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What is HARO – And Why The Heck Did They Just Call Me?

what is haro
Have you heard of HARO? Well, it stands for Help a Reporter Out and it’s a site where you can sign up for emails that can lead to PR opportunities for you and your blog.

How does it work?
Basically, once you join their email list, you’ll get 3 emails a day with all sorts (30-50 on average) of potential media opportunities. The queries are categorized for easy skimming. It’s a service that reporters use when they need sources, quotes and snippets for articles, print or news segments. They work with some pretty major news agencies suck as FOX, ABC and the Associated Press.

A quick scan of the email and you can find a pertinent query and respond to it within a few minutes. Busy that day? Just delete the email and move on – they’ll send 3 more tomorrow!

How does this benefit me?
If your response is used, you may find yourself (and a link to your site) in an online magazine or news story. This could be wonderful for your site! Imaging being mentioned in an article on ABC.com!

An added benefit is that the backlink will likely boost your SEO and the link can provide significant traffic depending on the site that it lands on.

What I like about HARO.
It’s a quick, easy way to possibly get yourself (and your blog) some media coverage. This is a great tool in the “be everywhere” philosophy that I love so much.

What is with the phone call?
I have no idea. I have been signed up for the emails for about 6 months now and have never received any communication other than the basic emails.

Now, I was bothered by this phone call for many reasons. Some of them are my own ridiculousness, but still…

First, it always bugs me when primarily online companies contact me (an online only business) via phone before attempting via email.
Here’s the number that was used to call me: 1-571-485-4000 and it was out of Virginia. I was expecting a call from JCPenny customer service and thought it might have been them, so I answered. Now you know the number, in case you don’t want to talk about your sites on the phone. Feel free to call them and ask questions, as I feel that unsolicited phone calls should go both ways. 🙂

Second, and this is really odd – upon looking into my account, neither my correct phone number or the website that he mentioned on the phone were listed in my account. Strange to think of how they got that information and why the heck they would spend resources seeking out my info.

Third, I never even figured out why he called. The service seems cut-and-dry. I get a list of queries and respond when they fit into my niche. He wanted to set up a 20 minute phone call the next day to discuss things. I can’t figure out what they heck there is to discuss. I explained that I was very busy, as this is the holiday season and the busiest time of the year in my niche. So we agreed that next year might be a better time. I won’t be answering that call.

If anyone with HARO would care to comment (please don’t call me!!), please do so below or email me (I’m sure you’ll find it) explaining what was with that random phone call.

Google PageRank Update – December 2013

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Google Pagerank 2013
There was question as to whether Google would update their PageRank again in 2013. You see, they used to do it about every quarter, but had not done it since February.

Well, this morning, Google has updated their PageRank.

To check yours, go here: (annoying captcha will commence): http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php

I won’t get too much into what went into this ranking change, as it will take some time to figure out what their focus was.

I can say this: This site went from a 0 to a 2, which was great news. Our other sites did not fare so well. We dropped from a 3 to a 2 on a couple of our other sites. A few other major sites that I know of also inexplicably dropped. Needless to say, it’s time to start digging into why this was the case.

While I don’t have specifics on THIS particular update yet, I can say that PageRank will always take these things into account:
– does your site have quality, fresh content?
– do you have a solid backlink and internal link profile?
– how old is your domain?
– do you follow on-page SEO best practices?
– do you have a good social profile and are you connected to Google+?

So…. what is YOUR PageRank?

Where Did The Google Keyword Tool Go?

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Today, Google eliminated their external AdWords keyword tool.
Don’t panic.

Google still offers a keyword tool but are now calling it a keyword planner and are offering it up for use only to AdWords members. Want to know the good part? Joining AdWords is free, so you anyone can still use the keyword planner!

According to Google, “Keyword Planner has replaced Keyword Tool. With Keyword Planner, we’ve combined the functionality of Keyword Tool and Traffic Estimator to make it easier to plan search campaigns. That’s why Keyword Tool is no longer available. You can use Keyword Planner to find new keyword and ad group ideas, get performance estimates for them to find the bid and budget that are right for you, and then add them to your campaigns. We’ve also added several new features with Keyword Planner.”

So not only is it not gone, it’s actually better!

Head over here to get started. You’ll need to create an AdWords account if you don’t have one.

To search for related keywords in a similar manner that you would with the old tool, do this:
google keyword planner Upon clicking “search for keyword and ad group ideas” you will be brought to this screen:On this screen, you’ll be able to enter your keywords. Leave the landing page and product category boxes empty. You will also see filters that you can set if you’d only like to search among results with a certain number of monthly searches or other criteria.

When you click the “get ideas” button, you will be brought to a results page. The first thing you want to do when you see this page is click the “keyword ideas” tab at the top. (see image below)Ok, now you are at a results page very similar to the old AdWords keyword tool. Here, you can see related keyword suggestions, the number of monthly searches each keyword gets, advertiser competition and average CPC. Remember, advertiser competition is NOT a measure of how difficult it will be to rank your site for that keyword.

You’ll be able to sort columns by clicking at the top of each column just like the old tool:
So that’s about all there is to getting the old keyword tool back. It didn’t really leave, it is just in a different place with a different name. You can still do basic keyword research just like you did before.

With all of this being said, I still believe that if you want to get serious about keyword research and want to save yourself a ton of time, Long Tail Pro is the way to go. LTP can turn several hours of keyword research into a 30 minute job. With the ability to quickly and accurately measure ranking competition, this tool is a must have for anyone looking to improve their chances of ranking in Google.

How to Use SEO in Your Blog Posts ~ for Beginners

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a very important part of most blog success plans. Good SEO will help you show up higher in a Google search results page. Being at or near the top of Google for a decent keyword can provide your blog with hundreds, even thousands of visitors every day.

SEO is a complex beast to conquer, so let’s start with some basics. A lot of SEO gurus seem to forget about the small stuff. Truth be told, most pages have no chance of ranking if they are not doing the things I discuss in the video.

Watch the video below and use the links under the video to expand on specific points covered in the video. If you found the video helpful at all, please leave a comment below! 🙂

Here are some links to other posts that I mentioned in the video:

To learn how to add a meta description to each blog post, see this post.

For a detailed post on optimization of posts and alt tags explained, see this post.

If you are interested in delving into advanced keyword research, see this post.

To use H-tags, simply put the text of your choice inside of h tags, like this:Replace the #1 with any number from 1 through 5.
As you can see, most themes in WordPress reserve the H1 tag for posts titles, so you probably don’t want to use that one within the post.

I hope this post taught you a little more about on-page SEO, which is so very important when learning to use SEO in your blog posts! If you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to comment below or email me!

How to Get a URL Without Blogspot at the End

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how to get a url without blogspot at the end

This one is for those of you who are using the Blogger platform.

Having a URL free of subdomains such as .blogspot.com or .wordpress.com makes your blog look more legitimate. Most (not all) major blogs have dropped the tail end of their URL. Major PR companies have openly stated that they take blogs with a straight URL (free of subdomains) more seriously. This is not saying that you can’t get noticed with blogspot in your URL, it just looks a bit more amateur on the surface.

It is really easy to get a URL without blogspot at the end. The way I recommend doing this is to head to HostGator and click the “domains” option at the top menu. Begin searching for a domain name that appeals to you and when you find one, move forward. Be sure to use coupon code NOBLOGSPOT to save 25% on your hosting plan!

Buy the domain and set up hosting at the same time – it will save you time and money.

The reason I recommend doing this and leaving blogger altogether is that the truth of the matter is that if you have a blog on blogger/blogspot, your blog can be deleted at any time. I will repeat that, when on blogger, your blog can be deleted at any time by Google. I know of several bloggers who have had their blogs completely shut down by Google because some random sentence they typed triggered a Google alert or something.

Do you want to be at the mercy of Google? You need to get your own hosting and get on WordPress to avoid this.

See this post for a step-by-step tutorial on getting set up with HostGator in under 20 minutes!

Once you have your new domain, you’ll be able to set up an email at that domain, which looks super professional! So if your site was www.hamburgersareyummy.blogspot.com it would now be www.hamburgersareyummy.com and your email could be yourname@hamburgersareyummy.com. You can still use Gmail for the new email as well!

Doing this really is the best investment you will ever make on your blog. Having your own domain and getting off of blogspot is a very important step in taking your blogging to the next level. So do it today!

What is HARO – And Why The Heck Did They Just Call Me?

Google PageRank Update – December 2013

Where Did The Google Keyword Tool Go?

How to Use SEO in Your Blog Posts ~ for Beginners

How to Get a URL Without Blogspot at the End

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