Monthly Archives: May 2015

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Cool New Android Apps to Check Out on Google Play?

I don’t know about you, but I download a lot of apps – mostly free but some are paid. Periodically, I have to go through and clean out my iPad and other devices because I have so many apps it’s sometimes hard for me to navigate through them all. Plus, they slow down my mobile operating
system.

Anyway, the other day I was cleaning out those apps I never use anymore and I was left with a core group of relatively new apps that I find myself going back to time and time again.

Here then – in no particular order — is my list of the coolest new Android apps that I use all the time. Incidentally, all of them are currently available on Google Play:

Tribesports

This is the year that everybody is rolling out a fitness app. From FitBit to iPhone’s Moves, tech companies suddenly think we all want to know how many steps we take per day and whether or not we should eat that last maple cruller in the Dunkin’ Donuts box (Spoiler Alert: You shouldn’t!).

Tribesports is Android’s new fitness tracking app that comes complete with a GPS tracker. It’s pretty much the same as most of the other fitness apps available today, but it’s still pretty cool. It logs how far you’ve run, walked or cycled. It keeps track of the fitness classes or sporting events you participated in. And it even gives real-time stats and can chart your progress (or in my case, lack of it) in handy, neat looking graphs.

This app comes with thousands of workouts that other people within the Tribesports community can share online, including detailed instructions about how to do specific exercises, workout plans, diets, and so on.

If you’re looking for a good, reliable fitness app that gives you everything you need to keep your weight loss or fitness plan on track, you should definitely check out Tribesports.

QuizUp

If you are still into Words with Friends, you should know that that app is soooo 2013! Today, trivia is the cool thing to do. And QuizUp lets you match your wits against your friends in trivia smack-downs online from wherever you are. You can even face off in trivia battles against total strangers located all over the world.

This is a really hot app right now. In its first week of release, it was downloaded by more than a million users!

CALCU

You wouldn’t think that an app that served as a pocket calculator would be all that exciting. And, well, maybe it’s not. But it’s one that I use all the time.

Now, I get it, most smart phones come with a calculator built-in. But CALCU performs all the same functions, but also allows you to change to various themes and screen colors. It also lets you look at your calculator tape, or all the calculations that you’ve done historically, which can be pretty handy when you are balancing the checkbook or calculating how much you spent on gas last month (two things I actually just did using CALCU this morning!).

If you want a cool-looking calculator and a whole lot more, CALCU is the app for you. Too bad it doesn’t come with a plastic pocket protector!

Timehop

Did you ever wonder where your Facebook and Instagram friends were getting all those “Throwback Thursday” photos or resurrecting stuff they posted online from years ago? They’re probably using Timehop, an app that collects all of the stuff you posted using your smart phone on Twitter, Instagram and Twitter then replays them for you whenever you want to see them.

It’s like having a little time machine right on your smart phone.

So that’s it, my new favorite Android apps. See you next time I clean out my smart phone screen!

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The Internet Marketer’s Google Penalty Recovery Plan

If your site has been hit with a Google penalty, the loss in traffic and revenue can be absolutely devastating. Some marketers might well choose to scrap their site and start all over again (which isn’t a bad idea if your site isn’t a monster), but for others who have a good flow of traffic and great amount of reputation and subscribers, restarting isn’t an option.

So, what do you do if you’re hit with a Google penalty?

Act Quickly

The first thing you need to understand here is that time is of the essence. The longer you wait to start recovering your rankings in the SERPs and traffic, the more money you are going to lose (or not make, same thing). Further, your reputation is going to take a hit, meaning even your most loyal clients might start wandering over to the other side of the fence to see where the grass is greener.

Your first order of action should be to audit your entire website. Determine whether you have an algorithmic or manual penalty and then pinpoint the cause. That’s the first area you should focus on. Typical Google penalties include black hat SEO practices, buying links, low-quality or duplicate content, high-bounce rates, on-page strategies deemed manipulative, spamming and low-quality backlinks, so be prepared to tackle those issues.

Depending on which update from Google caused the penalty (e.g. Penguin, Panda, Hummingbird, etc.), your course of action will be dictated by the latest fixes. Take a deep look into your messages on your Webmaster Tools account and look for communications from Google that might have warned you (such as the Web Spam Team).

Take This Time to Fix Everything

Of course, you can just fix the problem as stated by Google and move on, but it’s much wiser to use this as an opportunity to clean up your entire site. Take a long, hard look at your practices – was this penalty an anomaly or have you been toeing the line in terms of white hat SEO practices? Run an analysis on your site with Hubspot or Nibbler and fix up any code errors, warnings or other problem areas that are holding your site down.

Any backlinks (aka inbound links) that are coming into your site that are low-quality or “bad” should be removed immediately. This can be an arduous process if you have a lot of links, but using tools such as Moz’s Open Site Explorer, you can expedite the process. Using these tools, check out all the websites that are linking to your site and really evaluate which are “good” sites that are beneficial to your ranking and/or business. Get rid of any sites that might be bringing you down (especially if those sites are the penalty trigger). Don’t only remove these links, but construct a list of them and request Google disavow them from your attributable backlinks.

Submission to Google

Once your site is completely fixed up, if your penalty was manual, you can submit a reconsideration request to Google. If your penalty was algorithmic, you have to wait until the next time Google updates its algorithms (this can happen a few times a day or once a week – Google doesn’t release this information unless it’s a large update like Hummingbird or Panda). Either way your site’s recovery is completely in the hands of Google’s team. But by keeping a detailed record of all the changes you made to come into compliance, you show that you are eager to play by their rules. Going above and beyond what you were penalized will look good in the eyes of Google’s team and you will likely be reinstated to your former glory much faster than not.