How I Got My eBook Reviewed for Free by Dozens of Bloggers (#MyBlogGuest Case Study)

Last month MyBlogGuest added a new cool feature: eBooks gallery. It’s meant for both amateur and professional (digital) book writers who need to spread a word about their books.

It’s a most unintrusive outreach method:

• You don’t pitch bloggers anything
• Instead, you write about your book, upload to the gallery and let blogger apply to publish your reviews for free.

The idea is, bloggers love sharing relevant books in their niche. That’s also a good way to diversify your content too by offering your readers something different. Read on: How I Got My eBook Reviewed for Free by Dozens of Bloggers (#MyBlogGuest Case Study)

Viral Marketing | 3 Comments » | 2013-12-02

Two Secrets and a Google Story

By Don Sturgill

Guest Blogging – it’s like candy. You know you want some, but you’re not sure it’s good for you.

Once considered the primary way for publishers to get fresh content and writers to get not only a backlink, but their names splattered all over the webosphere … guest blogging has come under fire recently.

Why is that?

Google and Game Theory

I don’t believe I’ve ever heard anyone accuse googlers (Google staff) of being dumb. One thing you can bet, behind every move Google makes, is that there is a good reason for it. Many observers see Game Theory at work, especially over the past year or so and especially concerning Panda/Penguin and all the hoopla surrounding them. Read on: Two Secrets and a Google Story

Search Engines | 9 Comments » | 2013-09-25

Types of Link Removal Requests and Where are We Heading?

With all those notorious hundreds of thousands of algorithm changes, millions of flags and billions of free testers, Google is helpless.

No, I am actually quite serious. There’s really only one reason why they started all the removal / disavow craziness: They are helpless.

Their algorithms are not working against spam and their human reviewers are not enough to clean the web: So they decided to scare the hell out of us to make us help them correct their deficiency.

* It’s up to you if you want to be part of their helping brigade. I for one prefer to stay away and just keep doing what I think is right.

I am not even blaming them but seeing where it takes the web is sad. People are afraid of linking but if you think about that links are heart, sole and the actual base of the whole web. If we kill links, what’s left?

Google *may* be actually meaning good (which is doubtful considering the amount of confusion they seem to be purposely spreading): Stopping spammers is essential but at what cost? Read on: Types of Link Removal Requests and Where are We Heading?

Link Building | 8 Comments » | 2013-08-19

My Viral Content Buzz Case Study: How to Get Found on the Internet

Last year we announced our new kid: Viral Content Buzz. We’ve been diligently going through (and beyond) the To-Do list since then and even though the project can be considered pretty established now, I still have my wow moments with it.

One of them is a little case study of how VCB is able to revive a pretty dead site.

I have a little website which I don’t have time to focus on. It was started as a hobby and sadly, times got too busy too fast.

The site has a part-time editor (not that the person has a bunch of time for it either) and basically it is maintained as follows:

• I try to write at least one article a month for it (I write for a lot of places but I only have 24 hours a day, so nothing personal here!);
• The editor finds at least 4 more contributors a month from My Blog Guest articles collection;
• All articles are shared through official social media channels.

The site wasn’t doing well in Google and it was doing pretty average on Twitter and Facebook.

A few weeks ago I submitted my own article to Viral Content Buzz and it worked!

***There’s always that feeling when you are building a tool and you are full of excitement and hopes but then you see it actually working and that’s the best reward you can get…

Anyway, the traffic isn’t crazy so far, but if you see what it used to be, the progress is huge for the half-forgiven (still loved) site: Read on: My Viral Content Buzz Case Study: How to Get Found on the Internet

Viral Marketing | 6 Comments » | 2013-07-22

MyBlogGuest and the Value of the Team

MyBlogGuest was born more than 3 4 years ago… It has been growing fast ever since…

As the newbie entrepreneur who was all alone for a long time, I had hard time relying on other people. But with the rate MyBlogGuest has been growing, I had no other choice… And the team has turned out to be my biggest accomplishment… The power is in people! Read on: MyBlogGuest and the Value of the Team

Entrepreneurship | 11 Comments » | 2013-05-15

Google Trying to Identify the Author: Fails and Puzzles

Past weekend was one of the rare occasions when I didn’t go anywhere with my family and decided to stay at home to get prepared for my presentation at soon-to-come PubCon New Orleans where I am speaking on optimizing your content marketing to Google’s authorship and potential Google AuthorRank update.

Hence I had some quality time going through my Author Stats in Google Webmaster Tools Labs and have come across some interesting results I am sharing here.

The Ugly…

It’s not a secret that Google is trying to determine the author of non-verified content and they could really a better job: Read on: Google Trying to Identify the Author: Fails and Puzzles

Search Engines | 6 Comments » | 2013-04-08

Google Home Page and Search Results: Interface Evolution

A few weeks ago I did a large post on the past five years of history of Google: That was a cool exercise as I got to remind yourself and organize in my mind lots of Google changes I was lucky to witness (I know that sounds like I am very old btw).

Now, in the course of the above research, I came across lots of screenshots which allowed me to create these two slideshows. You don’t need the wayback machine to witness Google evolution now. It’s all there: Read on: Google Home Page and Search Results: Interface Evolution

Search Engines | 2 Comments » | 2013-03-11