Duplicate Content | Distributing Product Descriptions Without Being Penalized by Google

The owner of Welborn Social Media and the founder of The Tutoring Solution.My goal is to help business owners share the passion they have for their business with as many potential customers as possible.By helping passionate people achieve their dreams I am helping to create a society of passionate leaders that will help inspire others to make their dreams a reality.

The question:  How can we distribute product descriptions to other websites without being penalized by Google for having duplicate content?

At Welborn Social Media, we make sure to have a deep, thorough, and (most importantly) up to date understanding of how social media works and the latest policies of key internet companies such as Google or Facebook. Every once in a while, a client will come to us with a question that requires us to do a little research, and we see this as an opportunity to learn new information, grow our knowledge, and share our findings with our community.

Such was the case when one of our clients came to us wanting to share their products on the websites of their affiliates.

Duplicate Content Search Engine Optimization SEO

Duplicate Content

From working with many clients and getting their websites to rank higher on Google search results, we have learned that Google does not like duplicate content. What is duplicate content? In simple terms, it is when words, images, or entire web pages appear over and over again throughout the internet. Most of the time this is done accidentally or with good intentions, like products sold on different e-commerce sites or sites that have both a normal and a printer-friendly version of a page. Other times duplicate content can be an attempt to gain more links to a site, which could make them rank higher on search results. However Google is not a fan of the latter and will often times penalize sites that are trying to “trick” Google into ranking them higher.

Another problem that arises is that Google will omit web sites that are too similar to each other. If I want to search for an article online, they don’t want the search results to show me 10 different sites with the same article. They want to show me several different articles. Sometimes a site will publish a story and also have that story published on five other sites. Google is then forced to choose only one of those to display. If a webmaster does not know what they are doing, they can run into a problem where their site is not showing up because other sites are being displayed instead of theirs.

So what are people with legitimate reasons for having duplicate content to do?

The answer:

The solution lies in a line of HTML code known as the Canonical Tag.

The canonical tag is a way for websites to point towards the original (or canonical) source of content and give them all the credit, ensuring that Google displays them over any other copies of the content. It is a way for people to publish their content on several sites, without making it seem like they are simply trying to trick Google into thinking that the content is important and should be ranked higher. However, it does mean that all the non-canonical copies of the content won’t show up on search engines, only the version that they are all pointing to will show up. In most cases, this is not really a problem because people can still access those pages by clicking through any website where a duplicate may be found. Because the canonical tag is all about giving proper credit, instead of taking undeserved credit, it can be used to have duplicate content online without problems.

That said, there are still methods that Google considers “best practices” and would be preferable over the canonical tag. Fresh, original, unique content will always be preferred over copy and pasting. So the best way to go about duplicate content would be ensuring that content is not actually duplicate. If you want to share the same text, image, or link, it would be best to always frame it in a new and unique way for every web page that it is on. Google’s policies are always changing and what is acceptable today may not be acceptable in the future. To safeguard against having to redo your web page in the future, just make it unique to begin with.

Was Article Marketing Killed By The Panda Update? Your New Strategy Part 2

The owner of Welborn Social Media and the founder of The Tutoring Solution.My goal is to help business owners share the passion they have for their business with as many potential customers as possible.By helping passionate people achieve their dreams I am helping to create a society of passionate leaders that will help inspire others to make their dreams a reality.

Can article marketing still work with a strategy that respects Google’s mission?

Google basically doesn’t want imbalanced situations anymore. And some of our behavior has tipped it off to how the lack of algorithm changes have left the door open for certain predators to be overfed and quality content, quality user experience, to suffer.

Google Search Engine Optimization SEO Article Marketing

Panda Update

So with keeping the above mind, how would you imagine that article marketing can be performed with success? If you’re familiar with what article marketing is and the SEO strategies themselves, you’ll likely have ideas of changes that could be made to the traditional strategy to see results again. It’s likely not very different from what’s actually worked for me and for others.

The ability to recognize what is needed in nearly every case is still in your hands.

Here’s a simple strategy that you can use to determine exactly how article marketing will work for yourself and for your clients.

  1. Understand which concepts are accepted and effective (on page seo, anchor text linking, posting on do follow directories).
  2. Have quality content on the site you work for which reflects the keywords you attempt to rank for (very important for small scale seo efforts)
  3. Experiment by implementing a common sense strategy which includes numbers one and two.
  4. Track what was done and recognize your averages; how much of such and such strategy had to be done and how many spots did I move up in the engines as a result?
  5. When you have a ratio, you’ll have a general expectation of how much you need to produce to get where you want to be.

The truth is that when it comes to article marketing, you don’t need a bunch of hidden websites, a spinner producing hundreds of articles a day or other tricks, although some may be doing just find with those right now…Others, obviously, have suffered. What you’ll likely need in the long run, and what Google is getting better at determining you have, is a creative and smart writer to do your research, provide quality content and weave in SEO in the ways that work, before posting the information on some of the most prominent article directories which will actually produce link recognition. And, of course, a good foundation is the best insurance. The better the site actually reflects your goals, your target keywords, the more manageable the job becomes with only a set of forthright tools in your SEO tool bag.

The following is true about the search engines and will likely remain true for some time:

  • Unique content is still valuable.
  • Quality content is still valuable.
  • Content which provides information for the keywords it intends to rank for is still valuable.
  • Giving the searcher what they want to find, being honorable with your use of keywords, both are still valuable.
  • All well intentioned tools which are in line with Google’s goals, mentioned above, still work.
  • Strategies which implement these tools can still work…

They might just need a little tweaking.

For more on the Panda Update from Google representative and leader Matt Cutts, hear his interpretation here.

Good luck in your SEO efforts.

A Content Marketing Hub Every Marketer Must Have | by Niveen Salem

The owner of Welborn Social Media and the founder of The Tutoring Solution.My goal is to help business owners share the passion they have for their business with as many potential customers as possible.By helping passionate people achieve their dreams I am helping to create a society of passionate leaders that will help inspire others to make their dreams a reality.

Niveen Salem – Elite Marketing Secrets

A Content Marketing Hub Every Marketer Must Have

What is a content marketing hub every marketer must have?

Sonia Simone, an author and one of Copyblogger’s co-founders calls it a “content hub – a centerpiece for your content marketing”. You probably figured it out. Yes, it’s a blog!

What is a Blog?

A blog is a online educational center about your business based on value offered. In marketing terms, it’s called attraction marketing. It’s simply your real estate piece of land on the internet. It’s a place to interact with your potential customers. But before you start a blog you need to understand your audience. This will stem from having a strong niche. Only then you’ll be able to research their problems, issues and concerns and help them find the solutions through writing a content marketing strategy about the problems. It’s the foundation of all social media tools.

But, wait a second: I thought social media is Twitter and Facebook?

Social media outlets are great to start a conversation but ultimately you want to bring your visitors back to your home base – your blog. Creating a social media marketing plan for your blog is essential in promoting your content. Here comes the importance of all social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, You Tube and Pinterest.

Why Blogging – 10 Benefits to Start your Own Blog?

  1. Thought Leader: When you blog you’re perceived as a thought leader and an expert in your industry or niche. People will start coming to you for questions, concerns and problems that they need answers for. It creates a conversation rather than a one way monologue.
  2. Trusted Source: When providing valuable content in your blog, your readers will build a trust relationship with you which turns into a lead and a lead turns into a sale.
  3. Blogging Sharpens Your Saw: When you’re blogging regularly, you’re forced to read and educate yourself about your industry. Eventually you’ll become more informed and educated than your competitors. Your presentations will become better, your problem solving abilities and skills will enhance and your tool and resource systems will grow. You’ll simply become a better teacher who have an answer to every question. All this from blogging!
  4. Freedom: A blog gives you an incredible amount of freedom where no one can tell you what to promote or not. You have total control over your content and your audience. No one has the right to flag your content as inappropriate or decide suddenly to cancel your Facebook Fan Page or delete your LinkedIn group discussions. One of my LinkedIn group discussions was suddenly deleted after reaching 42 comments in a few days!
  5. You have 100% control over the look, design and functionality of your site
  6. Blogging Traffic: Statistics show that blogging creates 55% more traffic and visitors to companies. Source: Hubspot.
  7. Build a Tribe: Blogging creates a tribe of followers, fans, readers and build relations with potential customers
  8. Your blog is a great way to generate leads. You can always make money blogging by monetizing your blog if you’re in the affiliate marketing industry
  9. You can include many sources of content marketing in your blog (not only writing) – such as a video or a podcast.
  10. By 2013, it is projected that 128 million people in the US will be blog readers. Source: MyMarketingDept.

There are 100’s of other statistics that you can search online to find out more benefits of blogging.

How to Create a Blog?

Nowadays creating a blog became a very simple process as 1, 2, 3:

  1. You need to choose and create a domain name
  2. Then create a web hosting account
  3. Then use a simple WordPress blog theme

How to Blog?

I know the objection as I was there before you: ” But I’m not a writer! What am I going to write about?” There are 5 reasons why you can become a killer blogger. How to blog is very simple once you follow these steps:

1. Write about your passion
2. Offer valuable dynamic content and avoid putting your readers to sleep with these 6 ways.
3. Use marketing tactics and strategies when writing a blog post. Here are 3 valuable tactics:

  • Be the Resource Your Customers Really Need
  • Answer the Unanswered Questions
  • Find the Questions Your Customers are Asking

4. You’ll always need to improve your blog post using these 5 tips

  • Plan your blog post before you start writing
  • Give examples of how and what to do, not only why
  • Always end your post with a call to action
  • Edit your title, introduction and conclusion
  • Use easy formatting

5. Content curation is a well known concept in blogging which allows you to write a blog post about something you’ve read online. THE RULE is to refer to the author’s name and article link in your post. When I first started blogging on my blog – Elite Marketing Secrets – I used this method a lot until I was able to create my own content.

6. You can find blogging ideas to create your own content using these sources:

  • Other blogs (curating content)
  • Books
  • Magazines
  • Movies
  • TV
  • Forums
  • Friends
  • Real life story
  • Success / failure stories
  • Google
  • Social media
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • Best of…..
  • How to…..
  • Case studies
  • Solve a problem
  • Your blog comments

7. Humanize or personalize your blog posts with your personality. Nothing is more boring than reading a blog post on a certain subject without feeling the author’s personality involved in the post. Mention your experiences, likes, dislikes, others experiences or stories. Storytelling is the #1 reason for grabbing your audience attention. It’s key in content marketing. If you master storytelling, then you mastered marketing and that is what 99.99% of marketers lack.

8. Here are a few more good blogging practices and tips:

  • Be consistent
  • Be organized
  • Be specific
  • Make it about your audience not about you (be interested not interesting)
  • Write a compelling headline
  • Engage your readers
  • Respond to your comments
  • Promote your content
  • Optimize your post
  • Join a blogging community
  • Share your expertise and others

Free Blogging Book

I’d like to offer a free blogging book here as an added value. Inside the book, you’ll discover how to blog your way to the top of your home business organization. The concepts in this book can be applied on any business.

Click here to get your free blogging book from Elite Marketing Secrets

To Your Success,
Niveen Salem