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Google To Penalize Sites That Have App Download Pop-ups

Google have announced that as of November 1st any site with a pop-up prompt asking users to download their mobile app will have their search rankings affected.

After November 1, mobile web pages that show an app install interstitial that hides a significant amount of content on the transition from the search result page will no longer be considered mobile-friendly.

They go on to to say that their mobile friendly algorithm and testing tool will take this into consideration for sites now too. Google also advised that smaller and less intrusive banners at the top of a mobile page should be used instead of pop-ups and interstitials and these would not be penalized.

Examples of bad and good app download prompts from Google.

4 Of The Best WordPress Search Plugins

A well placed and visible search bar is essential for your website or blog, a visitor who cant see what they are looking for is going to look for where they can search for the page or content they need, if they have to spend more than a few seconds looking for the search bar the chances are that they will lose interest and leave. Multiple this by hundreds or thousands of visitors all leaving your site and this could do serious damage to your website or business! Your search bar is also a treasure trove of user data which can be used to see what your audience is looking for on your site, this information can then be used to refine your content and keep readers engaged and staying on your site all of which result in positives from better time on site signals to Google that can improve your rankings in the SERPs.

WordPress comes with its own search function built in and it does a good job of bringing back search keyword information however its only been since the 3.7 update less than 18 months ago that ranks by relevancy were fixed and also cannot perform searches for specifics such as comments or tags.

Luckily there are many excellent alternatives out there for WordPress both paid and free, here’s a run down of 4 of the best: [Read more…] about 4 Of The Best WordPress Search Plugins

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A day at the office

Just a simple post

The 3 Low Hanging Fruits of Blog Content Creation

Creating new content for your blog can get nerve-wracking. This is most evident once you have run out of things to talk about or are undergoing blogger’s block or writing fatigue after having written multiple posts on a consistent basis. Even though you’re in this funk, you still need to produce valuable content on your blog to appease your readers and maintain the relevancy of your blog through constant updates.

If you think you’ve exhausted your well of ideas for your blog, then let these easy-to-do content hacks help you come up with fresh and exciting angles for your posts.

Create articles out of Quora threads

Quora inherited the mantle from Yahoo! Answers as the premier Q&A online site. It hosts a variety of questions from users about anything under the sun and answers from influencers and subject matter experts. From a blogger’s standpoint, this is a great place to perform content curation in which you find ideas for your upcoming posts on your blog. In order to do this, you can search for questions within your niche that you haven’t covered on your blog and turn their answers into a blog post.

Feature posts from other bloggers

One way to attract attention of your target audience to your blog is to feature posts of other bloggers related to your topic on a weekly basis.

To do this, you will need a set a feed reader like Feedly to find blogs that publish valuable information about your niche to be included in your feed. Once you have set up your feed dedicated to a specific topic, monitor the posts that appear on your feed and take note of those that provide value to your readers.

Another way of doing this is by going to BuzzSumo and searching for a keyword phrase related to your blog topic. The result will show you the most shared and viral content over a period of time. You can filter the results so that it will reveal to your specific kinds of content (articles, videos, infographics, etc.) and the specific range of time when the posts were published (within 24 hours, a week, a month).

Collect the posts published within the week and create a post on your blog that links to these content pieces. Examples of great weekly roundups can be found from Mashable’s Weekly App Roundup and Social Media Examiner’s This Week in Social Media. Dedicate time to create weekly roundups that link back to posts from other bloggers so you can create new content on your blog using existing ones.

Mine insightful posts on Reddit and expand them

Reddit is a community site that runs on user-generated content by way of sharing links, meme, and ideas to usher intelligent discussion with like-minded people. Once you have gotten acquainted with the site – the different subreddits, the acronyms, the running gags – you will be able to tap into the power of the rich content found here.

The first thing you need to do is find the right subreddit about your niche or industry. From here, browse through the highest rated and most talked-about topics and comments made on the subreddit. Find those that you can expound on your blog and put your own spin into things. By doing this, you automate your content idea generation by letting other people from Reddit do the job for you.

Since news moves fast in Reddit, you can also watch out for updates from the site that you can newsjack on your blog. For instance, Jezebel covered an ongoing discussion at r/funny that featured a picture of a Sikh woman with facial hair. The best thing about the discussion was that the woman whose photo was taken intelligently responded to the post, which elicited an apology from the original poster. Monitor these kinds of user activity on your subreddit to simplify your content creation.

Exploring Blog Content Alternatives: Video

Killer content is crucial to blogging traffic

5 Old (But Still Relevant) Content and Link Building Strategies….And 1 New One

Infographics still work….sort of

Infographics started to gain traction around 2010 and then saw an explosion across the web for the next 2 years as they grew in popularity. As with all new content and link building strategies SEO and marketing firms were all over them like a bad rash until Google stepped in (as they always do) and reduced the effectiveness of signals from links within infographics. However this doesn’t mean you can’t still use them. The field is pretty crowded these days so you really need to dig deep to come up with an interesting topic and get the data to go with it, after that you really need a killer design with the information displayed correctly to get your message across. This is really the hardest part as if you have an infographic on a unique and interesting topic then people will still accept it to be published on their sites and people are more likely to share it and link back to it. On top of that there are many infographic galleries you can seed your design on and again, the better the design and unique the topic is the more likely gallery sites will accept it. The links from infographics will not carry the same weight as they used to but are still a solid link-building strategy.

Refreshing or updating old content

This is a a great tactic as it gives you a legit reason to push some old content to the front of your website or blog again and share it across Facebook and Twitter. If you have any kind of list post you wrote in the past or resource post then go over it again, is there any new content or information you can add there? Nothing ever stays the same and there should always be something new you can add., a resource page that is contently evolving is more likely to be linked to.

Guest Blogging (yes this is still an option)

Guest blogging was the new ‘go to’ and popular link building option throughout most of 2012 and 2013. As with all of the latest SEO tactics it was abused and Google once again had to take action. Matt Cutts first made some warnings and noises about the quality of the content and links that people allow from guest bloggers at the end of 2012 and then again several times in 2013 and early 2014. Finally in spring of this year My Blog Guest and many blogs and websites associated with it were heavily penalised. In the days and weeks after the guest blogging ‘scene’ went very quiet as no-one knew what to do next. Slowly it has been coming back though but what we are seeing now is that many sites and publications have taken a much stricter stance on what they accept, this means guest blogging is moving back to what it originally was and reclaiming its position as trusted content and links.

Sponsoring events

‘Sponsored’ is a dirty word in SEO and link building, if you pay for a link then it should not be a normal and followed link. But if you help out at and event or on a podcast then your name is going to be mentioned anyway and this is more than likely to bring links also and links that have been earned naturally.

Interviews

An old strategy and still a good one. Many people make the mistake of trying to interview the biggest names in their niche, if you can get these people then that’s great but chances are they won’t have the time. Look for people who are new to the scene or have just started a new project, they are more likely to be keen to talk or have something to say. A good example of this is over at our new crowd-funding site Stiqblox.com, we often reach out to creators with the offer of an interview when they launch their campaigns on Kickstarter or IndieGoGo as this is when they are hungry to talk to the press, but you need to catch them before they hit the funding target as after that they simply don’t have the time and/or don’t need the coverage anymore!

An ice bucket challenge?

I’m sure you have seen different celebrities across the globe doing this for the past month or so for the ALS charity, it’s guerilla and viral marketing at it’s best and companies should get involved by taking the challenge while it’s still viral, this way you get to help out a good cause while at the same time getting a little exposure and coverage for your brand.