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The Dirty Little Guide to Optimizing Your Blog for Google Hummingbird

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Google has dropped its age old Core Search Algorithm and replaced it with a brand new version called “Google Hummingbird.”

But have you optimized your website or blog for this new algo? Have you changed your content marketing strategy for higher ranking of your blog posts in Google SERPs?

Even though you think your answer is “Yes,” most probably, you are “Not.” The reasons – you are not clear:

1. What is Google Hummingbird?

2. Why Google introduced it?

3. How to optimize your blog or blog posts with this new Google Hummingbird algorithm?

Continue reading… to know in-depth about Google Hummingbird, and a simple yet effective SEO strategy to optimize your blog for this algorithm.

Google Hummingbird

Understanding Google Hummingbird

Google uses a set of search engine algorithms to index, analyze and rank web-content semantically to provide the best possible results to web-searchers.

Using these computer driven algorithms they index billions of web-pages and store them in large servers located in different parts of the world. Then analyze searcher’s query using semantic search technology. Finally, ranks different web-pages using various ranking signals. Google uses more than 200 search engine ranking signals to return the best possible results to searchers. So, indexing, analyzing and ranking are the three basic jobs of Google Search Engine.

Google Hummingbird is Google’s new Core Search Engine Algorithm to meet the search behavior of modern people, and to be the best answering engine in the world.

Query Rewriting: Back in year 2003, Google had filed a patent for query rewriting which was passed in 2011. Query rewriting is the technique to incorporate conversational search in Google.

It means – rephrasing searcher’s query implementing semantically available data to understand the actual meaning or intent. The data may be like place, device used, search history, synonyms of keywords used, and various information shared with Google by the searcher. And Google Hummingbird is better positioned to handle the query rewriting than its older counterpart.

Why Google is thinking about “Query Rewriting” now?

The change needed to be done, because people have become so reliant on Google that they now routinely enter lengthy questions into the search box instead of just a few words related to specific topics.

Amit Singhal, the head of Google’s core ranking team.

The statement speaks lot of things. It means – searchers are using long-tail queries instead of few head-terms. They usually enter their search keywords in the form of questions. That means conversational search is on rise. And most of the conversational or voice search comes from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. To better understand the conversational search Google implemented query rewriting, and to better handle query rewriting Google Hummingbird is the right set of algorithm.

Entity Search: To return the best possible results to searchers Google has been constantly shifting its focus from few ranking signals like keywords, links and link anchor-texts. And focusing more and more on entity search or meaning search.

The reason- You can manipulate keywords, you can manipulate links and link anchor-texts, but you can’t manipulate the meaning or the theme of the web-page or article. So, Google uses query rewriting to understand the actual intent or meaning behind the search query and try to find and rank relevant web-content which actually fulfills the searcher’s needs.

In the context of search, entity means – people, places or things. Google has stored millions of structured data which are verified and validated in its knowledge graph. These data act as entity, or people, places or things. Semantic search technique uses various data like place of the searcher, device used for the search purpose, search history and behavior of the searcher and various other information shared with Google by the searcher.

By leveraging its vast knowledge graph along with semantically available data about the searcher, Google perform entity search or meaning search with the help of query rewriting. Entity search doesn’t mean Google only looks for a specific entity in their knowledge graph or in the web. It actually tries to establish a relation between the entities in the search query and find the searcher’s intent or actual needs.

For example: Suppose you do a Google search for “I want to buy an iPhone.”

“I” is an entity. “An iPhone” is an entity. And “want to buy” combines or links the other two entities to establish a meaning or intent.

Data shows – number of searches from mobile devices will surpass search performed from desktops by the end of 2014. Voice search or conversational search is gaining pace rapidly. And Google Hummingbird is the best search engine algorithm to understand meaning or intent of the searchers.

Authorship Rank: There has been lot of chatter about Google Authorship Rank since last one year or so. When you implement your authorship mark-up to a piece of content in the web, Google attributes you as the creator of the content or author of the content.

Authorship Rank acts like a double edged sword. When you create some really great content which people like to bookmark, share with their friends (via social media) and revisit again and again, then you become an authoritative publisher in the eyes of Google. That means your Authorship Rank goes up and Google ranks your content higher in search results. The opposite thing happens when you create low quality web-content or articles which don’t fulfill searchers needs.

Always keep in mind – You’ve implemented your Authorship Markup means you’re sending all possible data to Google as an author or creator of your content. Web-content with authorship markup not only get higher CTR, but also ranks high in search results. Google+ and Google Hummingbird combinedly helps Google to use Authorship Rank as a ranking signal.

Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web-spam team hopes Authorship Rank will be explored by Google in near future. Check out the video here.

Social Signal: Before the release of Google Hummingbird, time and again, Google has said that they are not using social signals like Facebook likes, Tweets and G+ in their ranking algorithms. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s web-spam team has personally cleared this fact at various meetings and conferences.

One argument is “Correlation doesn’t mean causation.” If a web-page is ranking high and has 100s of Facebook shares, re-tweets and Google +s; this doesn’t always mean the page is ranking because of high number of social sharing (or social sharing by influencers). It might be that more number of people found the page helpful and shared in the social media. The page may have other strong search engine ranking signals for which it ranked higher.

For example: This year there was heavy rain and maximum people were wearing Yellow rain coats. You can’t simply correlate Yellow rain coats with heavy rain. You can’t tell – there was heavy rain because maximum people were wearing Yellow rain coats.

Why Google is not using social signal for content ranking? Not because Google doesn’t like social signal; because it had technical limitations to use social signals as a ranking factor.

With Google Hummingbird Google can process social signals in a more efficient way. And in near future you will start seeing Google Plus impacting search results. So also the likes, tweets and stumbles.

  • Google Hummingbird is a platform for Google to incorporate existing algorithms like Panda, Penguin etc. and also the advanced algos to be developed in the future.

Google Hummingbird Takeaways (Act Now)

1. Keywords: Craft your content or web-pages around a theme or concept, instead of keywords. By encrypting all searches (https://) or making “keyword not provided” 100%, Google has cleared its intention. Google has gone beyond keywords.

It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put keywords in your content which your target audience are actively searching for. But your content should answer some specific queries of your visitors or searchers.

2. Long-tail Keywords: Did Google Hummingbird kill long-tail keywords?

No. Google Hummingbird acts at query level and makes long search keywords used by searchers in to short by query rewriting. It doesn’t affect the long-tail keywords in your content while ranking. You should construct quality and meaningful content keeping long-tail keywords in mind.

3. Links: Did Google Hummingbird kill links and link anchor-texts?

No. Although the value of links and anchor-texts as a ranking signal has reduced a bit, but it will be here for long time. Page Rank (PR) still flows via links, and Google doesn’t want you solely depend on links for better ranking of your content.

4. Mobile Optimization: Your website or blog theme should be optimized for all types of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. Basically, it should be responsive and fast loading.

If your website doesn’t offer a better mobile user experience, your rankings will drop in desktop search also, along with mobile devices.

5. Panda & Penguin: Where are Google Panda and Penguin?

Algorithms like Panda, Penguin, Top-heavy, EMD etc. which are filters or algorithmic penalties are parts of Google Hummingbird. Algorithms which will be developed in future to catch spammers or to rank web-content higher will also be parts of Google Hummingbird.

6. Author Rank: As of now Google has not declared about it officially. But be prepared for it. By introducing Google+, Google Hummingbird and Authorship Mark-up Google has made its intention clear.

Everything you create on the web, whether on your own blog or on others blog will be attributable by Google towards Authorship Rank. Spammy authors will be equally punished by reducing their AR.

7. Data Validation: Google thinks its Knowledge Graph and Wikipedia (to some extent) always provide correct facts and figures. If your article doesn’t resemble their data then it will be ranked lower. On the other hand, if you contribute Google’s Knowledge Graph by providing high quality and authentic data on your web-page, then Google will rank your content higher.

8. Social Signal: Google Plus will play a major role in coming days by providing social signals to Google for ranking content. Your brand or website should have its own Google+ page. And if you perform better, may be in future, your brand will be a part of Knowledge Graph.

Decreasing authority (sequence) of social signals will be like Google+, Twitter, Facebook etc.

9. Advanced Link Analysis: Google Hummingbird is going to fulfill Google’s long cherished wish of analyzing different kinds of links for assigning different values. Now also Google is doing it. But it will be more sophisticated in coming days.

The value of a link on the sidebar, on the footer, within the article and inside the author-box will be calculated with more accuracy.

10. User Experience: Time spent, CTR and user interaction with the web-page will be more important for ranking content with Google Hummingbird. Along with quality content, focus on your website or blog theme like navigation, readability, contrast etc. for better user experience.

Dear friends. Greetings from Google Hummingbird! ;)

Because you love to create content and always adopt White Hat SEO Techniques. With the introduction of Google Hummingbird there will be no place for spammers in the future. Bloggers and content marketers with good intention will be rewarded highly for their hard work.

This is Akash KB, signing-out from AllBloggingTips.com, till next post Happy Blogging :)

Don’t forget to shoot your comments (questions), I’ll be right here to answer them ;)

The Advance Guide To Make Money With Stock Photography Sites – 2200+ Words

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If you read the next 2,200 words, you’ll learn The Advance Guide Make Money With Stock Photography Sites.

So..let’s  get started. ;)

Do you want to Make Money With Stock Photography Sites?
Make Money With Stock Photography Sites
Are you interested making money from internet selling your lovely photos?

Then you would have a better chance to make money with stock photography sites which are considered the powerhouse of creativity and global depository of photographs.

[Read more…] about The Advance Guide To Make Money With Stock Photography Sites – 2200+ Words

How to Develop a Daily Writing Habit as a Blogger?

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How can I write daily as a blogger?

How can I write 1,000 words per day in a consistent manner?

What are the hacks involved to get this to happen?

Believe me, these questions above are some of the primary questions bloggers ask on numerous search engines when they find it hard to churn out articles on a frequent, daily manner.

But before I proceed to reveal what needs to be done in other to jump-start a daily writing habit, I will have to first explain why it’s imperative to have one in the first place.

Firstly of all, as a blogger who’s writing on a niche best known to you; writing daily would help you cover grounds quickly on the topic you blog about. This comes in handy when you blog on a very large topic e.g. writing, health or personal development etc.

write-writing_6

Secondly, writing daily makes you a better person since you’re actually setting goals and accomplishing it daily. And realizing this would naturally give you the required confidence to take on any mundane or gigantic tasks and complete them swiftly.

Thirdly, apart from making you a better person; developing a daily writing habit would also make you a good writer. As in, you’d be able to express yourself through your words so well that people would literally get what you’re trying to convey as they read each words of your posts.

And finally, now that I’ve shown you the reasons why writing daily is beneficial to you as a blogger, it’d be a privilege to show you how to start and keep doing this habit daily.

So, without wasting much time, these are the 5 ways to start and keep doing “the daily writing habit” –

1. Decide That You Want To Write Daily

We’re generally moral creatures as human beings, this depicts that whatever we put our mind to accomplish, surely comes into fruition as long as we have made up our minds to do just that.

Likewise, this can be said of writing daily too. When you decide within yourself that writing everyday is what you want to frequently keep doing, it becomes quite easy to write because you’ve made up your mind.

After making up your mind on starting, then you’d have to decide how many words to write everyday. Stephen King once famously quoted that, “To be a better writer, you’d need to write at least 1,000 words per day, for a start”. So choosing a specific amount of words to write per day is necessary. This gives your goal – of wanting to write daily – some kind of constructive form, since a goal without a precise target isn’t a goal but a mere wish.

With that said, when I decided to start writing on daily basis, I had a target to write at least 1,000 words per day, no matter how unpleasant it might be to write them out.

And to tell you the truth, with that target of 1,000 words in mind, I tried as much as I could to reach them each day and it worked excellently well for me.

So, it’s not only in deciding to develop a daily writing habit, but it’s also a significant factor to have a target of words, which you need to reach and overly accomplish on daily basis.

2. Write now. . Edit Later

Writing should come naturally and smoothly from you to the computer screen or paper. So when you constantly delete any little grammatical errors or typing errors you see while you write, you’d notice that it’d interfere with your writing flow, which ends up making you lose your writing muse.

So, what should you do to minimize the editing until you’ve finished writing?

Well, it’s quite easy, what you need to do is simply to turn off your Microsoft Word spellchecker or your word processors’ spell checker, since it’s basically the core reason why people keep editing their first drafts while they write.
To shut down the MS Word Spell checker until you’ve finished writing, do this –

Firstly, click on the Ms Word logo at the top left side of your screen.

Once that has been initiated, a little new window will come up.

Click on “Word Options”.

After you’ve clicked on “Word Option”, a new page will come up.

Locate and click on “proofing”.

Once the proofing page has shown itself; start by un-checking these buttons below in other to stop MS Word from momentarily spell checking your first draft.

• Check spelling as you type
• Mark grammar errors as you type
• Check grammar with spelling

And of course, you can “check” the buttons later when you’ve complete your daily word count.

This would help you very much in editing less and writing more in other to be able to finish up your daily writing on time.

3. Plan Tomorrow’s Writings – Today

Like I once said earlier, planning cannot be overemphasized when we talk about writing since it’s the embodiment of the subject in question. When you plan before time about what to write the next day, it becomes quite easy to actually write on any topic you’ve chosen to write on, no matter how complex it may be.

Likewise, to put this into motion, get online and do extensive research for the next day writing after you might have completed your daily writing of that day.

And when you do this continually, you’d notice that writing becomes easy for you each day you wake up to write. This would help you write faster and better, up to the point of even surpassing the normal word count that you’ve put in place.

4. Reward Yourself Regularly

Take out time to reward yourself for each day you complete your daily writing schedule. It doesn’t matter whether your targeted word count is 500, 900, 1000 or 5000; what is important is that you’ve managed against all odd to see that it’s completed.

So, once you’ve accomplished such feat; go out for a walk or buy yourself a wonderful dinner or lunch. Just enjoy the moment..;)

because achieving a goal isn’t easy and most people rarely achieve anything of significance in life.

So, enjoy the victory and make sure to have a blast. This way, you’d crave to achieve exactly the same feat the next day when you’re faced with the same word count.

5. Have Someone That Checks on You Daily

When it’s only you in a goal, you might easily start to give yourself measly excuses why you can’t fabricate the specific amount of words you had vowed to write out daily.

So normally, this is where attaching a second party to your goal becomes quite a good idea. Include someone you can trust to check up on your goal of accomplishing that specific amount of word count each day.

Apart from that, making sure he or she is given the power by you to seize something of value from you each time you fail to reach the required word count that you’ve set.

Believe me, with that only; you’d be prompt to take your daily writing a little more serious. Leaving you with no option than to complete the daily writing or have something of value seized from under your very nose.

In Conclusion

Since I started daily writing, it has been very wonderful for me as blogger, because I can now write tons of guest posts and also find more time to write for my own blog at same time.

This alone has significantly boosted my blog traffic to a reasonable level that I’m proud of, and it has also given me a little bit of confidence as a freelance writer too.

So, engaging in daily writing will surely change you and take your blog to the next levels.

I surely hope you’ll START the daily writing ritual today.

Do you write daily or weekly? How often do you publish new post on your blog? Do let me know in comments.

Win 3 Copies Of Autumn Responsive WordPress Blog Theme Worth $117

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We can find WordPress theme almost everywhere around web. While there are many free and premium themes around, often it may be a hard to find a theme that is truly suitable for your blog.

Ansh lanched his new WordPress theme, so he is giving away 3 copies of Auntum WordPress theme worth $117.

About Autumn WordPress Theme

Antumn WordPress Theme

Autumn is a premium responsive WordPress blog theme build with HTML5 and CSS3 which costs just $39.

It has been designed to fullfil all your needs. It’s fully responsive theme that works perfectly on all screen resolution and devices. The theme is optimized specially for search engine. Loads super fast.

Autumn theme is fully compatible with WordPress 3.6. It comes with in-depth documentation which will help you to customize the setting according to your needs.

Here are some features you’ll get with Autumn Premium WordPress Theme.

  • Full Responsive Design mobile friendly
  • SEO Optimized and loads super fast
  • Designed with HTML5 & CSS3
  • Built in Google Analytics
  • Threaded Comments
  • Custom Logo and Favicon Option
  • Remove/Edit footer text
  • In-depth documentation
  • Customisable Elements Colors
  • Social media profile Support and Facebook, Twitter and Google+ integration
  • Compatible with WordPress 3.6
  • and list goes on.. 

Buy this theme | Theme author: Ansh | Follow him: @webloggerz | Complele review

Giveaway Details:

You must follow steps given below to enter into this giveaway.

We’ll choose 3 lucky winners and each winner will get one copy of Autumn WordPress theme worth $39 each.

Contest will be active from 07 November, 2013  . Winners Will be announced on 10 November, Sunday.

Enter into giveaway

Leave high quality Comment on this post and let us know how you’ll go about using your theme and just follow the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

More giveaways are coming soon:: I’ll be organizing more giveaways here in next few days. Enter your email below & Subscribe to my newsletter for FREE and never miss another giveaway. (No spam, we promise!)

Quick Tip! Share this giveaway everyday on social network to have a higher chance of winning.

Best of Luck to all Participants!

Increase Blog Traffic! 8 Great Ways That Really Work

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In this post you’re going to learn how to Increase Blog Traffic.

Managing a blog can be an exciting time for anyone, but most of us are going to have a hard time to increase blog traffic and maintaining it for a long period of time.

Once your blog is a little older and has established its authority within your niche, then it becomes much easier to have a steady stream of traffic. So what should you do first in order to increase blog traffic?

Well, we are going to go over 8 ways that will be able to increase blog traffic it needs to get a head start.

increase blog traffic

8 Great Ways To Increase Blog Traffic

Search Engine Optimized Content & Site

Search engine optimization is going to be one of the best ways to increase blog traffic. The higher you rank in search engines, the more traffic you will get, so it is important to optimize everything possible. There are plenty of different ways you can optimize your blog and the content that you post. This method of traffic will require you to learn a lot of techniques and doesn’t become effective overnight.

It requires you to invest a good amount of time before you start to see great results. Although it takes some time, once you start to see your rankings increase, your blog will be well on its way to becoming a success.

Target a Specific Audience

Before you start posting more content, you need to make sure you have a target audience that you are writing for. If you know who you are trying to attract, you will be able to create content that appeal to them the most. Different audiences don’t like the same type of content, so you need to make sure that the stuff you are creating will have them coming back for more.

Paid Advertising

Paid advertising is an incredible way to increase blog traffic. It is especially effective if your blog is brand new and you need to give it a boost in traffic. There are many different paid advertising programs that are available to you. One of the most commonly used ways is a pay per click program. You get to set up and advertisement and then pay every time someone clicks on it. Depending on what keywords you choose to target, will determine how much each click will cost.

You can also use social media programs, pay per impression programs, and plenty more. If you don’t mind spending some money to advertise your blog, you will get some targeted traffic that will get your blog off the ground.

You can even advertise here to get more and more traffic at affordable price.

Ensure All of Your Pages are Being Indexed

Sometimes search engines won’t index your blog right away, so you should make sure that they are. Like I previously mentioned, search engine traffic is one of the best ways to get your blog successful. Each search engine allows you to submit your site to them so they can easily crawl your site and index it. You should make sure to do this with every major engine.

You can also use Google Webmaster Tools to send a spider to crawl your site and report back to you with any errors you may have.

Create the Best Content you Possibly Can

If you want to increase blog traffic to your site, then you are going to need to make sure that the content you are creating is worth it. People won’t come back or recommend your blog to their friend and family if your content is mediocre. Since there are so many bloggers out there, our readers are used to consuming excellent content.

If your content doesn’t keep them interested enough, then you can expect them to just leave for another blog that creates something better.

Don’t Post Irrelevant Content

A big mistake that will cut your traffic down would be to post content that has nothing to do with your current niche. Plenty of blogs have ruined their chances at success because they drove all of their loyal viewers away and never kept their blog about a specific niche.

If you start posting about random things, your loyal viewers will most likely not stay since they originally came to view content about your niche. The traffic that you attract with the random content won’t stay since the rest of your content isn’t relevant to what they want to see. Just keep all of your content relevant to your niche and you will see much more traffic. In this way you can easily Increase Blog Traffic Fast.

Keep Consistent With Your Posts

You should come up with a regular time that you post to your audience. If your readership know when to expect your next post, they will be more willing to read it as soon as possible.

You should never go a long period of time without posting something because people will eventually just forget your blog even exists, which will obviously reduce your traffic. Come up with a schedule and stick to it. You can Increase Your Blog Traffic in this way.

Use Social Media to Your Advantage

Social media can be used in so many different ways. You can use it to increase blog traffic, help brand your blog, increase authority, and much more. You should be using social media to enhance all aspects of your blog.

The only thing you should be aware of is that it can be just as bad for your blog if you don’t manage it correctly. Posting something offensive, not responding to comments, and plenty of thing things can give your blog a bad image and hurt your reputation. If you plan to use social media, make sure to properly manage it to get as many benefits as you can.

Increasing traffic to your blog  may take some time and hard work, but if you are determined enough, you will have no problem being successful with it.

Using these 8 tips will definitely get you headed in the right direction, and as time goes by you will figure out new ways that will be more beneficial to your specific blog.

Did I missed any? If you want more suggestion about how to increase blog traffic to your blog, Do let me know in comments.