Internet Marketing with Josh SpauldingMaking Money through Ethical Internet Marketing.

New Google Algorithm Update – Ads Above the Fold

Last Thursday (1/19/12) Matt Cutts announced a new Google search algorithm update on the Google search blog. This is an update that has been rumored for a while now and it looks like it has finally happened, or begun to happen at least.

This new update looks at the above the fold content to advert ratio of pages and it is sitewide, meaning that if they find just one page on your site that they believe is pushing the page content too far down the page, they can and probably will punish the entire site!

Ironically, on the SAME DAY that they made this announcement, I received an email (and alot of others did too) from the Adsense team, telling me that my Germany tourism site should show MORE ads, even though most of my internal pages currently display a large rectangle ad that pushes most of the content down quite a bit. So there is a little hypocrisy there, but they’re famous for that. Check out the ad placement recommendations they made in the image below:

While they’re not recommending that I ad all 14 ad units shown in this image, as they allow no more than three ad units on any one page, their recommendation is still out of line with the Search team’s new above the fold ad guidelines.

For example, what if I decided to take their advice and add the three ads in that diagram that appear above the content. That would push my content about halfway down the page, which is exactly what the google search team is telling us they will PENALIZE our site for! And if that weren’t enough, Chris Richardson of WebProNews points out that the google search team is even guilty of breaking their own guidelines (see the screenshot toward the bottom of this article.) But it is what it is … we’re used to this kind of thing from google.

In reality it’s a smart update and it will improve the quality of their search results. What it all comes down to is the user experience and while even I may lose money from this update, as I own sites that are solely monetized by Adsense and I also place a large rectangle adsense unit directly below the titles, we should all try our best to maintain the mindset that it’s about the user, not the income!

As Zig Ziglar once said: “You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want” and that applies to our online business as well. If we are constantly trying to help people, whether it’s by showing only the most user friendly pages in search results or doing something much greater, just having that mindset will make you much more money in the long run and more importantly, you will be able to help more people in the long run.

Why Positivity and Optimism are Crucial in your Online Business

It has now been over 7 years since I started my very first website, while stationed in Germany serving in the Army. I WISH that I had an audio clip of all of the people, especially back then, who told me that this “internet stuff” was a waste of time… people literally laughed at me back then. As I sit here crunching numbers for the upcoming tax season, I’m reminded of these people. They certainly aren’t laughing now that I’ve created a 6-figure business online!

However, there were many times when I allowed those people to get to me… I [...] Continue Reading…

Post Panda SEO – 8 Things You Need to Know

If you are associated with SEO in any way, you’ve likely seen the word “Panda” about 108,231,644 times over the past several months by everyone and their brother. PotPieGirl has been keeping up with it pretty extensively and has gotten alot of attention for it. And now, you can add one more to that number.

It can get a little confusing trying to figure out exactly what Panda is and what it means to you specifically. However, it’s important for you to know at least the basics because even if your current sites were not affected yet, future sites [...] Continue Reading…

Backlink Booster Review + 25% Discount Coupon Code

I run a risk-free SEO Service for another company, an offline internet marketing service here in Indianapolis and I also do SEO for all of my own sites. So to say I do alot of SEO would be an understatement. And as you can probably imagine, I’m always looking for more ways to improve the power of my SEO abilities. As a person who likes to automate as much as possible, much of the SEO “power” that I am able to provide to my clients comes from services provided by other companies.

So about a month ago when I was [...] Continue Reading…

Why SMS Marketing is Better than Email Marketing

If I think back to when I started in the Internet Marketing space, the one thing that I heard more than anything else was “the money is in the list.” And that phrase has proven to be true, at least in my case.

A good majority of the money that I have used to support my Family over the years has come, in one way or another, from my email list. So for me to say that email marketing is valuable would be an understatement!

But, let me show you a few stats that one of my business partners came [...] Continue Reading…

Taking Massive Action – The 10X Rule

A couple weeks ago I ordered a book called “The 10x Rule” by Grant Cardone. And although this isn’t exactly a review of that book primarily because I haven’t even finished it, it has got my butt in gear over the past week.

Although there is obviously much more to the book than this, the one thing that it has driven in to me is that massive action equals massive success. It’s something, I think, we all know, but it’s also something that we all need a reminder of from time to time…at least I do!

So I’m using this post [...] Continue Reading…

Recession Proof Internet Marketing (MUST READ) Protect Yourself!

The recession of 2008 and the impending “double-dip recession” that we are about to go through have had me so concerned over the past several months that I have been doing ALOT of research during work hours and even after work hours to get to the root of it in order to figure out how I can refocus my Internet Marketing business in order to not only sustain, but benefit from the eminent crises that I strongly believe the U.S. and most of the World is about to endure.

Before I explain how you can “recession proof” your IM business, [...] Continue Reading…

Big WordPress Sites = Bad Authority Distribution

Over the past few days I’ve been working on transferring all content from my old Germany tourism site to my newly designed Germany tourism site. The old one ran on a basic html template. The new one runs on WordPress.

Aside from the same ol hassles like setting up redirects etc. I came across one thing that if not taken care of could cause a big problem. The problem is in the internal linking structure my WordPress theme (and most others) has. There is no problem if you have a small site with maybe 50 pages or less, but I [...] Continue Reading…

How to Make Money with Niche Marketing

There is not a lack of information on niche marketing out there, but there is a lack of clear, concise and accurate information on the subject, so I’m going to attempt to fill that gap.

The basic concept of niche marketing is very simple. The most common mistakes those who aren’t successful with it usually make are:

- over-analyzing keywords
- under-analyzing keywords
- not giving it a solid chance

I made those same mistakes when I started, but eventually figured out some things, like:

- Finding a profitable market (different than finding keywords) is crucial! The value of one qualified lead to a real [...] Continue Reading…

Is IM a JOB Opportunity or a Business Opportunity?

In November of 2004, while serving in the U.S. Army in Germany, I created my first website. It was a tourist info site on Germany. For the next three years I worked to get that site ranked in the SE’s and I also worked on many other sites and ventures with the ultimate goal of making a living online. That was a good thing, nothing wrong with that…I see it as working your way up… you just have to do it, but for all of those years it was a JOB. Although I knew there was huge potential online, [...] Continue Reading…