Tips Tuesday and the Google Penguin Strikes Good Sites

Hello Happy Site Owners! Today’s featured section is a must read because the Google Penguin update is hitting quality sites and site owners are having to beg spammy sites not to link to them. You need to be checking the backlinks to your site too. Plus, you definitely want to read down to the More Tips section and see how to avoid getting ripped off by gurus, coaches, and experts who do more harm than good.

Featured

Since you run a super quality site you may think the Google Penguin won’t get you. Think again and look at what happened to one of the best sites on the web that was unknowingly being bolstered by spammy sites. When Google devalued those links the legit site suffered – big time. Read WordPress, Penguin, Google and Matt Cutts’ take on WPMU.org Be sure to read through the comments too. And here’s another from Higher Visibility asking Google’s Penguin Update was Supposed to Clean the Web, Right? You can see the actual tests they ran and the mixed results. Finaly, one more from Denise Gabbard on Geeks4Share to ensure your site won’t get hit with a Penguin penalty. Read Google Penguin – Fix it and Forget it.

WordPress Plugins

Good news! The folks who monitor the WordPress plugin repository are making more changes. A few months ago they started removing plugins that hadn’t been updated in a long time. Now they are putting warnings on plugins that were initially rejected from being listed, but you might be able to download elsewhere, stating the reason you don’t want them (such as those that include malware). See this post on Sucuri titled Official WordPress Plugin Directory Forcing Plugin Updates for more info.

Blog Tips

Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income has two back-to-back posts everyone in business online should read. The first is If I Had to Start Over, this is What I’d do Differently and the second post is What I Know I Did Right.

Authors, this is a must-read if you plan to actually sell books too. Why aren’t More Writers Blogging? by Nina Amir on Write Nonfiction Now! Listen to my recent interview with Nina on How to Blog a Book and more.

Real gem from Linda Dessau on Content Mastery Guide that Done is Better Than Perfect but Good is Still Better Than Bad.

A good rule of thumb with blogging is to make your content easy to scan. Bullet points are a great way to do that if you use them properly. Beth Fox tells you how to Make Your Content Pop with These 5 Bullet Point Basics on Content Marketing Institute.

If you ever considered blogging a book, you’ve got to read this post by Joseph Foley. He absolutely outdid himself on this one. It has so many tips and pointers that I found inspiration for using them for other things. Read How to Organize an Online Book in WordPress (Novel or Non-Fiction) on WPMU.org.

SEO Tips

Google Webmaster Tools has done a little spring cleaning. See the new Navigation, Dashboard and Homepage.

Claire McDermott shares her Interview with Google’s Sam Sebastian About the Future of Search on Content Marketing Institute.

Dave Clements believes that most of the SEO advice out there is over-the-top hype and he put his money where his blog is. in has recent post on Do it With WordPress, he tells you What You Really Need to Know about WordPress and SEO.

Marketing Tips

What is the purpose of your site? If it’s to generate leads, you may want to think about changing your call to action. On FlyteBlog, rich Brooks tells you How I Increased Conversion Rate 50% in 30 Days.

Kaya Singer has a nice guest post on the Action Plan site titled 5 Tips to Create Freebies that Rock and it really works. I followed this advice for a free report that brings me all kinds of traffic and leads.

More Tips

To avoid getting ripped off, you need to properly vet the coach or expert you plan to hire. A lot of my clients are second site owners and I spend a good deal of time with them undoing the damage their original site has suffered from following bad advice. Here’s a super post on American Express’ Open Forum site about the 5 Ways Coaches and Experts can Hurt Your Business. Every word of it is true.

Nice post from email marketing expert Carolyn Nye on 4 Triggered Emails for Business Websites. I’m using the first two. Are you using these tips?