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Susan Gunelius

Weeding out Guest Blog Post Submission Spam

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Getting more incoming links to your blog or website from influential and popular sites is a great way to boost your search engine rankings.  That’s one of the reasons that guest blogging is popular.  Not only does it help the guest blogger get in front of a wider audience, but it also gives the guest blogger more incoming links to his own blog (most guest bloggers include a bio with a link to their website or blog).

The Ugly Side of Guest Blogging

However, there is a growing trend online where both legitimate and questionable companies pay people to craft “guest blog posts” which those writers blindly submit to websites and blogs in an effort to build incoming links for a company.  Whether or not the writer knows the actual purpose of the guest post in terms of link-building is less important than realizing a company is paying someone to submit guest posts using specific keyword phrase links within those posts.

Recognizing Guest Blog Post Spam

Sometimes these posts are actually relevant to the blog’s audience to which they are submitted.  Other times they are not relevant at all.  It’s the relevant submissions that can be harder to detect and weed out.  For example, I get guest post submissions on my various blogs frequently and often keyword phrases such as “online colleges” or “payday loans” or “credit card processing” are found in these posts along with no writer bio or a very brief writer bio.  These types of guest post submissions immediately raise a red flag and get sent to the trash.

You’ll also get requests that actually reference your blog saying something like, “I’ve been reading your blog and really like what you have to say.”  They might even be more specific and include a link to a specific post saying how great it was.  In the end though, you’re likely to find one of those two red flags mentioned above (the very specific yet somewhat random keyword phrase links and the nonexistent or extremely brief writer bio).

Tackling Guest Blog Spam

Remember, it’s your blog and if you find a guest post submission questionable, you don’t have to publish it.  Another option is to include the HTML NoFollow tag in any questionable links.  The site could still get traffic from click-throughs, but the incoming link won’t be counted by search engines like Google when they rank search results.  Most importantly, follow the links in guest posts submitted to your blog to ensure they lead your audience to legitimate sites before you publish those posts.  The last thing you want to do is upset your loyal audience and tarnish your brand image by leading your audience to spam sites.

Finally, it’s a good idea to publish some guidelines for guest post submissions and actual post entries.  While most of the spammers won’t even bother to look at these guidelines, it can help to reduce the number of submissions that you would never publish.  It also protects you by warning people who submit guest posts that you reserve the right to approve, decline or edit any and all guest post submissions without notice.

Is there a type of guest blog post submission that you get frequently which is clearly spam or spammish?  Leave a comment and share your experience!

Image: stock.xchng

How Color Meanings Can Affect Your Blog

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Last week, I published a post about applying color marketing research to blog design strategy where I provided a number of statistics that demonstrate how color can help your blog’s success.  The next question bloggers are likely to have once they realize the significant impact adding color to a blog can make is what colors they should use on their blogs.

In a recent study published on Colourlovers.com, it was reported that the online world is dominated by the color blue followed closely by red.  Should you also use blue and red in your blog’s design?  Keep reading to learn what color psychology tells us that different colors mean.

Blue
Cool blues create perceptions of trust, dependability, fiscal responsibility and security.  Blue elicits calm and peaceful feelings and is liked by a wide audience.  In fact, it’s arguably one of the most popular colors.  It’s not surprising so many brands use blue in their logos!

Red
Red has been shown to cause a physical response in people, including increases in heart rate.  Therefore, red is perceived as being aggressive, energetic, provocative and attention-grabbing. It’s not surprising that red is used on stop signs.  It is the go-to color when a reaction is desired (which could be positive or negative).

Green
As you might expect from its connection to nature, green creates a perception of health, freshness and serenity. On the flip side, darker greens are often connotations of money and wealth.

Orange
Orange creates perceptions of fun and excitement.

Yellow
It’s fairly universal that yellow is representative of light and the sun. People relate yellow to warmth and positive feelings.  Studies show that people see bright yellow before any other color.  Ever wonder why yellow is used for road signs that warn you about dangerous curves and road conditions?  Yellow stands out!

Purple
Purple is associated with creativity, royalty, sophistication, and spirituality.

Pink
Pink is typically associated with femininity.  Bright pinks create perceptions of energy, fun and youthfulness, while paler pinks are viewed as being more romantic.

Brown
If you want a color that creates perceptions of stability and durability, then brown is your go-to color.  Just make sure the brown you use doesn’t fall into the trap of appearing dirty.

Black
Black elicits perceptions of power.  It’s bold and sophisticated and is often linked to high-end, expensive, classy brands and products.

White
White is the go-to color to elicit thoughts of simplicity, cleanliness and purity.  Studies have shown that people’s eyes are strongly drawn to white.

Keep in mind as you choose colors for your blog’s design that colors can have different meanings in different parts of the world.  For example, black is considered a color of mourning in the United States, but in Japan white is the color of mourning.  In Brazil, the color of mourning is purple.  If your blog is targeted at an audience in different areas of the world, take a few minutes to research color meanings in those countries to ensure your choices are appropriate.

Image: stock.xchng

Applying Color Marketing Research to Blog Design Strategy

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I’m a marketer by profession, and one of the areas of marketing that I find very interesting is color marketing, which focuses on how color affects consumer brand perceptions and purchase behavior.

Did you know that you can apply color marketing theory to your blog’s design?  It’s true.  Your blog is a product, and you should market it as such even in its design.

Following are some statistics culled from marketing research over the years that shows how color can affect consumers, just as color can affect your blog’s audience and their willingness to keep reading your blog after they find it.  If you have any doubt that color can affect your blog’s success, keep reading!

Color increases brand recognition by up to 80%. That means color could have a significant affect on how well visitors to your blog remember and recognize your blog on future visits.  Recognition is the first step to building a brand, so it should be an important part of your blog’ design, too.

Ads in color are read up to 42% more often than the same ads in black and white. This statistic can apply to online content, too.  In other words, if your blog is devoid of color, it could miss out on a significant amount of visits and page views.

Color can improve readership by 40%. If you want to keep visitors on your blog longer and make sure they read your blog posts from start to finish, use color strategically both in your blog’s overall design and within the formatting of your individual blog posts.

Color can improve learning from 55% to 78% and comprehension by 73%. That means if you’re trying to teach your audience something, color can help significantly.  Certainly, highly technical blogs would benefits considerably from the strategic use of color.

Tests indicate that a black and white image may keep a person’s interest for less than two-thirds a second, whereas a color image may hold a person’s attention for two seconds or more. If you want to get your audience’s attention and hold it, use color images on your blog.

So what do you think?  Are you using color in the most appropriate and effective ways on your blog?  It can make a big difference in terms of readability, shareworthiness, and loyalty.  Stay tuned to Performancing for more color marketing theory.  I’ll follow up on this post next week with information about color meanings, so you can evaluate your blog to ensure you’re using the best colors to attract the right audience and meet your goals.

Image: stock.xchng

Why I Ignore Content Scrapers

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Content scraping is completely out of control online.  It seems no piece of content is safe from the many sites that like to copy it and republish it with or without links back to the original source.  A popular online publisher could spend every minute of every day trying to fight the many sites that republish its content without permission.  Even a small-time online publisher could find themselves wasting hours and hours to the losing battle against content scrapers who simply don’t care that you oppose their inappropriate republishing of your content.

Several years ago, I was one of those online publishers who used to get angry when I found my content republished on another website without my permission, with or without my byline and with or without a link to the blog or website where my content was first published.

Today, not so much.

So why do I ignore content scrapers these days?

The easy answer would be that I’m lazy.  That’s probably true, but I prefer to tell myself that I started to look at the bigger picture when it comes to content scraping, and that’s when my attitude changed.

What if someone republishes your content without a byline or link to your site?

One could argue that content scraping done without your original byline is plagiarism.  That’s true.  It’s illegal to republish someone else’s content as your own.  However, unless you have enough time to police the scores of websites that are simply republishing content without permission in an effort to earn money through pay-per-click ads and the like, you’re probably fighting a losing battle.  There needs to be a larger shift in protecting copyrights in the online space and an official way to report offenses.  There is no online copyright police, and a single blogger can’t realistically fight it on a day-to-day basis.  We can only hope that someday there will be.  In the meantime, if you’re interested in learning more about plagiarism and online copyrights, Jonathan Bailey writes a great weekly post about the topic on Freelance Writing Jobs as well as on his personal blog, Plagiarism Today.

What about those content scrapers that do include your byline but no link back to your website?

Well, that stinks.  There really is no other way to describe this scenario.  If a search engine finds your name associated with the content on a spam site or a site that does not match the brand image you’ve tried to create for yourself online, and that entry appears in a Google search result for your name, then that isn’t a good thing for you.  However, you can bury that result with more great content that is SEO’d better than the content scraper’s site is.  If you can do that, then you don’t have to worry about this situation too much.  If you’re working hard to build your own site where your content is published first, then errant search engine results from content scrapers will fall to the bottom of the list.

Also, if someone finds content with your byline on a content scraper’s site that they like, they’re likely to search for your name either on that site (where they won’t find any additional results) or on Google.  That’s where they’ll find all of your great content entries from your blog and website.  In other words, publish often and publish great content on your own site, and content scrapers won’t get long-term traffic benefits from the post or article they copied from your blog.

Finally, what about the content scraper sites that do include your byline and a link back to your website?

While it’s true these more “generous” content scrapers will get some extra page views and possibly some search traffic from your scraped content, at least your link is there.  If a reader likes what he finds, he might just click the link to read more from you.

So what should you do about content scrapers?  It’s totally up to you.  Over the years, I’ve decided that for me, the time it takes to fight content scrapers is better spent in other activities that actually further build my online presence in the manner I want to build it.  I don’t think my career or business has truly suffered due to my focus on other activities. My activities and income sources are diverse enough that content scrapers don’t really hurt my ability to reach my goals.  If a call for reform against content scrapers is made, I’ll certainly support it, but I’m not able to chase scrapers down one by one.  I accept that and move on.

Now, the illegal sharing of books electronically …. that’s another story entirely!

Do you fight each and every one of the scrapers who republish your content on their sites?  Why or why not?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

The Laws of Brand Focus and Contraction and Why Bloggers Should Care

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I’m a marketer by profession, and one of the basic laws of building a brand tells us that a highly focused brand is stronger in the long-term than an unfocused brand.  In other words, the most powerful brands own a word in people’s minds.

On the other hand, there is another marketing law that tells us it’s better to be the leader in a category than it is to be better.  That’s because the category leader, meaning the brand that is first to enter that market, owns the broad word that defines the category simply by being first.  Later entrants into the category are challenged with the need to differentiate their own brands from the category leader in order to steal market share from that pioneer brand.  For example, Microsoft might own “operating system” in the world of personal computers, but Apple owns “design”.  Apple effectively positioned its brand against the category leader by differentiating its brand as a market challenger that was focused on a very specific part of the category which the leader couldn’t offer as well as Apple could.  The strategy worked for Apple just as it does for many other brands in many other categories.

And guess what?  It works for blogs, too.

If you take a step back from your blog and the social web, you’ll see that your blog is just one within the broader category of blogs and websites that publish content about your blog topic.  There is probably a leader in that category, and there are many, many smaller competitor blogs in that category.  The first step to finding focus for your blog is determining what that area of focus will be, so you can effectively position your blog against your competitors.  What is the category leader doing and how can you bring your own niche expertise to the category to challenge the leader?

Think of it this way — if you write a blog about parenting, then you have a lot of big competition from established blogs and companies with deep pockets and pre-existing brand awareness to work against.  However, if you find your focus and contract your content and brand to that niche, then your chances of finding long-term blogging success are far greater than if you keep a broad brand and try to compete head on with the bigger players in your category.

Looking at the concept of brand focus from another perspective, consider General Motors.  This is a company that focused on the wrong thing for many years.  Upon seeing the dollar signs that selling large, gas-guzzling vehicles like Hummers could bring to the company’s bottom-line, focus shifted to these money-making brands.  Short-term earnings trumped long-term sustainability for General Motors.  When the economy tanked, so did General Motors.  Today, the Hummer brand is nearly gone and General Motors has been vocally touting its new focus on fuel-efficient vehicles for the future.

Suffice it to say, you don’t want your blog to go the way of General Motors, because a bailout for your blog is unlikely.  Instead, make sure you choose an area of focus, your niche, that has long-term potential, so you can stay competitive and hold your position against the market leader and other blogs in your category.

Image: stock.xchng

Blogging Strategically Not Tactically And 5 Steps to Do It

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If your goals for your blog include growing your audience, developing an online platform to establish yourself as an expert in your field, or making money, then you need to start thinking strategically and not tactically or those goals will always remain just out of reach.

There is a reason why companies create marketing plans — because it takes a broader vision than the day-to-day activities to meet your bigger goals.  You need your own strategic vision and plan for your blog, too.  After all, if your blogging goals include one of those listed in the preceding paragraph, your blog is akin to a mini-business.  It’s time to start thinking like a business owner.

How do you blog strategically rather than tactically?  The first step is to understand what strategy is as opposed to tactics when it comes to marketing.

Strategy is the long term plan or direction you develop for your blog that clearly defines your end goals and what it will take for you to get there.

Tactics are the specific actions you will take to drive your blog along the path of that strategy and reach your goals.

Most marketing plans include both short-term and long-term goals, and therefore, some of the tactics you implement to drive your blog forward in the direction you want it to go will be tactics that elicit immediate responses while others will support your long-term goals and ensure you’re heading in the right direction to reach those goals.

For example, tactics might include holding a blog contest to boost short-term visitors.  However, blog contests can also support your long-term blogging goals because some of those visitors who come to your blog to enter a contest might like what they see in your content and come back again.  Alternately, participating in conversations on Twitter related to your blog’s topic is primarily a marketing tactic intended to indirectly boost traffic to your blog as a result of the relationships you build.  In other words, Twitter activities overall are a strategic, long-term marketing initiative, but specific tweets can be short-term tactics.  You’re unlikely to see big changes in your blog’s traffic overnight when you tweet, but in time, your blog traffic will grow organically from those efforts.

So how do you start blogging strategically rather than tactically?  Following are five basic steps to get you thinking and acting in the right direction:

1. Set your long-term blogging goals.

Believe it or not, many bloggers have not put their long term blogging goals down in writing.  Quantify those goals.  For example, in 2 years you might have a goal to have a specific number of page views on your blog per month.  Now you have something to work toward and you can implement tactics, measure your success, and make changes to those tactics to reach that goal.  Be specific and realistic when you set your goals.

2. Think long-term with every blog post you publish.

Of course there will be days when you won’t be able to publish an amazing blog post.  However, you do need to think before you write each day.  Ask yourself how the post you’re about to write will fit into your long-term blogging strategy.

3. Promote each blog post accordingly to position yourself to meet your goals.

Create an integrated marketing plan where all of your efforts to promote your blog work together to reach your long-term blogging goals.  When you publish a post, think about how you can promote that post to move you closer to reaching your goals.  Is this post worthy of social bookmarking?  Can I start a separate conversation about the post on Facebook?  Should I share this post in a LinkedIn group?  Find the best fit and pursue it.

4. Stick to the 80-20 rule of marketing.

The 80-20 rule of marketing states that 80% of your business comes from just 20% of your customers.  You can switch that up and make it apply to blog promotion by ensuring at least 80% of your online participation across the social web is not self-promotional and no more than 20% is self-promotional.  By focusing on building relationships, you’ll achieve greater success in the long-term.  That’s because your online connections will help you share your content, talk about your blog, and more.  The stronger those relationships become and the more relationships you build with online influencers, the more long-term blogging success you’ll achieve.  That organic, indirect growth in traffic to your blog is worth far more strategically than short-term traffic bursts.

5. Don’t let the day-to-day grind deter you from your long-term blogging goals and strategy.

I think all bloggers are guilty of getting caught up in the daily grind, comments from particularly vociferous visitors who might not have the same vision for your blog or outlook on your blog’s topic as you do, and pressure to think and write a certain way.  If you see yourself falling into that trap, take a few days off to regroup.  Pull out your written long-term blog goals that you created in #1 above, and remind yourself why you started your blog in the first place and what you want to achieve from all of your time and efforts.  Tweaking your goals and strategy is perfectly fine when warranted.  However, always think strategically and long-term rather than being swayed by short-term occurrences or bumps in the road.

So what are you waiting for?  Go write down your blogging goals and start putting together your strategy to get there!

5-Minutes to Better Blog Email Subscriptions

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Have you ever subscribed to your own blog’s feed via email to see what those messages that your email subscribers receive from you actually look like?  Do you know what time of day those email messages are sent?  Do you know what the subscription confirmation message says that subscribers receive after they subscribe via email to your blog?

Go ahead … subscribe to your feed via email and see what happens.  Chances are high that you’ll want to make some changes.

If your feed is managed through FeedBurner, then it will take you less than five minutes to change your subscription email messages from boring or hard to read to visually appealing.  Here are the essential steps to giving your email subscription messages the makeover they probably need.

1. Make your first impression a memorable one.

Log into your FeedBurner account and navigate to your blog’s feed settings.  Click on the Publicize tab, and then click on the Communication Preferences link in the left menu under the Email Subscriptions heading.  This opens the Email Subscriptions-Communications Preferences page shown in the figure below.  This is where you configure the settings for the confirmation email that new email subscribers receive to confirm that they do want to subscribe to your blog’s feed via email.

Take a minute to revise the Email “From” Address (the address recipients see in their email inboxes as the Sender), the Confirmation Email Subject (the subject line of the message that recipients see in their email inboxes), and the Confirmation Email Body (the content of the email message).  Personalize the message, so recipients remember who you are and why they clicked on the Subscribe via Email link in the first place.

2. Design your email subscription messages so they look good.

Next, it’s important to click on the Email Branding link under the Email Subscriptions heading in the left menu to open the Email Subscriptions-Email Branding page shown below.  Here you can change the title of the actual feed update messages that subscribers receive in their email in boxes (you can even make the title of the email message match the title of your most recent blog post included in the feed email by clicking on and selecting the Hot Tip check box.

You can also include the URL for a logo that you want to include in your feed emails (as long as the image is already hosted elsewhere online), and you can make changes to the typeface, font size, and colors used in your email subscription messages.  All of your changes can be viewed by scrolling down the page where they are visible in a special section called HTML Preview Email.

Of course, if you’re already subscribed to your own blog by email, you’ll also be able to see how your edits look to other subscribers next time your blog is updated and feed messages are sent.

3. Select a delivery time.

Research shows that blog email subscriptions which are emailed in the morning get more click-throughs than those emailed in the middle of the night.  Of course, time zones can affect your statistics, but scheduling your blog email subscription updates to go out between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Eastern time is thought by many experts to be the best choice.

Therefore, your last step in making your blog email subscriptions even better is to click on the Delivery Options link under the Email Subscriptions section in your FeedBurner account.  Use the drop-down menus to select the time zone and specific two-hour window when you want your blog’s automated email subscription messages to be delivered anytime you publish new content on your blog.

That’s all there is to it.  In fact, it probably took you longer to read these instructions than it will take you to make these changes to your own FeedBurner email subscription settings!

5 Websites to Learn CSS and HTML

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There are many books and websites that offer tutorials and articles to help beginners learn CSS and HTML — both of which can be extremely useful to bloggers, particularly WordPress users who self-host their blogs and want to edit their themes.

However, finding free online resources that are easy for beginners with no CSS or HTML knowledge to understand can be challenging.

Following are several free online resources that I recommend to help you learn CSS and HTML without feeling overwhelmed or intimidated:

Dave’s Site

If you know nothing about HTML or CSS, make Dave’s Site your first stop in learning.  It’s very basic and easy to follow.  Start with HTML: An Interactive Tutorial for Beginners and CSS: An Interactive Tutorial for Beginners.

W3Schools

W3Schools offers both CSS and HTML online courses as well as a variety of other courses.  Start with the HTML tutorials and the CSS tutorials.

CSS Basics

Splashpress Media offers an 18 chapter CSS guide, which you can download or print.

About.com Web Design

Jennifer Kyrnin, the About.com Guide to Web Design, offers a wide variety of articles to learn various aspects of HTML and CSS.

HTML Code Tutorial

The HTML Code Tutorial site includes links to a wide variety of articles, frequently asked questions, and more.  The site also runs a forum which offers more information and enables users to ask and answer questions.

Have you found a free online resource to learn HTML or CSS that was invaluable to you?  Share it in the comments below.

Image: stock.xchng