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How To Turn Off Google Personalized Search

Kaz — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:05:44 +0000

You may or may not be aware that as of December 4th, 2009 Google introduced Personalized Search for ALL users, regardless of if you are signed into Google or not. For some, this is a real PITA.

For example, I have to track and record rankings for my clients on a regular basis. I do not want to report on rankings showing up in personalized search, that’s for sure.

Well fortunately there is a way to turn it off. Before proceeding, make sure you are logged OUT of Google first.

When you visit Google.com, enter something in the search box and hit “Google Search”. On the results screen in the upper right-hand corner, click on the link that says “Web History”:

Then click on the link that says “Disable customizations based on search activity”:

Now enter the url to Google.com again in your browser bar and personalized search will be turned off. To verify, click on “Web History” again and you should see this screen:

If you know an easier way to deal with this, please let me know! For now, this is what works for me. So at least I feel confident knowing that I am reporting rankings that are NOT influenced by customizations based upon my interactions with Google.com.

Cheers!
Kaz

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More Great Wordpress Themes Worth Checking Out

Kaz — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 01:07:06 +0000

I’m curious – how many of you use Google Bookmarks? I would be LOST without them. If you are not familiar, you can install the Google toolbar and quickly bookmark any page by simply clicking on the “Bookmarks” link on the toolbar.

Anyhow – I have somehow accumulated over 400 bookmarks, tagged with a slew of keywords that aren’t exactly organized in any beneficial way. One tag (category) I do maintain however is called “themes”. Periodically I enjoy scrounging for new and interesting Wordpress themes (by scrounging, I’m talking digging into 20+ pages of Google search results!). I thought I’d share a few more with you (see this post for a few others):

New Wordpress Themes

As of this post, they are offering 92 free themes. You need to look for yourself – these are top notch designs. A few I personally like are Creatismo, PressBlue (which this site is/was using – I might be changing themes again!), and Praven.

DigitalNature

Only 4 themes available here – but they are unique. If you are looking for something different yet slick, take a look.

CSSJockey

Just one theme to show you here… called Imagination. Looks gorgeous! Can’t wait to try it out on one of my sites.

If you find any unique or interesting themes, drop me a line because I’m always on the hunt!

PS: I’m going to try and update my blog more often. TRY being the operative word.

Kaz

100 Successful Warriors Share

Kaz — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:15:22 +0000

Pete Belanger has done it this time. He has orchestrated an amazing book over 400 pages in length, chalk full of advice from 100 hand picked online marketers. One hundred marketers, who are active at the Warrior forum, provided top notch content on many aspects of Internet Marketing. This is not one you want to miss!

When Pete approached me and asked me to be a contributor, I knew it was a no-brainer. But little did I realize how fast the ebook grew! Contributors received a complimentary copy and I can tell you, there is SO much information you really cannot go wrong with the small investment. Content ranging from blogging, affiliate marketing, article writing, traffic, SEO, video, membership sites and so much more can be found.

The website isn’t live yet but will be Monday March 23rd @ 10am EST – so set your bookmarks now.

Don’t forget to use the discount code to get 50% off

50% OFF DISCOUNT CODE: BU5A8I

WEBSITE: http://www.100warriorsambushtheweb.com/

Karen

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Are You Just Writing For The Sake Of Writing?

Kaz — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 15:12:53 +0000

I spent quite a bit of time lately reviewing articles at EzineArticles.com and I’m really surprised to see how little article authors are implementing simple SEO strategies. It made me stop to wonder, what is the purpose of writing an informative and useful article without even doing simple optimization for the search engines?

I came across several articles that didn’t even utilize effective anchor text in the links within the resource boxes. Many resource boxes simply contained links to the actual url without any anchor text at all. When you’re viewing an article at EZA, if you view the page source you can see what keywords they assigned to the article. This is a terrific way to find additional keywords for your niche and you would be surprised at how often people are not researching properly for sensible keywords.

I agree that whatever you are writing should be geared towards your audience – you should always write in such a way that compels your readers and provides useful and relevant information. But that doesn’t mean you have to forego optimizing for the search engines! With a few simple steps you can write keyword rich articles while still maintaining your writing style and create a stunning article:

Don’t neglect keyword research

A popular approach is to find long tail keywords which are phrases that contain 3 or more words. While these phrases may get searched on a lot less that generic 1-2 word phrases, they are often much more targeted and less competitive. There are many keyword tools available both free and paid, but I suggest you use a combination of tools to get a solid understanding within your niche. Different tools aggregate their data from different sources, so don’t isolate yourself within just one tool.

Include your main keyword phrase in the title of the article

This is such a simple step to do but amazingly many people don’t utilize it. Try to keep your keyword phrase in the beginning of the title for maximum results. Sometimes you can combine keyword phrases and/or repeat them within a title for even better optimization. An example using the phrase “RSS Marketing” could be: “RSS Marketing – Learn How RSS Marketing Can Boost Your Business”. Another example that uses main and secondary keyword phrases could be: “RSS Marketing Isn’t Difficult – Learn How RSS Advertising Is Done”.

Weave your main keyword phrase throughout your article

This is often referred to as keyword density. In other words, how often does your keyword phrase appear within the body of the article? There are varying opinions on keyword density but in the end you’ll have to decide. Your article should flow nicely and be easy to read. Some article directories actually implement rules that a keyword phrase can only be included once per 100 words. Generally, I use this as a rule of thumb. So within a 400 word article I will try to weave in my main keyword phrase about 4 times. This isn’t a strict rule though, because if my main keyword phrase doesn’t flow nicely within the article 4 times then I simply won’t do it.

Weave secondary keywords throughout the article

When you perform keyword research, you should come up with 2 or 3 secondary keywords as well. Choose keywords that will mesh easily with your main keyword phrase, and try to include them a few times throughout the article. This will help you get additional exposure in the search engines.

Use your main keyword phrase as the anchor text in your links within the resource box.

This is really a very simple step and there is no reason to link to your website without using keyword rich anchor text. Remember your articles are providing backlinks to your website, and you want those backlinks to contain keywords that are relevant to your content. Simply having your anchor text be “click here” or “read more” is not leveraging the power of backlinks. Do you want to be ranked in Google for the phrase “click here”?! Well, Adobe is but that’s another story.

At the end of the day, you definitely want your articles to be interesting and easily digestable. But for the little effort it takes to properly optimize them for the search engines, don’t disregard the power behind this!

Karen

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Twitter Analytics? See How Your Tweets Are Affecting Your Followers

Kaz — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 16:23:24 +0000

Came across an interesting site the other day that interfaces with the Twitter API to analyze (compare) your tweets against new and lost followers. The site is called TweetEffect and is a free service. It’s pretty interesting to take a look at the comparison between your tweets and followers. This would be especially useful if you were going to post a controversial tweet (or series) and wanted a quick overview of the effects on your followers.

You can follow me on Twitter although I’m still getting the hang of it! If you have any Twitter tips don’t hesitate to let me know.

Kaz

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Decided On A Theme, Found Some Nice Theme Sites Too

Kaz — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:46:33 +0000

Finally decided on a theme, going with Flexibility Theme version 2. It was given a big thumbs up at the Warrior Forum so I decided to check it out. Must say, it’s the most customizable free theme I’ve ever come across. I’m not done with the final design but it’s a work in progress.

During my theme hunting I found a few sites I really liked. There are tons of free Wordpress themes available online but a lot of them are mediocre to say the least. If you’re ever on the lookout for some fresh themes check these sites out:

FreeThemeLayouts.com

They only showcase about 50 themes or so, but there are some beauties in there. A couple of my favorites are BoldLines and KikiBerry. I also love how they display their themes – you can easily hover over the thumbnails to get a larger image. That means no clicking back and stuff, saves a lot of time. You can also demo each one of the themes as a full site.

WPThemeDesigner.com

If you’re looking for a news theme look no further. Some gorgeous ones available here, worth checking out. They also have a beautiful site design with large images of the blogs to make it dead simple for previewing.

Theme-Time.com

I like the themes on this site, and use one over at my Free RSS Tips blog. I think it only cost something around $10 to get the theme without their backlinks on the bottom, otherwise they are free. There’s a lot more themes to choose from on this site, and some rather unique ones.

I’m always on the hunt for fresh and unique blog themes!

Karen (Kaz)

It’s Time For A Change

Kaz — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:01:00 +0000

I’ll be trying out some new themes so you might end up seeing some strange activity going on here! I love seeking out new and interesting themes, feel free to comment on what you like or dislike. Right now (at the time of writing this) I’m trying out the “gridblog” theme. I like the layout but might need to tweak the font and play around with some settings.

Niche Hunting Here We Go! (Part 1)

Kaz — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 01:32:44 +0000

I’m really itching to jump into a new niche, and what better way to get started than making a detailed post about how I’m going to go about it. In the past I’ve always targeted niches that appealed to people’s desperation and didn’t pay much attention to whether or not the actual niche held a lot of interest for me.

Well, not this time. I’m dead set serious about getting into a niche that I can actually leverage my own true passion about. But I must be honest and up front here. I’m not actually looking to start into a new niche for the purpose of making money – not initially anyways. I want to get into something enjoyable and entertaining for ME. Of course I want to be successful in what I do so I will eventually look to monetize it.

You hear time and time again from many sources that the best place to start niche hunting is to look at your own hobbies and likes. Like I said before, I’ve always glossed over that and went the other direction (and certainly both can be successful). So now I’m faced with this looming over my head… what are my hobbies? It saddens me because I’ve long given up my most beloved hobby which is quilting.

Forget about that for a minute though because I want to ramble. Let’s talk about this blog for a minute. There are a billion “internet marketing” blogs online and a billion people who want to tell you how to make money and sell you their info. For a long time that’s exactly why I didn’t create a blog about marketing. But then came a time when I said screw it – I want somewhere to record, regurgitate, share, rant, vent about MY experiences online. I wanted my little place on the ‘net and to be honest, really didn’t care if it got traffic much or not. As you can undoubtedly tell, I don’t focus very much on monetizing this site! The whole point I’m getting at is this is so LIBERATING. Finally, just to have some little place that isn’t about making money online – ha, well the blog IS about marketing, but the purpose isn’t to empty your wallets! It just feels good to let loose, write when I feel like it, not feel pressured to get “xx” amount of posts out. Not feel pressured to heavily promote this site at all etc. Pressure cuts off creativity!

So the reason I’m rambling on about all this is because I’m TIRED. I’m tired of ignoring everything I used to love to do before I got into marketing. Don’t get me wrong – I’m still 1000% committed to my business. But it’s high time I started doing something for MYSELF. It’s time I revive those old hobbies and if that means I get my feet warm again via a content site for example, then so be it. At least I’ll be building something that I have a passion in and can actually enjoy.

So – back to niche hunting! I’m a little spooked at trying to identify what my hobbies are because it’s such a touchy subject for me. Since I gave up many of my hobbies and turned into a work-a-holic! But this is like therapy for me… and I need to take baby steps.

My first task I’ll assign myself is to just brainstorm things that I like, with no thought as to whether or not they would make a good niche. I’m not even going to rank them according to interest. You should try this, I have a feeling it’s going to be liberating too!

Likes:

Quilting – traditional, art, designing patterns, sewing room organization and decor, applique, machine quilting, scrap quilting, textiles, quilt book reviews
Decorating – interior decorating, feng shui, decorating children’s rooms, on a budget, etc.
Astrology – really love this topic
Photography – taking photos (kids & people), editing and enhancing digitally
Scrapbooking – traditional and digital
Baking – and cooking but mostly baking, have a good collection of favorite recipes
Games – I love all kinds of games, board games, cards, online games ranging from puzzles, to first person shooter! Oh yeah and I have a PS3, love Guitar Hero – World Tour rocks!
Problem solving – it’s not a hobby but I’m really good at it, and I really love doing it. That’s one of the reasons why I love programming so much. Oh yeah, and researching.. love to research things.
Programming – voila, I am a programmer! Yep, been doing that for 10+ years. I’m staying away from this niche though because I do enough of this during the day (J.O.B.)

Well, there we have it. That’s pretty diverse, don’t you think? I’m going to have to look at this list closely now to determine what topics interest me the most, and then the fun part begins! I like the next part – the research required to identify if a niche can be profitable or not. Even if I don’t plan on monetizing it at first, I need to know what the potential is and I want to know about my market.

I’ll be making more posts as I progress but nothing is on any type of schedule. If you want to stay updated on what’s going on just subscribe to my feed, easiest way. Comments are always welcomed!

Cheers!
Kaz

Facing Your Fears – What Niche Do I Choose?

Social Bookmarking Sites With NoFollow? No Problem!

Kaz — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 18:47:04 +0000

If you aren’t familiar with marketing using RSS feeds yet, it’s never too late to learn. Hop on over to FreeRSSTips.com to receive a free guide about RSS. So what does RSS have to do with this post?

Well as many of you already know, social bookmarking sites can generate traffic to your sites as well as help you with backlinks in the search engines. Yet many of them nowadays are employing the dreaded “nofollow” tag which isn’t going to give you any love for backlinks.

But by leveraging these sites’ RSS feeds, you can totally bypass the nofollow tag. Many social bookmarking sites offer RSS feeds for your account, which displays the links you’ve bookmarked right within the RSS feed. And guess what? There is NO nofollow tags inside the RSS feed.

When you submit your RSS feeds to the major aggregators (think FeedAge.com, FeedAgg.com, RSS2.com etc.), the contents of your feed are displayed on the aggregator’s site and the links contain NO nofollow tags. You’ll not only gain backlinks from the aggregator sites but also your urls at many of the aggregator sites tend to rank very well in Google.

So if you aren’t marketing with RSS yet, it’s very simple to get started and the benefits are numerous. For a full list of the top RSS aggregators, check out the free RSS guide over at FreeRSSTips.com.

Kaz

Who Are Your Contacts? Networking Is Key

Kaz — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 01:31:48 +0000

I sit here this evening thinking about the people I’ve met online during my last couple of years involved in Internet Marketing. What is the aim of this article? Well it’s partly to say thank you to all of those who I’ve developed friendships with over the past couple of years. But it’s also to discuss the subject of networking.

If you’ve been involved in Internet Marketing for any length of time, you’ll know that gaining contacts can be very valuable to your success. I firmly believe networking properly is key to not only broadening your horizons but opening doors for you that may never have existed before.

But a lot of new people come into this game thinking that they don’t have anything to offer, and often struggle with making contacts and developing mutually profitable relationships. Well from my experience, I’ve never had that problem.

Why? Simply because when I’ve met fellow marketers I’ve always just treated them as I would a friend. I don’t worry about what I have to offer or not. I don’t start a conversation with someone with any specific goals in mind, I just simply enjoy the camaraderie. I’m curious by nature, and love to get to know what others are doing in my field. This just naturally opens up doors when you’re willing to GIVE without having any expectations whatsoever.

Some of my online friends have opened doors for me that I’ll be forever grateful for. Others have not done that, yet they remain just as important within my circle. We share tips and ideas – and brainstorm together. It’s amazing what kinds of things you can come up with just by yakking (Skype, MSN etc) with another like minded individual.

So this is my point. Get out there and get sociable! Don’t do it with any specific goals in mind besides making a pal with similar interests. Then when an opportunity arises that you can help with – do it without ANY expectations. Of course, if it requires considerable time or effort, it’s not a bad thing to still have to charge. Business is business after all, and each one of us knows that time is very valuable.

One thing to keep in mind if you start gathering contacts – keep it under control. Constantly chatting with several online friends may become a detriment to your business, if it consumes too much of your time. Set aside scheduled times when you make yourself available for chatting.

So get out there and start socializing!

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