Agents of Value

What is the importance of mind mapping in blogging? While finding some topics to be authoritative about I reach a dead end. I was writing some articles in the past few weeks that I forgot to actually try some new software or some new techniques in link building. Mind mapping is basically a method of getting information out of and into your brain. There are several tools that can be used to create mind maps, which are diagrams and graphical representations composed of ideas and concepts that are logically arranged and usually has one main idea. There is a variety of mind mapping tools available online. Also there are some apps that you can use in your phone while on the go. Some simple steps There are also other tools to choose from. But based on experience, using Bubbl.us is great, simple, and easy to use. So here I listed some ways of using mind maps before starting to write the actual body of the article. Brainstorming Here your blank sheet is the mind mapping [...]

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Written by Ric, Image by Ian The word brand originally meant burning, or a burning piece of wood, torch, or sword. Then it changed its meaning to an identifying mark made by a hot iron (1550s), particular make of goods (1827), and the term brand name which we are using now was born in 1922. Now that the world is technology-driven, what brand or company names make the most noise? 9 out of 10 knows Google (well) The ABC News/Washington Post poll released last month details who rules the tech world. Only 1 out of 10 of Americans haven’t formed any opinion about Google. Almost the same is true both for Facebook and Apple (14%). While for Twitter, 31% were unready to express any opinion regarding the site. And more – 82% of the Americans have a favorable opinion of Google, while 74% favors Apple. Facebook (58%) and Twitter follow (34%). Popular to some, unfavorable to some Not all have a positive response to these companies. Nine percent is unfavorable of Google, 13 % for Apple, 28 % for Facebook, and 36 % for Twitter. Google [...]

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Written by Ric, Image by Ian (Note: This is a follow-up on the previous  article entitled Penguin: Another Black and White from Google) Keywords and anchor text are essential in search engine optimization. One of the targets of the Penguin Update are the sites that are overstuffed with keywords and anchor texts. Did it actually hit the target? Micrositemasters.com’s analysis shows that the sites that were affected use money keywords as anchor texts for more than 60 percent incoming links. It seems that the focus on anchor words will become minimal as compared to content relevancy. This trend will make the optimization of keywords and anchor texts irrelevant in the long run. BUT is it really the case? The affected sites According to Searchmetrics, the sites that were greatly affected are mostly database-driven – they aggregate information and use their databases to create a lot of pages. Press portals and aggregators that are usually created by very aggressive SEOs, are also affected. Last, some of them are heavily-templated web sites. Keywords, without content Although fresh and [...]

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When I first heard about Google’s Penguin Update, the first thing that came to my mind were the cute penguins in Madagascar and Happy Feet. But after it was released last April 24, it’s image changed into a super villain – The Penguin – for some. Penguin is worse The update was aimed at webspams, which involves keyword stuffing or cloaking, which is not allowed by Google. The initial response, for some, is of course negative. Lots of sites were affected by the update. It is much worse compared to the reaction and panicky situation right after the implementation of Panda. Dr. Pete, using an internal SEOmoz.org graph, illustrates how Penguin hit the search engine queries. He added, “… the core point is that the impact of Penguin dwarfed either Panda 3.5 or Google’s 4/16 glitch.” The immediate impacts seem bad but as always there should be a balanced view of things. There have been other updates before that also caused initial effects for some but not for all. Why were they penalized? Micrositemasters.com’s analysis [...]

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The old issue of content duplication again comes to mind, especially during the post-Panda period. Because of the need for for high-quality and original content, there is an influx of blog articles being posted. Same with the case of all the other content available online. Lately, we post a lot Just imagine all of the posts online, especially the ones about economically-important topics like SEO-related ones. The number of blog accounts drastically rose since last 2011 – WordPress has more than 73 million blog accounts already while Tumblr has almost 53 million – and counting. Guest blogging and article submission is also becoming a trend now because of the demand for high quality articles. There are different ways to get published. Either you own a site and publish everything there or you submit somewhere, get published and get noticed. Content duplication If a content appears in more than one web page then that is already considered a duplicate content. Now the focus shifts towards blog article articles. They are becoming more of mainstays of most [...]

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