You have probably read recently about the
effect that the newest Google update has
had on a number of large sites. Most notably
those that publish large amounts of content.

I am in no doubt that some sites which should
not have been negatively targeted will be
caught up in that.

However, what is most interesting to me, is
how Ezine Articles is currently reacting
to it.

Ezine Articles is part of a large company
and overnight, they saw their traffic being
reduced by a large percentage.

This can be awful for any company, but if
you have a company which has 70 full time
staff and an office such as Ezine Articles,
then it can cause panic mode and if not
dealt with quickly can cause devastation.

I have been paying very close attention to
what they have been doing in order to see
what I should be doing with my own sites.

What is important to note, is that Ezine
Articles has huge amounts of data to sift
through and is therefore able to have a
better hold on real world SEO than me or
you or in fact almost anyone on the internet
bar the search engines.

In addition, any decisions which they make
will have a large effect on their business
so it is likely, that they won’t make any
decisions unless they are 99% sure that
they are the correct ones.

This is of-course weighed against the fact
that they MUST make decisions fast or their
whole business may find it difficult to
survive (remember the expenses as mentioned
above).

So, what I want to do, is to look at the
information that they have released and
see how their wealth of data and knowledge
can actually help us in order to increase
our search engine rankings.

(If you want to see the original blog post
by Ezine Articles which I am referring to,
then please go to:
http://blog.ezinearticles.com/2011/02/search-engine-algorithm-changes.html
Do come back though )

1. Quite obviously, as they predict a reduction
of traffic of around 50% in the next month, it
seems that submitting an article on EZA (Ezine
Articles) is only half as effective as it was
before.

2. A reason why EZA was hit is because on each
article there was at least one external link.
Probably a sign that this is unnatural to
Google that each page on your site should
have an external link to a different site.

But perhaps more importantly, you should be
very careful where you are linking out to,
something which EZA up until now has controlled
pretty badly.

3. Try and use unique content as much as
possible. Also be wary when using article
writers that the information that they
are giving is not just regurgitation of
facts from other articles.

This is not only referring to spun articles
or plagiarized articles.

One solution is to make sure that the
articles that you have written are done by
genuine experts in that niche.

4. There seems to be a definite correlation
between article length and the credibility
given by Google. This could however be due
to the fact that the longer your article,
the longer on average that someone will stay
on your site.

5. On a personal level, I think that keyword
density nowadays is less important than ever
before and that the big G is probably not
even taking it into account.

Feel free to artificially inflate or deflate
it as it is probably ignored anyway.

Or ideally, artificially make it as natural
as possible (joke).

6. I find it quite difficult to understand
why they are viewing certain niches as
dangerous niches to go after in terms of
the credibility that Google gives to a site
that has them.

Surely if there are searches for a niche
then they want content which you are to provide.

My only thought on why this could be the
case, is if in certain niche like phone lookup
or acai berry you need to have a presence
already and that newer sites or articles are
looked upon negatively.

7. The most radical thing that Christopher
Knight the CEO of EZA said and I actually
had to read it twice to make sure that I
understood it is:

“My gut feeling is that those links [ie. the
links in the articles and resource box] have
carried  no real value in at least 2-3 years now.”

8. The main changes that have actually been
made so far have IMHO been extremely
UN-radical. Basically, that the title and
the link and the resource box should all be
relevant to the article itself.

So, there we have it…

Would not like to be in Chris Knight’s shoes
at the moment, but does appear to be that he
is taking action and trying to get back into
Google’s good books.

Would be interested in your thoughts on what
we can learn from the effect that the latest
Google update has had. And also (or especially)
if you agree with anything that I have said.

Please do comment below.

As always…

Keeping it real in an unreal world,

Ben Shaffer

PS. Something I noticed when looking at the
Alex ranking for EZA is that the top 4 countries
with lowest alexa rank are:

Philippines
Nigeria
India
Pakistan

Interesting, that at least 3 out of the 4 of these
are also amongst the top countries in the world
for outsourcing…perhaps tells you more about who
EZA’s audience really is.

PPS. Would also appreciate if you could hit the Facebook
Like button

Bad News

Thought that we could have some fun today and discuss some email marketing subjects which really annoy me and probably you too.

I am not saying that you should never use them. But that you should be very careful if and when you do use them. Especially avoid using them within the Internet Marketing niche where they are overused and really will affect your credibility with your readers.

1. Bad News

I think I dislike this one because of its overuse. The psychology behind it is obviously great and does get you to open an email up. I believe that Frank Kern started using it first, but now I receive emails with that subject line almost daily.

I have used this subject line outside of the internet marketing niche extremely successfully, but still receive a high complaint rate when I do use it.

2. Notification of Payment Received/CB Sale: PRODUCTNAME-1 #S3JHRFEG

Don’t get me wrong, I love it when I receive genuine sales notifications. But HATE it when I receive an email with that subject and the email says something to the effect that if you follow the advice contained within then you will get lots of emails like this from Paypal…

3. You up?/You awake?

This is a clever subject line, but once again totally overused in the last few months and also kind of irrelevant. Are you really going to trust the person who sent this to you the next time?

The other thing that kind of annoys me about this, is the stupidity of the logic of the question. If you are up, then you wouldn’t see it. And if you are seeing it when it comes in, then obviously you are up…

4. Your order is processed/pending/complete

Thing that bothers me about this, apart from its irrelevance to the email is that it is highly confusing to the receiver. It makes me wonder if I actually bought something and really does waste my time.

5. Urgent – Open me up

To me, the only thing that is truly urgent is something that will affect my family or my welfare in the next few minutes. It is possible, but doubtful whether not opening an email there and then will have a considerable effect.

6. Do not buy XXXXX…

I know that this is overused, but I have to admit that I do kind of like this one. I don’t use it and don’t remember the last time that I have because of its dishonesty. However…I do know the punchline – when you open the email it says something like “until you have seen my bonus”. So, what the subject says to me, is that there is actually a benefit from reading that email.

7. RE: FW:

I have to admit, that I am on the fence about having RE: and FW: in the subject. I have been called out for using it a few times, but also do kind of like it. It definitely does increase your open rates. And if used correctly, it’s actually not deceptive. What I do hate though, is when people use this on every single email that they send out.

8. {Firstname}

I am not a hater of this really, although I rarely use it myself. I just think that it is a real gamble to use it. Firstly, people are generally aware that it is not a personal email, but that you are filling it in automatically. Secondly, if you look through the names that prospects enter into an autoresponder, you will see that often it is not their name. For example, Donald Duck and other cartoon characters are favorites – I think you get the idea.

The other dangerous thing about it, which I often see, is that people use the wrong tag and you end up getting an email which actually says

Dear (Firstname)…

9. Call your bank/Paypal etc.

The punchline here, is that you should warn them that a load of cash is coming your way if you buy a product. Enough said…deceitful, annoying and just not true

10. [Personal]

My all time subject which I get most annoyed about when used wrongly is when someone sends an email to me which has “Personal” in the subject line, but is not actually a personal email. In fact, when someone does this, I immediately unsubscribe from their list. I am happy to receive personal emails and the best way to make sure that I will read an email and that it gets through the other clutter is by using “Personal” in the email.

Dunno why, but does really make my blood boil!

Hope that you have found the above humorous/useful/interesting

I think that an ongoing theme, is to keep your subject honest otherwise you really do lose credibility and although putting something shocking may increase your open rate, in the long run it will reduce your customers’ faith in you.

What I would really like to hear from you though, is what you think makes a GREAT subject line and if you can give some examples of great subject lines together with the sender, all the better.

Keeping it real in an unreal world,

Ben Shaffer