Don’t have the time to read all the marketing news, blog posts, announcements, and other content related to SEO/social media/online marketing published each week?
I’ve got you covered.
I sift through trillions (well, hundreds) of online publications to stay on top of marketing news that might affect your online business.
In the marketing spotlight this week:
- Traffic Generation Café moves to WP Engine (and soon to Genesis);
- WordPress 3.6 “Oscar” release;
- Why you shouldn’t use press releases for link building;
- A free anchor text over-optimization tool;
- Facebook’s embedded posts and secure connection;
- New Buffer features;
- Pinterest price-reduction alerts;
- Easily create your own .gifs in Tumblr;
- New NSA leak;
- Chromecast: the rebirth of Google TV;
- and much more.
Let’s start with the news from Traffic Generation Café.
At TrafficGenerationCafe.com
As many of you know, I spent two blissful weeks visiting my Russian family 200 miles south of Moscow.
Here’s a peak at what my daughter Emma and I have been up to:
In other words, we had way too much fun to work.
Thus, my writing time was cut down to bare minimum (my weekly Marketing Skinnies really).
Fortunately, Ivin Viljoen just published an interview we did a couple of weeks ago where we talked about many a traffic generation technique I currently use to drive more traffic to Traffic Generation Café on a daily basis.
Who Did I Interview When I Wanted To Know About Traffic? Ana Hoffman - Ivin Viljoen at ivinviljoen.net
Here are just some of Ivin’s takeaways from the interview:
- Ana approached her blog to give people ‘fish’ but instead wanted to ‘teach people how to fish’. This is the basis of her success.
- Ana doesn’t pay for traffic as she believes she cannot teach about free traffic and pay for traffic.
- Ana is in the information business, so she measures ROI on her traffic by looking at subscribers to her email list, which is monetized.
- Questions you need to ask when constructing a sales campaign: What is your site about, what are you selling and why should they buys from you. Focus on design and converting traffic before driving traffic to it.
- Ana played around on Slideshare for traffic generation and generated 300,000 views on the platform.
- Even though she is pretty much a traffic guru, she is still learning about traffic generation.
- If you’re going to shell out money on a traffic generation platform, like a forum, put 100% into testing that platform and guage the results.
- Descriptive, interest garnering post titles draw more traffic and can also be optimized for search engines. You can have both great titles and search engine friendly posts.
- When you write, write for people, because they are the ones that click on titles and in search engines.
- Ana is also affected by Google algorithm changes.
- Best instant traffic tip, becomes visible to influences. Link round ups are a great way to do that. Interviews are also a great way to draw links and traffic to your blog.
Good-bye, Hostgator; Hello WP Engine!
Another news from Traffic Generation Café: I was finally fed up with Hostgator shenanigans and moved to my new hosting provider - WP Engine.
Just take a look at this screenshot of my downtime in the past month; abysmal!
By the way, if you are not utilizing free Pingdom website monitoring tools, you definitely should. They’ll send you an email every time your site goes down; great way to keep tabs on your site performance!
Why WP Engine?
I was looking for reliability and reputation and found it at WP Engine.
Plus, they’ve already lived up to one of their promises - site speed.
Traffic Generation Café has never been this fast; I am loving it.
I’ll keep you updated on how I find their services as time goes on, but for now two thumbs up to WP Engine from Ana.
WordPress
WordPress 3.6 “Oscar”
The latest and greatest WordPress, version 3.6, is now live to the world and includes:
- a new blog-centric theme,
- autosave and post locking,
- a revamped revision browser,
- native support for audio and video embeds,
- and improved integrations with Spotify, Rdio, and SoundCloud.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearly as exciting as it was built up to be, but it is what it is.
Here’s a video that shows off some of the features:
Should you upgrade now or wait?
According to Kimberley Castleberry:
While generally we are super cautious of new releases, WP 3.6 has been in the hands of plugin and theme developers long enough that you should find that near everything “just works”.
Of course you still have to be wary of abandoned plugins that are no longer supported, but you should see less conflicts than you may have seen on earlier versions.
You can also watch “The State of the Word” from Matt Mullenweg.
SEO
Press Releases and Link Building
If you do press releases for link building, don’t.
In the following video, John Mueller from Google makes it clear that Google wants all links in these press releases to be nofollowed. He did say having a URL at the end should be okay, but when he was grilled about it again, he said it is best to nofollow the links.
John even said press releases should be treated as advertisements and thus links in those releases should be nofollowed.
Anchor Text Over Optimization Tool [FREE]
Find anchor text over-optimization and review your anchor text diversity to determine if you are at risk of a penalty from Google Penguin - a great free tool from +Mark Traphagen at +Virante Search Marketing.
http://www.removeem.com/ratios.php
Here’s what my report looks like:
Surprisingly, Traffic Generation Café is over-optimized for “traffic generation cafe“. lol
Social Media
Facebook’s Embedded Posts
Good news: Facebook has FINALLY introduced embedded posts!
Bad news is, unless you are Bleacher Report, CNN, Huffington Post, Mashable and PEOPLE, you might not see this feature for a while - considering Facebook track record on rolling out new features to the public.
Update:
Thanks to a tip from +Ileane Smith, I found this workaround to embed your Facbook posts NOW.
Facebook Turns On Secure Browsing
All Facebook users are now connecting to the site via a secure connection. That’s good news.
The issue from a marketing angle is that secure connections don’t pass referrer data, unless the site getting traffic is also using a secure connection.
But Facebook’s announcement yesterday included mention of the company’s plan for “controlling referrer headers.”
Browsers traditionally omit the referrer when navigating from https to http. When you click on an external link, we’d like the destination site to know you came from Facebook while not learning your user id or other sensitive information. On most browsers, we redirect through an http page to accomplish this, but on Google Chrome we can skip this redirect by using their meta referrer feature.
In other words, webmasters and marketers should continue to see Facebook listed as a referrer despite the switch to default secure browsing. And that’s good news all around.
Buffer
Two new Buffer features to report:
1. Custom Scheduling: The easiest way to schedule your social media updates into the future
You can now custom schedule anything you like.
2. Schedule Bulk Updates
Instead of hand selecting updates for your Buffer account, this Bulk Buffer Beta tool lets users upload a text file for bulk updates.
First Twitter Experience Hotel
If your idea of paradise is mingling with other Tweetaholics, then the “first Twitter experience hotel” is for you.
Located on the Spanish island of Majorca, the Sol Wave House harnesses the power of social media as a way to enhance its overall hotel experience.
Pinterest Introduces Price-Drop Alerts
Pinterest introduced price-drop notifications on pinned items. The company will now send an email when prices on user-pinned items decline.
You don’t have to do anything to get notified - just keep pinning the things you like and leave price-drop notifications to Pinterest.
Create .GIFs with Tumblr
Tumblr now allows you to create your own .gif images - with a click of a button.
All you need is a Tumblr account and a computer camera.
Here’s a quick tutorial:
Marketing This & That
New Leak: NSA Can See Everything You Do Online
The latest leak shows that the NSA has far more power than previously thought.
The Guardian reports today that it has obtained slides that detail a NSA program called XKeyscore.
The program, much like PRISM, allows the agency to collect the Internet communications of foreign and domestic targets.
It sheds light on one of Snowden’s most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10.
“I, sitting at my desk,” said Snowden, could “wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email”.
What makes this latest leak so worrisome is that it seems to be held to even less oversight than the other surveillance programs.
Speaking of NSA, do take a look at the lighter (or at least funnier) side of it in my previous Marketing Skinny, like this:
Google Recruiting “City Experts”
Looks like Google is trying to get more quality local reviews by recruiting “City Experts“, their version of Yelp’s Elite Squad - a community of trusted high-volume review generators.
Here’s the text of the Google message:
Do you love to review places around your city and share your opinion with others? Our new Google City Experts program gives top reviewers (users with at least 50 high quality reviews, and at least 5 reviews in the current month) special perks like event invitations, custom swag, special access to contests and more.
The following cities are currently available: Austin, Birmingham (UK), Bristol (UK), Chicago, Edinburgh, London, New York, Portland (OR), Phoenix, Raleigh-Durham, San Francisco and Sydney.
Enhanced AdWords
In case you run AdWord campaigns to drive paid web traffic to your site, you need to be aware of this change.
Also, read Google’s Quality Score Change: What Marketers Need To Know for more AdWords updates.
Chromecast: The Rebirth Of Google TV
Google TV was launched a few years ago to much hype and fanfare. But it was a big, expensive hardware proposition for most consumers, and it failed.
Enter Chromecast - a tiny WiFi-enabled device that plugs into existing TV HDMI ports. Perhaps most significantly, it’s also $35.
Chromecast permits video from YouTube, Netflix, Google Play and other online video and music apps to stream to TV from any device (PC, tablet, smartphone) via the Chrome browser. That includes iOS and Windows (PCs).
I like it!
Reported by Marketing Land. Read more at Google’s Official Blog.
Google’s Stop Watch/Timer
Did you know Google has a built-in timer? I had no idea.
All you need to do is to do a search for [set timer for X] and you are good to go!
Marketing Tool of the Week
Facebook Timeline Slicer
This free simple and easy to use Facebook app, built by my brilliant web designer Ian Belanger (who’s working on the new Traffic Generation Café design as we speak - I highly recommend him for your next design project) will help you slice and dice images that will fit perfectly in your Facebook Timeline.
In the screenshot below, I simply added the first photo I came across on my desktop, and even that one looks interesting with Timeline Slicer:
Thank You
To all of you who mentioned Traffic Generation Café in any share or form in the past week, my whole-hearted THANK YOU.
Traffic Generation Café would NOT be what it is today without you.
Here are just some of the mentions I came across in the past week:
Creating A Link Roundup – How It Will Get Traffic To Your Blog - Ian Knabel at ianknabelonline.com
Reasons Why You should Start A Blog - Prince Molak at onlinemoneydon.com
The low-down on anchor text and referencing other people’s content - Karen Wilson at wellmanwilson.com
WordPress Reading List - Tommy Miller at wpadvocate.com
6 months after my Backlink Experiment – What works for Google and what doesn’t - Servando Silva at stream-seo.com
The Writer’s Weekly Wrap-Up (Issue #10) - Kimberley Grabas at yourwriterplatform.com
Thankful Thursday: Money, Security, Triberr, Slideshare & Content - Adrienne Smith at adriennesmith.net
The Positives and the Perils of Monitoring Your Brand on the Internet - Ileane Smith at msileanespeaks.com
71 Ways to Promote and Market Your Book - Kimberley Grabas at yourwriterplatform.com
Blogelina Roundup for the Week Ending 8-02-13 - Tanya at blogelina.com
5 Helpful Tips For Business Growth Through Socializing Online - Eric Pangburn at snitchim.com
Why I Finally Said Goodbye To Organic Traffic - Ivan Widjaya at smbceo.com
MYF Approved Aug2: improving your business, and conversions rates - Iain Robson at marketingyourfarm.com
Use Twitter To Boost Your Blog’s Search Engine Visibility - Jane Sheeba at probloggingsuccess.com
7 Common Web Design Mistakes that Cost You Money - Mauro D’Andrea at blog-growth.com
Have I missed your mention? Let me know in the comments!
Want to see your name here? Mention Traffic Generation Café in your next blog post!
Subscribe to Stay Ahead
I share a lot of marketing news as well as the best posts I read throughout a week on my Google+ profile.
To read them as they come out and stay ahead of your competition, as well as become a social media star and share the best with YOUR followers (you’d be surprised how much it’ll do for your credibility and online presence!), join me there:
You can also subscribe to my G+ feed through your RSS reader of choice; just add the following link like with any normal blog RSS feed: http://tgcafe.it/gplus-feed
To an even better next week,
Weekly Marketing Skinny • February 1, 2014
Weekly Marketing Skinny • January 25, 2014
Weekly Marketing Skinny • January 18, 2014
Weekly Marketing Skinny • January 11, 2014
I Like Anchor Text Tool….I just LOve articles of this blog….thanks
You are welcome.
Thanks for the shout out Ana.
I haven’t messed around with Tumblr’s gif feature, but I have played around with Vine which is similar.
It’s amazing what people can come up with.
I haven’t touched vine even though I did record a video that would be perfect to play over, and over, and over… “It’s Groundhog day!”
Oh man that is a great movie.
Hi Ana, I didn’t know you were in Russia. How was your holiday?
By the way, the video was pretty funny
We had a blast, Mauro, but it’s good to be back home. That video took me waaaay too long, I did enjoy making it though.
I can imagine that, Ana.
Ana, I have to say that your new design is super-cool!
Thanks, Mauro; glad you like it!
Hi Anna, This is my first time here and I guarantee it won’t be the last. I also went ahead and signed in to get your “Mommy, Where Does Traffic Come From Reprt! I haven’t read it yet I have been exploring your site. great Job by the way. I love what you are doing here.
Now I have never heard of Pingdom before and I am anxious o check this out as well as to listen to your interview. you sure do give a lot of value in one post. Oh & Your Daughter is Adorable..
Thanks for all you do Anna.
Chery
So glad you made it, Chery; hope to see more of you around!
Great skinny, Ana.
I really liked your ‘how to” create a .GIF. pic with Tumbler - something I’ve been wanting to do for ages!
I’ve not been able to completely go through all the goodies in this weeks skinny yet, but I’ll def have to set more time aside this week to do so.
Thanks for another great one and I hope you have an awesome week ahead.
Ti
It’s a lot to take in, but at least, it’s in one place. lol
Visited your blog again this week; can’t wait for fresh posts to hit home.
You’re always on top of things Ana so I appreciate that. Will have to come back again and read through this one more time.
I had a death this past week and lost my best friend so I’m still moving rather slowly and probably not absorbing things like I should hence the coming back by and reading this one again to make sure.
I appreciate the mention for mentioning your post and of course was more than happy to help my readers learn from one of the greats.
Thanks again and have a wonderful week.
~Adrienne
So sorry to hear that, Adrienne; time helps, but unfortunately it takes time.
I do appreciate you coming by to say Hello.
As always very comprehensive and informative post in industry news. Thanks for taking the time to put all of this together for us each week. I am so busy these days that I don’t always have time to read all the recent news so your weekly roundups are really helpful.
On another note. Regarding the press releases. I watched the video and the guy from Google sounded to me like he didn’t really know the answer and he was kind of making it up as he went along.
I do still think press releases have value so I wouldn’t say don’t do press releases just because of what that particular Googler said.
That being said I also think press releases shouldn’t be used as a “link building strategy” per se. It should be part of an overall internet marketing strategy. And I do believe you should only do them when you have a truly legitimate news angle. Not just throwing together some low quality fluff to get a few links. The idea of a press release is to get actual news coverage for your company and that is something that has REAL value if you get picked up by a major news outlet.
Also I would definitely avoid using anchor text you are trying to rank for in press release just as in guest post and just make sure the content itself is relevant. Anchor text used to be the key and still has a little weight but if you overdo it you’re in trouble so I would focus more on relevance these days. If the content is relevant and the news angle is genuine and you aren’t trying to “manipulate rankings” by targeting anchor text then it should be fine.
I don’t really think they should necessarily be no-followed either. Like I said that Googler sounded to me like he was kind of improvising and wasn’t really sure about what he was saying. Just my 2 cents.
Good points on PRs, Gerald - as with any other marketing strategy, it pays to use your brains.
I think what John was talking about is what Matt Cutts mentioned a few times here and there
source
I believe at least the PR 7 link coming from PRWeb for example will at add authority to whatever links are in the press release.
Which may or may not help rankings depending on factors such as how well on page is done etc. I’m pretty sure using the anchor text is more likely the exact anchor text may work against you these days.
As far as all the syndication of the press release I believe is treated as duplicate content, so my belief it it won’t count as hundreds of links. But it’s still good to have a link from a site like PR 7. I have used this with positive results on rather new campaign.
Of course this may not always remain to be the case. We shall see because I am about to do a press release on a brand new site as kind of a case study. So I’ll let you know how that goes.
It certainly makes sense. I think these days it comes down to avoiding things that can potentially hurt us more so than doing things that might actually help.
Just like Google says: no SEO is best SEO!
I think for Google to say “no SEO is the best SEO” is kind of an oxymoron. SEO used to be a positive thing. It was a way to ethically show Google the relevance of a website so they know how to best list it in their results.
Now Google has turned it into something that is apparently evil. But again Google is constantly contradicting themselves. They say no to worry about backlinks, but be sure to look at y our backlinsk to make sure you’re doing SEO correctly and you don’t have any links that will hurt you etc. It goes on and one with Google.
But to do nothing in terms of SEO I think it is mistake also. In the current landscape it definitely makes sense to use your head. Focus more on quality and don’t overuse any one tactic.
In the press release example, it definitely makes sense to do a press release if you have a news worthy angle and something that deserves to be in the media, but if you are doing them every week as a way to build links that would be over doing it and a bad idea.
It certainly makes sense to guest blog not just for the sake of links but if one were to rely on that as a sole link building strategy that might not be good especially if it is over anchor texted for example and there are no other types of links in the link profile.
If you are a local bricks and mortar business it makes sense to be in the top 30 or so most authoritative directories like Yelp, City Search, Google+, Yahoo, MSN, Yellow Pages, Yellow Book and so on, but submitting to hundreds or thousands of low quality directories might not be the best idea.
At the end of the day I am sure Google is trying to make the SEO landscape and scary and difficult for both people in the industry and business owners so that businesses will have no other choice but to buy Adwords. After all Google does have to answer to share holders now. What better way to do that than to make honest hard working business owners disappear from search results so they have no alternative.
Sorry if I got a little off track there. My point is I think to do nothing in terms of SEO just doesn’t make sense. Then we are just dead in the water. Also too many people freak out over every little comment made by Matt Cutts or in this case some other random Googler that didn’t seem to sure of himself. (referencing the video in the post)
Can’t help but agree, Gerald; shared your thoughts on G+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/115854344437995415484/posts/TKaC4Ufimmz, hope you don’t mind.
Ana, great post, loved the piece on the over optimization tool Pingdom. Tested it on a a few of my sites. It seems my name comes high from leaving blog comments, is that common?
I will be interested to see how you like the new hosting you’ll be using with WP.
I haven’t done any online press releases in a while - good to know about the No follow with them.
Your daughter is adorable and looks like she had a lot of fun. Have a great week ahead Ana!
Yes, I think links with our names and brand names as hyperlinks are something to be expected and are quite normal for a blog, Lisa. No worries there.
The tool is meant to see if you have specific keyword-heavy anchor texts you need lighten up on.
Have a blessed week as well, Lisa.
Hey Anna - great info here as always. I think you’ll be very please with WP Engine - I’m a BIG fan! Secure, fast, daily backups and great support!
Pleasure to see you in my neck of the woods again, Brent; you’ve been quiet for a while.
I left HostGator very recently. They said they were upgrading my server, which led to my site being down for a week and not having access to my email for two. I have changed host since and I have noticed the change in quality customer service. Although saying that!
My friend has offered me one of his ten WordPress installs on WP-Engine and it would be ridiculous to turn it down, especially after all the good things I hear about it. This page loaded up extremely quick, even though it has a lot of content on it.
Free WP Engine - can’t go wrong with that! It certainly did wonders for my loading times.
Hi Ana,
Thanks for always sharing all the latest, greatest! I’m glad you shared the video on creating tumblr gifs. I’ve been curious about the vine videos, but you have to have an apple product to use those.
Stacy
You are very welcome, Stacy.
I haven’t done Vine yet (don’t really get it) and had no idea you needed an Apple product to use it. Will have to check it out - good thing I am on Mac.
Hey Ana,
Glad you had a good time with your family in Russia. I wondered why there wasn’t a Marketing Skinny last week. I missed it!
Would love to be able to download the interview you did with Ivin and burn it onto a CD so I can listen to it in my car. So much more convenient. Anyway to get it?
Interesting to hear that you are changing to the Genesis Framework. I have just changed my detox blog to Genesis after reading so many good reports about it and after I had so much trouble with my blog loading times.
Pity the WP Engine only provides hosting for WP blogs. I have non WP websites hosted with Hostgator. I wonder if they will do the whole lot eventually.
Thanks for the great information as usual.
Sandy
Too much going on in Russia; had to miss one.
I sent an email to Ivin about the interview; I’ll get back to you when I hear from him.
Hey Ana,
Like always your weekly marketing news is just so in depth and always provides such great information. Usually more than I can handle and I have to come back to check it all out it’s just that good.
Also, thanks so much for giving me a shout out for the stats that I posted in one of my recent blog post. I was just researching a ton and happened to find that stat that you shared. I honestly don’t know exactly, but I always do a lot of researching in all my blog posts.
Thanks again so much for sharing!
Eric
I’ve tried to give less info in my Skinnies, but then people had to click over to many other sites to learn more. This way, at least my readers can get a somewhat time-consuming, but effortless update in one convenient place. I also like to keep them right here, at Traffic Generation Café. I am just selfish that way…
You are so welcome, and thank YOU for mentioning my post to begin with. It’s incredible to see our content spread throughout the internet. It takes time, but it finds its ways.
Hey Ana,thanks for mentioning me back,am really very happy, with the introduction of new features on facebook regularly, i can see facebook taking over the internet in years to come
You are so welcome; it’s the least I can do!
Hello Ana. Thanks for giving my interview with you such prominence in your post. This roundup is a whopper, even for you, and I find the tumbler tutorial interesting - something I’m definitely going to check out.
I have actually been looking at Tumbler as a platform that I may have to be on, as there are a lot of Tumblers that get a lot of traffic, linked to etc. It’s something I’ve been considering for a while.
Thanks so much for doing an interview, Ivin; gave me something to share this week. lol
I’ve played with Tumblr a bit in the past, but it requires too much work as a supplemental platform, to get traffic anyway. However, it’s great to curate content and build links (if they are worth anything…).
Thanks for the anchor text tool
Hey Ana, great read as always! And thank you for featuring my website!
Especially interesting to me is your move to WP Engine… They look quite interesting, especially since it seems they are specialized in hosting WordPress sites…
Also, your info about Chromecast is new to me so going to check it thanks to your post here…
I can see you are using Buffer… That’s a pretty interesting tool but I had some problems with it, especially when it comes to scheduled WP posts and schedule settings in Buffer - it gets quite messy and my posts don’t go out to Twitter as they should… Not quite sure what’s happening… I guess you are happy with Buffer and how it works?
You are so welcome, Tommy, and my thank you goes out to YOU for mentioning Traffic Generation Café!
WP Engine: very happy with them so far.
Buffer: I don’t mess with any settings there. I simply press “Buffer” button, style the message, press “buffer” and let it do its thing. Never had any trouble with scheduling (not that I ever noticed anyway). I think it’s a great time-saving tool.
Thanks for the Facebook Image Slicer tip! That might come in handy for a client of mine!
And I just wanted to update you on Rippln… so far it is not looking like anything beyond a hyped up MLM. I haven’t bothered to follow it much anymore and will likely delete my account. Might be worth looking into if you’re into the MLM stuff… but other than that I wouldn’t recommend it at this point.
Tried to leave a comment on your blog, Bill; got a “Unable to enter comment. Ensure JavaScript is enabled…” error. Sounds like something CL related.
RippIn - sounds like they might be quietly dropping it.
I have a different antispam plugin that requires javascript be on to keep the bots out. I’ve been thinking about switching to the GASP now that I have CL+ but I haven’t completely made up my mind yet.
Rippln has over 1 million signups at this point. Not sure how many actually paid to power up, but I suspect a large number did. But they still don’t seem to have any products to sell. Not a good sign.
That was probably it. GASP is really all you need, Bill; that’s all I use at Traffic Generation Café.
Ana!
I’m a huge fan of Timeline Slicer and Joey Kissimmee. I had no idea Ian was behind this one. Thanks for the heads up on that because I always wanted to know who was behind the development of this tool.
I’ve been using the Pro version and it is totally worth the extra few bucks to get the templates and extra tutorials. I shared it on one of my Blogger blogs back in May of 2012.
http://www.basicpodcastingtips.com/2012/05/facebook-timeline-slicer-pro.html
Hey Ileane,
I didn’t do the original development of the Timeline Slicer, but I have taken over recently and Joey and I have spent the past few months updating both the free and Pro versions.
We are also working on new slicers, if you have any that you would like to see built. Our latest is the Podcast Artwork Slicer. I won’t link to it out of respect for Ana’s blog, but if you want to check it out just search for it on google.
Ian
PS. Just sent you an email regarding my contact form problems on im graphic designs. Looking forward to hearing back from you.
Ian - YOU can link out to whatever you want to at Traffic Generation Café.
Ian has built all of Joey’s themes, Ileane; he’s great at what he does!
I am yet to try the pro version; hopefully will get to it this week.
Congrats on your move. speed is one of those things we take for granted when its good, and curse when its not. I recently moved to a VPS and my traffic is up as well as the site being faster. It lead me to believe I’d picked up a speed penalty and not noticed (don’t ask).
A new look? How exciting, are you going to give us a sneak peek?
Glad you enjoyed your holiday
I know, Sarah - it’s like many things in life: we don’t notice how well we’ve got it until they go wrong. lol
The new site is almost ready; I think I am going to keep it to myself for now and keep it interesting.
“Even though she is pretty much a traffic guru, she is still learning about traffic generation.”
Indeed, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of folks that were leaders in their field, and have found this always to be true:
The REAL authorities always have their minds on getting better.
That describes you, Ana, and it’s why I’m an avid follower and retweeter of your findings… you are always hungry for more and that’s where the leading edge is found.
Hey, good news about Facebook embedding…
Per your recommendation, I’ve been focusing on learning one traffic platform at a time. Been working on Twitter of late, but Facebook seems to be calling me back. Truth is, I still get more traffic from FB but I think it’s enhanced by what I’ve learned by using Twitter to drive free traffic.
Thanks for keeping us all up to date on changing trends. I’ll letcha know my findings when I switch focus back to FB.
Keep Stepping,
Kurt
So very kind of you, Kurt - learning never ends!
Speaking of FB, not sure if you read this Skinny before I was able to add the update on how we can embed FB posts NOW - quick workaround FB’s rules.
Have a blessed weekend!
Ana,
Came back just now and saw the updated version of this post. That’s what I mean by cutting edge… Thanxz for the workaround!
100fold blesssings (Gen 26:12),
Kurt
Could always use more blessings, Kurt; good thing we don’t have to work for them…
AAAAAA— to the MEN!
Couldn’t possibly get all this goodness all by our lonesome now, could we? Appreciate your faith Ana, and I know it’s a big reason for your success. Keep Stepping,
K
Hostgator is definitely pissing me off. I am in the process of finding a new host. Just too much downtime that I cannot afford to have. You would think they would have it together.
I still dont know why people are still using PR for linkbuilding. Put out a release when you have something to say and nofollow the links. You want the traffic you dont need the this for you linkbuilding strategy.
Never heard of TimeLineSlicer before thanksfor bringing it to my attention. Have a great weekend!
There was also a recent video from Matt Cutts (you can see it here https://trafficgenerationcafe.online/weekly-marketing-skinny-july-13-2013/) where he says that if a site goes off line for an extended period of time, you may see your site delisted from Google’s search results – at least temporarily. Another reason I had to switch to WP Engine.
I’m with you on press releases.