I came across this infograph and found it pretty darn interesting to say the least. The original article that this infograph is tied to is titled: “17 Counterintuitive Things the Most Successful People Do” by  CEO of Docstoc, Jason Nazar.

As you continue reading the information below, you’ll find things that you may not agree with and then maybe some things that you will. I would say, print this off and hang it up somewhere. I feel some of these points are valid but it also takes a disciplined person to achieve a few of these items below. Depending on your demeanor and how you communicate with people, you could go in the wrong direction with the approach. As with anything, opinions are a dime a dozen. You need to find what method works best for you because when you feel one way is the only way to go about a task, someone will come along and prove  you wrong. 

Don’t fit into the box. Make your own.

Isolate Yourself – to reenergize. Many seemingly extroverts are introverts. If you recharge when by yourself, you need to seek out isolation from time to time.

Ignore Consensus – when your own data and foresight is convincingly contrary to the wisdom of the crowd (like Jobs, MLK, Gandhi). Consensus bonds us together and creates harmony, but it rarely moves us forward. Progress sometimes has to come at the hands of an individual’s decisive disruption.

Which ones do you feel fits your style best?

Article Author: Jason Nazar, Contributor

Article Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonnazar/2013/03/19/17-counterintuitive-things-the-most-successful-people-do/

Infograph created by: RODAmarketing.com

Time is all we have. We may find one day that you will have less than you once did. Time management all around is important. Family is also very important but to be successful most of us don’t fall out of our mother’s womb with a top hat and a cain while we laugh it all the way to the bank. There truly is a level of hard work dedicated to making that happen. Is it true that others have more of a “Midas Touch” than you? Sure.. I’ll give you that one. I recall earlier in my working life at HSBC and there were guys that could make minimal calls but always were able to pull out big numbers for their sales that month. On the other hand… I was pounding the phone like the world was ending tomorrow but only to see not the same results. What I quickly figured out was that I had to work smarter and “cherry pick” the customers I knew we could convert. It was only when I FULLY knew the in’s & outs of our products that I quickly adapted to consistently hitting higher sales. So the moral hear… you can be a copy cat… just copy the right KAT! [VIDEO Below]

Many of us struggle with the longer we work the more we will get in return. That isn’t always the case but to be the best you have to out work your competition. Hard work isn’t easy. Most people are lazy. Time management sucks only because we are pulled in so many directions. You throw kids in the mix… spouses… friends… etc and you have yourself a problem a brewing!

So you ask.. how to fix that or come up with a plan? Ha.. plan.. yeah.. that thing. We always like to use that word “plan”. Plan to fail or plan to succeed? Trust me on this one… the more I fail the more I do succeed and I have to constantly challenge myself that this is a normal part of waking up and swinging out of the gates in life. Always a battle to remember these little tips. Stop letting the world bring you down; you’re life already creates enough problems for you.

Enter Randy Pausch Lecture: Time Management

I’ve always enjoyed Randy’s perspective on things and albeit he is no longer with our world today, he sure had some common sense insight into things. He sure rocked the world while he went swinging out of it. Take some time to watch this. Break it up into 15 minute clips if you have to.

Top To-Do List / Task / Project Apps

• Astrid
• Teambox
• Producteev
• Remember The Milk
• Todoist
• Wunderlist

Eat your heart out. Just pick one… find which one may work for you… try them all? Whether it is electronic or paper… be like Nike and Just Do it.

How to set up a branded email address using Outlook.com is just as simple as setting it up in Google Apps or Gmail. Now, on the other hand, doomsday did happen to the Free Google Apps setup this December. A lot of you are asking what your alternatives may be and Outlook.com is another solution that is upcoming. Microsoft has certainly stepped up their game albeit they may be slacking in other areas at times. Coupled with email, you can also test drive Microsoft’s free SkyDrive (like Google docs) which gives you more than 7GB of storage. Google Docs only gives you 5GB of storage. Sounds good to me!

Looking for a Professional Email Address?

Outlook.com

First off, somename@outlook.com doesn’t appear to bad if you can get in early and reserve your account. Just the name “outlook” sounds good because of the branding history. Having your business name as part of your address is equally important for branding and adds that “sex appeal” to your community perspective. Smaller businesses and especially local business’s need to use every avenue to leverage the opportunity to showcase their brand in their communications.

You can set up a professional email address using your hosting companies built in solution but let’s face it… it is cumbersome and a very ugly interface with limited options. Gmail on the other hand is stellar when it comes to options. You always need more options right? Outlook.com will also get the job done on how to set up a branded email address. 

Custom Domain Name and Outlook.com: Step by step Guide

First step is to go to the Windows Live Admin Center and get started with the process. At this point, you’ve already created your free Outlook.com email address and should already be logged on to your account. If you’re not, they will want you to login in so they can associate this process with your account.

Second step is to “Provide your domain name” that you want to use for your professional email address for branding and then select “Set up Outlook.com for my domain” radio button then hit “Continue”.

Get Started With Branded Email Outlook

Third step is to review settings and accept agreement for wanting to use their service. Essentially they want to make sure the domain name is spelled correctly and that you provide an Administrator email address because they will need to send you confirmation emails and etc for the process. My advice is to use an alternative email address that ISN’T your free Outlook.com email account. Finally, you click “I Accept” to move to the next step in the process or not if you’re not digging it at this point.

Step 2 Accept Terms

Fourth step is to verify your domain name that you have ownership or authority to make this happen. For email to work properly, you will need to add an “MX record” to your domain name. Usually this is found under your domain name registrar’s control panel under “Mail” or “MX Entry” or something of that nature. Every hosting company does the same thing a bit differently.

Verify Domain Name and MX Records

Alternatives During Setup of Email Domain Address

1. Prove Domain Ownership:
   1. They provide you with a “TXT” record to insert into your DNS settings.
   2. This is valid for up to 30 days. After 30 days you will need to use the MX record validation to move forward.
   3. Best advice… get it done quickly. Don’t put this off.
   4. You are provided the “details inside your account as you see in the screenshot”
2. Server Trust:
   1. This is highly recommended. It’s like putting a VIN number on your email account which gives higher validity when sending email from your domain. Also known as “Sender ID configuration”.
   2. Simply add another “TXT” record provided for this setp
   3. This will also help prevent you going into the Junk Folder.
3. Messenger Configuration:
   1. This is also recommended but for most people… not a biggie here if you don’t do this part.

When you add an SRV record (also known as a service record, which provides information on available services) to your registrar (a company that is accredited to sell Internet domain names) website, users who use an instant messaging client other than Windows Live Messenger can communicate with users in your domain.

Final Step In Email Address Setup

So once you’ve done all the fancy above, depending on how you answered on how you want to use this account, they will either have you login or create a new account to be associated with your Branded Domain Name.

As you can see in the screenshot above, you will be able to set up custom addresses once you’ve validate your account in the control panel of Outlook.com.

Outlook.com Shows Promise

Microsoft has shown a lot of process here in these new additions to their arsenal and is a smart move considering Google took away the Free Google Apps program for everyday common people (unless you’re a non-profit or Edu). It is just another avenue to solve a problem.

At a later date, depending on further responses, I’ll make a Tutorial video on the process so you can see it in action. For the time being I thought this explanation would help give some guidance on how to set up a branded email address using Outlook.com.

Yup, like a couple weeks late to the party on this one but it is something that I talked about in earlier posts on ways to set up a branded email address with Google. Not a surprise that Google decided to go to a “premium” model with this platform where you can get a custom branded email account, calendar, documents, and etc with the process. All you had to do was point your DNS to Google and you used the normal “freemium” services that you use already with Google but all in a branded manner.

Not Free Google Apps

You can still use your free gmail account and use it to send/receive email using a custom email address though. You just can’t use Google Apps unless you pay $50/year if you have 10 or fewer employees at your company. You get a 25GB storage locker for your email (figuratively speaking…) and a guaranteed uptime.

Here’s the good news… if you’re already setup on Google Apps like myself or many of my clients, you’re safe – grandfathered in.

Please note this change has no impact on our existing customers, including those using the free version. And as before, Google Apps for Education will be available as a free service for schools and universities. Also, as the first cloud productivity suite with FISMA certification, we’ll continue to offer Google Apps for Government for $50 per user, per year.

Posted by Clay Bavor, Director of Product Management, Google Apps

More information can be found here:  http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2012/12/changes-to-google-apps-for-businesses.html

Josh Bulloc is a Sales Engineer (one of those really smart people) by day and author/ blogger at the IntentionalSuperHero.com by night. Josh wrote a great ebook called “My Wife Won’t Let Me Start A Business” but brings other dynamics to the table with his other passions and interests. I wanted to sit down with him for a few minutes to share the basis of his ebook and some of his other passions of helping people.

A little background on how I met Josh was we both had membership at a former gym about a year ago. I’m generally pretty friendly with people and when you see the same people everyday at the same time you tend to get to know who they are. He shared with me how he had developed this ebook and his interests in Affiliate Marketing along with other projects he is working on.

Let’s get into the interview…

Start A Business

[Video link: http://youtu.be/jQ2_xUU9ODc]

Tell me about your passion for helping others and why you put together this ebook? 

My passion stems from trying to grow myself so I went out and learned and gained a lot of information. I found the more I learned more people would start asking me questions. That got me started in Career Coaching which I did for about a year and a half. Through that process I learned that there are a lot of folks who want to start their own business or something on the side besides their job but their spouse wouldn’t let them. There is a lot of history behind that as some spouses may have trust issues due to their childhood upbringing or a business gone bad.

How do you see your ebook changing lives in the future. How do you think it will contribute overall?

I really want it to be a process for thought, to communicate with their spouse. If they really want to start that business but they don’t know how to get their spouse to open up to be agreeable. Here’s the 10 or 15 steps you need to accomplish to really start to make your spouse feel more comfortable to help give that push over the edge so that everyone is on the same page and in agreement.

Get 50% Off Using code ‘pixel’

My Wife Won’t Let Me Start Business – Josh Bulloc

Tell us about your wife when you started doing career coaching and different things? Share some personal things. 

Let me give you a little bit more background on my wife. She comes from a family where her dad was involved in many different careers growing up and in some instances in her dad’s income wasn’t very stable. So that instilled in my wife a fear that if I start a business that we’re going to be broke. I felt that I really helped her understand that I can start these businesses on the side but I look at them more like projects and if they come to fruition then I can step into them later. Though, like I said I still have a full time job so I do these things on the side which I really enjoy, build my knowledge, and earn an income.

Besides your spouse’s involvement what was the biggest obstacle starting a business on the side?

My initial obstacle was going out and taking action. I spent a lot of time reading books but the hurdle was just taking that next step and pushing it and doing it. If anyone reads Seth Godin, he always talks about the “lizard brain”. It is obvious to me that I have a lizard brain that holds me back from taking action for the fear of failure. Secondary to that, for me is to be willing to spend a little bit of money on moving forward and I am not talking about anything over a hundred bucks. Just something to invest in the business. We are willing to spend money on an a piece of clothing that we will wear once for a hundred bucks but we’re not willing to spend a hundred bucks on something we can learn from.

You mentioned Seth Godin, what other books would you recommend to people?

48 days by Dan Miller

The book that really change my way of thinking on careers is called 48 Days To The Work You Love by Dan Miller (aff link). He has a podcast and you can go to 48Days.com to visit his stuff. I listened to his podcast for awhile. One day I was walking through the mall and I’ve heard about the book, I look at the bookstore and it was standing on a pile of books like a sign, so I thought I am just going to walk in there, it was $5 dollars for this book. I’m suppose to buy this book. I walked in there and picked up the book and I read it cover to cover and it really opened up my eyes on how I look at work. It helped me to understand that I need to enjoy my work and it may not be a switch I can I flip but a continuous process to get there and that is really my goal.

What are 3 things you can give every entrepreneur to get start with their idea?

The first thing I would say is don’t be afraid to take action. Go out and test things and do a small test. I’m not telling you to go out and ruin your life financially but I am saying put up a website for $20 bucks and throw something out there and write or put together a free blog if you’re really interested in a topic begin writing about it. Also…well I am losing my train of thought .

What would you like other people to know about you? What are other things you’re passionate about? 

Really just go back to taking action. I’m always trying different projects, trying to figure out the work that I love… figure out what I am suppose to do on this earth. It is always trial and error. Another project I am working on is a book on “How to Get a Job“. It is compiling everything that I used in getting my jobs, getting raises, negotiations, and all that stuff. We can put a link at the bottom of this that I will share with anyone who is interested in reading it while I am working on it. I am more than willing to share it with you while I am writing the book before I actually put it up for sale. It has a lot of good knowledge in it right now.

Conclusion

Josh as you can see is an incredible person who is putting forth tremendous effort in changing how he thinks to move his life forward. At times we all get stuck behind “life” and it creates a roadblock in our thinking. Even if you have no desire to start a business or convince your spouse of doing that, you can pick up basic principles on how to overcome our mental blocks in life. Josh is a good dude.

Contact Josh regarding his new book “How to get a job”: josh@joshbulloc.com

Would you like Josh’s ebook?

Special for MichaelStults.com readers, you can take 50% off Josh’s ebook with this special discount code of “pixel”.

50% off Josh Bulloc’s workbook

Looking for a simple way to pull down a YouTube thumbnail image of a video online? I thought this information would be helpful to some of you. I ran across where I wanted to use a thumbnail image to promote a YouTube video and I found myself curious on how to accomplish this. It really is pretty simple so let’s dive in here.

The Basic URL to Pull YouTube Thumbnail Image

http://img.youtube.com/vi/VIDEO_ID/#.jpg

Where you see “VIDEO_ID” is where you’d put the unique block of characters that identifies that video. So if the link is http://youtu.be/6Gv9knBA4aA to your video then simply use 6Gv9knBA4aA for the “VIDEO_ID” part of the above URL.

Example of URL

http://img.youtube.com/vi/6Gv9knBA4aA/#.jpg

Next you see the “#” in the URL and that represents one of the 3 thumbnails that YouTube auto produces for you when you upload a video. Drum roll please… you simply use “1,2,3″ for that “#” symbol. Well… you could use “0″ and that gives you the bigger Thumbnail Image for the video. Examples below here.

http://img.youtube.com/vi/6Gv9knBA4aA/1.jpg

How To Video

[Video link: http://youtu.be/Nz7_xp-2cfQ]

Example of YouTube Image Thumbnails

Full Size Option for Default Thumbnail Image, (480×360)

http://img.youtube.com/vi/bQVoAWSP7k4/0.jpg

Full Size YouTube Thumbnail 480×360

1st Option for Thumbnail Image, Small (120×90)

http://img.youtube.com/vi/6Gv9knBA4aA/1.jpg

120×90 YouTube Thumbnail

2nd Option for Default Thumbnail Image, Small (120×90)

http://img.youtube.com/vi/6Gv9knBA4aA/2.jpg

2nd 120×90 YouTube Thumbnail

3nd Option for Default Thumbnail Image, Small (120×90)

http://img.youtube.com/vi/6Gv9knBA4aA/2.jpg

3rd 120×90 YouTube Thumbnail

Hope that this helps in some little way on how to get YouTube Thumbnail Images!

How To Pack A Suit

The age old problem when traveling somewhere… How to pack a suit. Either you take a big garment bag or you give it a whirl in your suitcase. I seem to always have this struggle when packing and traveling. I literally stumbled up on this video today and thought… I know this is a common issue and I bet people who come to my site may find interest in the video. Sure… many ways to get the job done! Seems like a great tip!

Just a short, quick post about packing your suit and taking it with your without getting it super wrinkled!

VIDEO>>>

This morning I heard of the tragedy that families in Newtown, CT suffered tremendous loss at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I purposely did not turn on the TV to tune in and I avoided reading anything online until late this afternoon. Just as many of us saw, the majority of people across our country and world are feeling the sorrow of such a senseless act of violence. You have a young man who for whatever his reasons decided to pull off this horrendous act.

View News Updates

The reason I avoided the information about today was just the thought of losing a child was something I did not want to think about. We have our own situation where two of our oldest boys will succumb to a rare neurological disease called Niemann-Pick Type C disease in the the nearest years to come.   Those families and children woke up today just like they do every day during the school/work week and not a thought in the world crossed their mind that today would be their last day here on earth. Extremely sad.

As death is unavoidable and the one thing we all have in common as we live on this earth, it represents again that we do not know if we will get tomorrow. I am consistently reminded of this. I struggle just like anyone with a moral / spiritual head on their shoulders trying to live up to my very best every day. Thankfully grace is bestowed upon us to get up and try again.

Today can easily be argued about being about guns but that really isn’t the story. Those families lost loved ones and they need all the support from the surrounding communities along with your prayers. I am sickened to know that with every event of this nature that takes place, it is fueling the cowardliness of individuals to have courage that they can pull of future senseless acts of violence like this.

This truly saddened my heart today. I just wanted to share some quick thoughts. Hug your children and loved ones.

VIDEO>>>>

I recently took time to interview a good friend, Javier from TennisThis.com.  I’ve seen him grow his site from the beginning to where it is today over the last few years. Like many of affiliates, the hardest part is sticking with a topic or topics that will truly interest you. Javier has taken his love for tennis and put his passion to work for him. The other side that we don’t talk about often enough and especially those so called “guru’s” is the support you will need from the ones around you.

Let’s dive in here…..

Q: Tell us more about why you choose tennis as a topic for TennisThis.com?

I chose tennis because I am a tennis fanatic. I really love tennis, I play often, watch often, talk about it, think about it, and I even string tennis racquets in my garage. The whole thing started way back when I was laid off from my Affiliate Marketing Manager position for a company in Orange County (right when the economy went down the toilet). I wanted to try out making an affiliate site and make a million dollars over night, but that didn’t work at all. So I stuck with the site and transformed it from a storefront-esq site to more of a blog/review site. This way, in my own words, I can talk about tennis; I can share what I think are good products and can explain certain tennis things that are on my mind that retailers can’t.

Q: Why is your site different in the Tennis World?

Hittin’ like a baller

It’s just me. There are other sites, like Tennis.com, who provide incredible articles, match recaps, and product reviews; though they have teams of editors, skilled writers, and have a direct line to the major manufacturers. I don’t have any of that, I just call it like I see it and my reviews are all paid for by me, there are very few freebies. Therefore, each review is about as honest as they come, if something isn’t great I’ll say so, if something is awesome, I’ll say so; nobody pays me to say other wise.

I can also be a little unpredictable, since this site is sort of a side project, I don’t have all day to work on it so I don’t produce articles/reviews everyday, I do it when I can. This hurts me at times, where bigger sites post several times per day.

Q: What hosting company do you use? 

I have been using Hostmonster.com (non-aff link) for nearly 4 years now. Their up-time and customer service is stellar. I would highly recommend them for new webmasters.

Q: How has your family supported you since the beginning of TennisThis.com? Any advice for new onliners?

Honestly, it’s been tough, peaks and valleys. Many times, especially in the beginning, it’s expensive. I got a lot of push back about how much tennis stuff I was buying (for reviews), and I found it hard to convince my wife that it was going to pay off…eventually. Eventually finally came, I started making money, not a lot but enough to cover the costs of products to review and some left over to take her out to dinner once in a while.

My advice for the new onliners, if you’re going to do this, stick with it. If you’re going to commit to something you’re really passionate about, you have to stick with it…eventually you will find your place within your website.

Q: What has been your biggest highlights operating your website focused around tennis?

2012 has especially been a year full of highlights. Earlier this year, I had a chance to sit down with former world #8 Mark Philippoussis (finalist at Wimbledon and US Open) and interview him about a potential comeback. Not only did I get to hang out with him and pick his brain, I was able to hit with him for a few minutes…I gotta tell you, it’s a completely different world of tennis at his level.

I’ve also been lucky enough to have received media credentials for a couple of professional tournaments in California, BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, CA and the Farmers Classic at UCLA. I was allowed to be on the court to take pictures and even get to hang out in the press room after their matches. I’ve been able to see some of the worlds greatest tennis players closer than most fans have, a nice perk I must say.

Q: How has Google’s Panda/ Penguin affected your website? 

Here lil’ penguin….

When Google rolled out the Panda update, I didn’t notice a difference. Then with the Penguin update, I literally lost 75% of my traffic overnight. I was at a loss. I didn’t know why or what had happened. I asked friends in the industry, read articles, I was looking for answers; I felt I had been personally attacked by Google. The reality was, there was nothing I could do, I looked at my link profile, content, site structure, and more! I had followed the Google Webmaster Guidelines to a T; I could not find anything wrong. I considered shutting down the site, as Matt Cutts said in an article about Penguin, “…webmasters might find it easier to shut down and start from scratch…“; but all that work I put in! I couldn’t just trash it. There had to be something I could do to turn this around…the answer was sitting in front of me. My site! That was the answer, my site; I just had to keep writing normally, keep reviewing and act like business as usual. I was going to rebuild…not start over; keep what I have and just hope the dust settles and I come out on top. Fingers crossed eh?

A month or two after Penguins release, I was getting traffic stats at about year 1 of my site, pretty low. I’ve since stuck with it and Google has released a few refreshes on the Penguin/Panda updates, I’m now back to getting good traffic, not exactly where I was pre-release but I’m gaining momentum. I stuck with it and didn’t give up, and in the end all is well.

Q: What is one tip you could offer a new blogger or website owner to establish SEO principles?

Do not write for a search engine. Write for yourself and your audience, as if you were sending an email to a good friend or a colleague. If it’s natural, it will give you far better results than something written for a piece of code. The more natural your articles read, the more likely you’ll get visited and get users to return. Also, try not to worry about what people will think, it will prevent you from writing something awesome.

Q: What is you greatest struggle keeping the site going?

Finding things to write about. It’s an everyday battle for me, I wake up thinking I should write an article about something awesome. I get to the computer and my brain forgets to think creatively. I have about 20 started articles sitting in the queue, waiting for the words to come from my brain to the keyboard.

Another constant struggle is to not get discouraged by the competition. I’m always going to be the smaller site, so it can be hard at times to want to keep going.

Find Javier on Facebook or Twitter

In a land long… long time ago there once was the age of stuffing every keyword you could find into a tiny HTML page for SEO.  St. Google would be happy to index it as “Relevancy” and give you some kudos until one day St. Google was able to put the human spin on what the content really appeared to be. That content wasn’t very good and to the average “Joe” reading the site, was lost in a vocabulary dungeon of irrelevancy.

What is Natural SEO

We hear all the time the importance of writing for humans and not for Google. When we write for humans we fear that Google won’t like that and it is a trend that really must be reckoned with. For my site, I just write mainly because my goal isn’t for Google but for a place I can share ideas, help how to’s, and general topics that peak my interest. My end goal isn’t to convert a customer like I would do for other sites. I don’t always have time to put every post I think of online. I am sure you’ve had that issue? The best part is seeing a post that get’s read on a daily basis and you know it is providing something of value like this post: How to upgrade your version of PHP

Having the basic structure in place for your site or article will be a good start. We shouldn’t negate what we were taught that you need a good meta title, description, and a few keywords to describe what your site/ page is all about. The goal isn’t to over do it but keep it simple and not try to come up with every word or misspelled word you can like many have used in years past. Even when you get down into writing a blog post you should have the appropriate H1,H2, and etc header tags but not over do it. The goal is to keep it natural sounding as you were talking to a friend. This may be the best advice since SEO is a long-term strategy. You can only control yourself and is hard to dictate how the SERP’s may update their algorithms in the future.

Along Came A Panda

Buying cheap links and link building campaigns could get you the case of the Panda if it hasn’t already. The goal was to eliminate sites ranking high that provided no value to consumers in the eyes of the highest. We’ve seen those sites saying you can buy 5,000 links for “x dollars”. Logically does that make any sense to you? Geesh… if it was that easy we would all be ranking well for every site we put up, right? Building the right links is no easy task because there is no short cut in getting to the end goal. Well… let me rephrase that a bit; of course there are short cuts but sustainable routes is what I am talking about.  Google will continue to sharpen its iron until it can weed out the “spammy” style of sites.

Definition of  Google Panda:

(wikipedia) Google Panda is a change to the Google’s search results ranking algorithm that was first released in February 2011. The change aimed to lower the rank of “low-quality sites” or “thin sites”, and return higher-quality sites near the top of the search results. Google’s Panda has received several updates since the original rollout in February 2011, and the effect went global in April 2011.

This was a major update that started to kick some ass and take names.

The Dive of The Penguin:

Google Penguin, a code name for Google’s algorithm update back in April 2012. Some call it the “Death Penguin” or maybe that is my Star Warsish terminology I gave it. The update is aimed at decreasing websites that violate Googles Webmaster Guidelines using deceptive black hat seo techniques (death ninja) such as keyword stuffing, cloaking, participating in link schemes, deliberate creation of duplicate content and others.

When you buy cheap content, you’ll have to pay the pimp known as the Penguin. Now you ask… “but I wrote for myself. It can’t be cheap content”. I guess this is a risk we all take playing with the “boss”.  It will be important to get people to interact with your information by sharing it, commenting on it, and even motivating them to purchase if that is apart of your online strategy. Aww… Light Bulb!

Google’s Definition of Duplicate Content

This is a misunderstanding because you would think that I can not have the same content on the web on my site. For example, when I write about my sons rare disease, there isn’t much information out there. You can only spin it a few ways before you feel it is the same content. ha

Duplicate content is a term used in the field of search engine optimization to describe content that appears on more than one web page, within the same web site. When multiple pages within a web site contain essentially the same content, search engines such as Google can penalize/not display that site in any relevant search results.

Don’t Over Do It

Yes, I’ve been guilty of over doing it. Over the weekend I was looking at an older site I did and realized that I had made some rookie mistakes from 4 years ago that could be viewed as spamming. I did make those changes quickly though.

Being natural with your content is the best route to take. If you hire someone to write you a post, consider using that as a basis to rewrite what they wrote to be more your style and flare.

Looking to Recover From The Penguin?

http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/recovered-penguin-twice.html