacks. Normally, sites are set up to just hang on to them and they reside in your Comments area. Big deal, right?

Well, those are sites that you know are linking back to your site, right? So what if you could build links to those sites (pages, actually) thus making sure that Google knows about more of those websites? This would get more of those pages indexed and make those links pointing to your website even stronger – boosting you up in the rankings. Nice, eh?

So, in effect, you’re building links to pages that link to yours. It does this by making special RSS feeds and then it even submits those feeds for you.

What I really like about this plugin is that it’s not doing anything too crazy. These RSS aggregator sites exist and link to tons of stuff – sometimes they just pick up on your site’s feed without you knowing anything about it. It just happens. And you’re not even submitting your site’s pages, you’re going one more level out. So it’s not like you’re submitting your pages too many times. There’s some protection built in. That’s what I think is cool.

It runs automatically and you can even process your existing pingbacks that you’ve been storing up.

So get Pingback Optimizer now – go check out the video there.

-Tony

Well, my main site dropped in the rankings… sort of. It did and it didn’t.

There was one good search that I was #3 for and I was getting really good traffic from it. Sometimes there would be a Google Shopping listing in there before me but not all the time. Then, Google went ahead and added in 3 of those listings at the top with the peach colored background. That knocked me down the page, although I still rank #3. So, Google got me.

It seems like getting to #1 for that keyword is going to be tough. I might still work at it though. I’ve decided to spend time on other keywords that I can get a top ranking for more easily. That’s the plan. Regroup and keep going.

This same site just become 1 year old yesterday, so that’s good. I went and extended the registration of that domain until 2019 to also help it. Hopefully I’ll get the 1 year bump. I think it took me a week or so to get the first content on that site, so I’d expect a bump at the end of the month. I’ll need it, so hopefully that happens.

I’ve also got probably 10-15 support sites for this main site that have some unique content on them and I’m going to start developing those. If I can get those going, have them get some authority (get links to them), then they should pump up my main site.

Another thing I’ll do next month (once skiing is finally done) is start on another niche site. I’ll then have this main site, my main article directory site and this new one to focus on. Well, it’s not really a new one but one I started almost a year ago that needs some attention. So that’ll be a huge advantage (the age of it). This will give me some more diversity with what keyword websites I have. I also have maybe another 50 or more that get some traffic. I’m only one guy though.

Oh, and I think my parents are really interested in making a few keyword websites. I’ll help them get 1-2 set up along with an article directory. We’ll get it set up, let them sit for 3 months and then start working them (that all important time line). It’ll be something for them to work on together and they’ll eventually start making some extra money for retirement. Good for them! I’ll also enjoy teaching them things. It’ll be fun.

I think that was one those tips I heard but didn’t pay much attention to. I think I got a little greedy again, too. It’s all about targeted traffic, people!

I had a site that was getting lots of traffic but it was completely unrelated to another site I had that was doing well. I put the link on the high traffic site. Then I noticed that I was still getting traffic on the site it was linking to but not as much AdSense revenue was coming in. Within a few days, I figure out one possible reason, then I removed that link. I think things are back to normal now and I learned an important lesson, so it was worth it.

This is true with sites not running AdSense as well. Just don’t post a link to your site on any old site. The page your link is on must relate to your website. It can be a category in a directory, that’s fine. The best links are from entire sites that relate to your website or else pages that do. So this is why article marketing works. The page that your link in the resource box is on has 400 words about your topic that relates to your website. So a link from that page is targeted traffic.

Get writing and get your articles out there.

BTW, the Keyword Academy now has like 50 sites that you can post short articles to. That alone is a good reason to join. You get to post as many articles as you like. It’s great.

-Tony