First of all, how will you know when your site or blog
is penalized by Google?
The most obvious indicator is sudden drop in traffic. Readership number becomes lesser due to your keywords dropping down from the search pages. For example, if your site or blog ranks for the keyword “X Factor Philippines,” then web users searching for that keyword lands on your site or blog when they enter the keyword or phrase through search fields. The search engine in turn will display websites based on ranking. Obviously, those which make it on the first page will naturally gain more readers as compared to those which are lower in rank.
Unfortunately, my blog dropped rank for most keywords
it used to rank well for. Thus, I’ve noticed the sudden drop in traffic coming
from search engines, particularly Google. Although the ultimate solution is to
appease the giant G by sending a plea through its support, I haven’t done that
yet. I’d rather earn this major search engine’s trust again by focusing on
writing more high quality content and avoiding instances which will result to
greater penalty. The latter includes building punishable links all over the
web. It’s what one of the admin/owners of InfoBarrel cited in a forum thread I’ve
created in relation to this issue. There is a need to make sure that all links
are of high quality.
In connection to checking link quality, I was able to
login to my blog’s webmaster account. I did see the list of links alright but I
have no idea which of those is deemed as spammy and needs to be removed. So I
haven’t worked on this one too.
I definitely feel the impact of falling away from
Google’s grace but I’ll just let it be for the moment. So instead of finding
ways to battle it out such as through the options mentioned above, I will
temporarily find other means to invite readers while recovering from being
penalized. Some of such alternate traffic sources include the following choices
below.
Social Media Traffic
The power of social media is already proven. You just
need to know how it works and how to make the most out of it. The key here is
syndication. You need to syndicate your blog or site content to as many social
media sites as possible. Facebook and Twitter are not the only sources for
social network traffic. You can also register an account in numerous social
networking and social bookmarking sites such as Myspace, Orkut, Stumbleupon,
Posterous, and so much more.
There are literally hundreds of social bookmarking sites
all over the web. I have a list of over 100 if you need one; in exchange for a minimal
fee of course. J But these work best for extracting link juices and
not for immediate traffic. If you aim for the latter, it’s best to choose high
traffic social networking sites with tried and tested readership.
Still on social media traffic, you also have to manually
share each content or update. Never use automated software, tools, nor sites as
these are bad for SEO (search engine optimization). It will help to include a
widget for sharing so readers can automatically share your content to their
respective social media accounts. One notable widget is Add This which is what I’m
using for this blog. There are also services which can share your updates to
several social media sites although most of these are limited to a few sites
only and you need to upgrade to a premium account in order to avail of as many
features as possible.
Email Traffic
People still read email despite the clamor for social networking
these days. So email can also be a possible source of traffic. The only problem
now is to generate leads. Some may even buy leads from lead generating services.
These obtain email addresses all over the web based on user interest. When you
sign up for a specific service or site; your email address maybe collected for
marketing purposes. In other words, it is sold. This explains why you
receive countless unsolicited emails which end up in your email’s spam folder.
But there’s no need to buy leads for email traffic.
You just need to create bait in order to acquire sign ups. The easiest way is
through your own existing contacts. Send an invite through email or through
your social network accounts and encourage people you know to subscribe for
your blog or site feeds. One tool you can use for this is FeedBurner. It’s the
same one I use for this blog. You can’t expect every visitor to sign up though
so it’s best to intensify the need to increase readership by offering something
in return like a newsletter, e-book, or free download. I plan to write an
e-book should I ever have the time to do so soon.
With that, I won’t sulk in a corner crying over spilled
milk. What’s done is already over with. I’ll leave the past behind, look
forward towards the future, and work my best for today. So even if my blog is penalized by Google, I know I can be
able to recover from it or if not, at least I can generate traffic through
other sources such as these two alternate options discussed above.
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