Thursday, 31 January 2013
Analytics Matched Search Queries Vs. AdWords Keyword Details Report
A question recently came across my desk regarding the use of the Matched Search Queries Report in Analytics when compared to the Keyword Details Report in AdWords.
The inquirer was interested in the benefits or drawbacks to both reports, also asking if they were interchangeable. I figured this was a great question to answer in the Search & Analytics field, so I’ll do my best to define and give my opinion regarding the pros, cons and interchangeability of these two complex reports.
First, we need to understand what each report provides data-wise. Let’s take a look at the basic data available for each one.
Matched Search Queries Report
This report offers insights into the keywords searched for that lead to paid advertising conversions. This report only includes AdWords data. Its standard information, without altering and creating custom reports based on this report, includes the following:
Visits
Pages per Visit
Average Visit Duration
% New Visits
Bounce Rate
Goal Completions
Revenue
The e-commerce tab of the report offers additional data:
Transactions
Average Value
E-commerce Conversion Rate
Per Visit Value
With this data, I can apply advanced filters, or custom filters, to single out a variety of segments of traffic. I can also look at search query versus landing page or exit page data using the secondary dimension feature. This data is much easier to manipulate.
With the matched search query report, we also have the option of looking at the data by match type. Knowing what types of keywords lead to the most revenue can help you make decisions about how you bid on keywords, as well as what types of keywords are worth the impressions as you build up to creating conversions.
I found it very interesting that in the data sample I looked at, Exact match keywords created more visits and more conversions, but less revenue overall. Broad match keywords created nearly double the revenue, with half the transactions. Phrase match keywords had the fewest visits and conversions, along with the lowest per-visit value.
Pros & Cons For Matched Search Queries Report
Below is the list of pros and cons for the Matched Search Queries Report.
Pros
Shows data by match type
Can apply Advanced Segments to this data easily, which is helpful if you’ve built custom segments by demographic or geographic location
Can compare PPC performance against organic performance, overall performance, or just specific segments of traffic fairly easily
Easily see e-commerce data applied to each keyword, and to each match type
View keyword data by landing page
Cons
If you work in Excel to manipulate data, you can’t get all the data out in one dump; you’ll need to dump multiple reports and marry them together in a spreadsheet
You can’t easily see AdGroup level data here; however, you can get it by using a secondary dimension, then export to Excel, then sort and filter to find what I need, but it’s a bit “clunky”
AdWords Keyword Details Report
First, if you’re a beginner, you might not know where to find this information. It’s not something that is front and center, glaring you in the face. I think it should be, but Google doesn’t right now. You’ll find the keyword detail report here:
You can look at this for all campaigns, a single campaign, or a single AdGroup within a campaign. When you’re diagnosing issues with keywords, and landing page issues, this report, in its most drilled-down format, can be very helpful. You can add 24 different data points to this report. I’m not going to list all 24 here, but what this report doesn’t show is going to be pretty apparent in the “cons” section below
I’m a big fan of the data in the Keyword Details report. It’s much more reliable and realistic than just managing PPCs based on the keywords you’re bidding on. In my opinion, PPC managers should spend a great deal of time deep into this data. The keyword you’ve bid on tells only half the story. Because of the great variety of match types, what your ads actually show up for holds much more weight than what you’re bidding on.
I also like the ability to add up to 24 different data points to one report and then have the ability to dump this all out into an Excel spreadsheet. This is much faster than dumping 3 reports and copying and pasting them together as we do in the Match Search Queries report.
Pros & Cons For AdWords Keyword Details Report
Here are the pros and cons to the Keyword Details Report from my point of view. If you have other pros and cons, please feel free to share with the group in the comments section below!
Pros
You can find the Keywords that trigger your Product Listing Ads with this report. If you’re running these with a hookup to the Google Merchant Center, you know how difficult that data is to find. Just filter the report for all campaigns down to your Product Listing Ads AdGroup or Campaign.
You can add up to 24 columns of data to this report and export it all to Excel. This makes the data much easier to manipulate much more quickly.
You’re given the keyword that you’ve bid on, with match type, that generated the actual keyword the searcher queried.
I can see if I have AdGroups or campaigns that are competing for the same term. If I sort the actual query by a single phrase – “Red Widgets,” I can see how many different AdGroups contain keywords I’m bidding on that generate that phrase.
I can see much more granular AdGroup data here. While AdGroup data is available via a secondary dimension in Analytics, it requires sorting, etc. to get there.
Cons
Even though you’re able to add 24 different data points to this report, you’re not given the site-specific data in the AdWords report. There’s no bounce rate, average time on site, average page views, etc., available when you’re working solely in AdWords.
There is no revenue data here. This seems like something that should be there, but it’s not available. I can see the cost, and the number of conversions, and the cost per conversion; but, I cannot see the revenue or the revenue per conversion. Cost per conversion is a figure that needs to be compared to revenue; you’ll have to do this in Excel or build a custom analytics report if you need this data (and you should).
It’s very hard to apply demographic or geographic filters to any data in AdWords. This is much easier in Analytics using Advanced Custom Filters.
Reports Are Not Interchangeable
While I think these reports are both very valuable, they are not interchangeable. Each offers insights that make them both important. I think if there were a way to dump the data from both reports into one Excel sheet, having all the queries match up – it would be an extremely powerful tool. Right now, I cannot find anyone who has done this any other way than manual entry. If you know of one, I’d be very excited to see it and to share it with the group.
The inquirer was interested in the benefits or drawbacks to both reports, also asking if they were interchangeable. I figured this was a great question to answer in the Search & Analytics field, so I’ll do my best to define and give my opinion regarding the pros, cons and interchangeability of these two complex reports.
First, we need to understand what each report provides data-wise. Let’s take a look at the basic data available for each one.
Matched Search Queries Report
This report offers insights into the keywords searched for that lead to paid advertising conversions. This report only includes AdWords data. Its standard information, without altering and creating custom reports based on this report, includes the following:
Visits
Pages per Visit
Average Visit Duration
% New Visits
Bounce Rate
Goal Completions
Revenue
The e-commerce tab of the report offers additional data:
Transactions
Average Value
E-commerce Conversion Rate
Per Visit Value
With this data, I can apply advanced filters, or custom filters, to single out a variety of segments of traffic. I can also look at search query versus landing page or exit page data using the secondary dimension feature. This data is much easier to manipulate.
With the matched search query report, we also have the option of looking at the data by match type. Knowing what types of keywords lead to the most revenue can help you make decisions about how you bid on keywords, as well as what types of keywords are worth the impressions as you build up to creating conversions.
I found it very interesting that in the data sample I looked at, Exact match keywords created more visits and more conversions, but less revenue overall. Broad match keywords created nearly double the revenue, with half the transactions. Phrase match keywords had the fewest visits and conversions, along with the lowest per-visit value.
Pros & Cons For Matched Search Queries Report
Below is the list of pros and cons for the Matched Search Queries Report.
Pros
Shows data by match type
Can apply Advanced Segments to this data easily, which is helpful if you’ve built custom segments by demographic or geographic location
Can compare PPC performance against organic performance, overall performance, or just specific segments of traffic fairly easily
Easily see e-commerce data applied to each keyword, and to each match type
View keyword data by landing page
Cons
If you work in Excel to manipulate data, you can’t get all the data out in one dump; you’ll need to dump multiple reports and marry them together in a spreadsheet
You can’t easily see AdGroup level data here; however, you can get it by using a secondary dimension, then export to Excel, then sort and filter to find what I need, but it’s a bit “clunky”
AdWords Keyword Details Report
First, if you’re a beginner, you might not know where to find this information. It’s not something that is front and center, glaring you in the face. I think it should be, but Google doesn’t right now. You’ll find the keyword detail report here:
You can look at this for all campaigns, a single campaign, or a single AdGroup within a campaign. When you’re diagnosing issues with keywords, and landing page issues, this report, in its most drilled-down format, can be very helpful. You can add 24 different data points to this report. I’m not going to list all 24 here, but what this report doesn’t show is going to be pretty apparent in the “cons” section below
I’m a big fan of the data in the Keyword Details report. It’s much more reliable and realistic than just managing PPCs based on the keywords you’re bidding on. In my opinion, PPC managers should spend a great deal of time deep into this data. The keyword you’ve bid on tells only half the story. Because of the great variety of match types, what your ads actually show up for holds much more weight than what you’re bidding on.
I also like the ability to add up to 24 different data points to one report and then have the ability to dump this all out into an Excel spreadsheet. This is much faster than dumping 3 reports and copying and pasting them together as we do in the Match Search Queries report.
Pros & Cons For AdWords Keyword Details Report
Here are the pros and cons to the Keyword Details Report from my point of view. If you have other pros and cons, please feel free to share with the group in the comments section below!
Pros
You can find the Keywords that trigger your Product Listing Ads with this report. If you’re running these with a hookup to the Google Merchant Center, you know how difficult that data is to find. Just filter the report for all campaigns down to your Product Listing Ads AdGroup or Campaign.
You can add up to 24 columns of data to this report and export it all to Excel. This makes the data much easier to manipulate much more quickly.
You’re given the keyword that you’ve bid on, with match type, that generated the actual keyword the searcher queried.
I can see if I have AdGroups or campaigns that are competing for the same term. If I sort the actual query by a single phrase – “Red Widgets,” I can see how many different AdGroups contain keywords I’m bidding on that generate that phrase.
I can see much more granular AdGroup data here. While AdGroup data is available via a secondary dimension in Analytics, it requires sorting, etc. to get there.
Cons
Even though you’re able to add 24 different data points to this report, you’re not given the site-specific data in the AdWords report. There’s no bounce rate, average time on site, average page views, etc., available when you’re working solely in AdWords.
There is no revenue data here. This seems like something that should be there, but it’s not available. I can see the cost, and the number of conversions, and the cost per conversion; but, I cannot see the revenue or the revenue per conversion. Cost per conversion is a figure that needs to be compared to revenue; you’ll have to do this in Excel or build a custom analytics report if you need this data (and you should).
It’s very hard to apply demographic or geographic filters to any data in AdWords. This is much easier in Analytics using Advanced Custom Filters.
Reports Are Not Interchangeable
While I think these reports are both very valuable, they are not interchangeable. Each offers insights that make them both important. I think if there were a way to dump the data from both reports into one Excel sheet, having all the queries match up – it would be an extremely powerful tool. Right now, I cannot find anyone who has done this any other way than manual entry. If you know of one, I’d be very excited to see it and to share it with the group.
What Is PPC, CPC & Paid Search Marketing?
Paid search marketing is the process of gaining traffic by purchasing ads on search engines. It is sometimes referred to as CPC (cost-per-click) or PPC (pay-per-click) marketing, because most search ads are sold on a CPC / PPC basis.
Some people also refer to paid search as SEM, through here at Search Engine Land, we consider SEM (search engine marketing) to be an umbrella term that encompasses both paid search and SEO (search engine optimization).
Advice For Newbies
New to paid search ads? Don’t worry! Search Engine Land has the perfect series for you: PPC Academy. This special column began in 2010 and provides a different installment each week to bring you up to speed on paid search.
Another starting place is Google’s “Insider’s Guide To AdWords,” which you’ll find here in PDF format. AdWords is by many measures the most popular paid search platform used by search marketers, so the guide offers a useful introduction.
Of course, there’s much more to paid search than what’s covered in Google’s guide. You might consider some of the many print books out there with advice. Here’s our review of some newer books: A Roundup Of Best Search Advertising Books.
Advice At Search Engine Land
Here at Search Engine Land, we provide paid search advertising information and news in a variety of ways:
How To: Paid Search is our section that is devoted to practical tips and tactics about paid search ads.
Paid Search is Search Engine Land’s column that covers different paid search topics every week.
More Search Engine Land Columns – Beyond our Paid Search column, Search Engine Land also has these columns that cover paid search topics:
Brand Aid
Conversion Science
In House
In The Trenches
Industrial Strength
Locals Only
Small Is Beautiful
Strictly Business
Video Search
Search Ads Library Archives: This area of Search Engine Land provides a collection of all stories we’ve written on the topic of paid search. We also have subcategories, including:
Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting
Search Ads: Contextual
Search Ads: Domaining
Search Ads: General
Search Ads: Mobile Search
Search Ads: Pay Per Call
Search Ads: Video
In addition to covering paid search generally, Search Engine Land also has paid search areas specifically for each of the major search engines:
Google: AdWords
Microsoft: adCenter
Yahoo: Search Ads
Remember, those with Search Engine Land memberships also have access to a wide-range of video content about paid search recorded at our SMX: Search Marketing Expo conferences. Our Search Marketing Now webinar site also has PPC / Paid Search presentations available on demand, to anyone, for free.
Continuing Advice & News
There are a number of blogs and forums that focus heavily on SEO topics, including: aimClear, bg Theory, Bruce Clay Blog, ClickEquations, Efficient Frontier Insights, PPC Blog, PPC Hero, Search Engine Guide, Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Watch, Traffick, WebProNews and WebmasterWorld.
Looking for an easy-to-scan compilation of paid search news? Check out Alltop. For compilations of the best articles on paid search in a given year, visit The Semmys. At Search Engine Roundtable, you’ll discover a regular compilation of important discussions happening on a variety of search marketing forums.
Don’t forget to get our free SearchCap newsletter! SearchCap has a recap of all the day’s paid search news from sources all over the web, as well as the day’s news from Search Engine Land and from Search Engine Land’s related social news site, Sphinn.
Some people also refer to paid search as SEM, through here at Search Engine Land, we consider SEM (search engine marketing) to be an umbrella term that encompasses both paid search and SEO (search engine optimization).
Advice For Newbies
New to paid search ads? Don’t worry! Search Engine Land has the perfect series for you: PPC Academy. This special column began in 2010 and provides a different installment each week to bring you up to speed on paid search.
Another starting place is Google’s “Insider’s Guide To AdWords,” which you’ll find here in PDF format. AdWords is by many measures the most popular paid search platform used by search marketers, so the guide offers a useful introduction.
Of course, there’s much more to paid search than what’s covered in Google’s guide. You might consider some of the many print books out there with advice. Here’s our review of some newer books: A Roundup Of Best Search Advertising Books.
Advice At Search Engine Land
Here at Search Engine Land, we provide paid search advertising information and news in a variety of ways:
How To: Paid Search is our section that is devoted to practical tips and tactics about paid search ads.
Paid Search is Search Engine Land’s column that covers different paid search topics every week.
More Search Engine Land Columns – Beyond our Paid Search column, Search Engine Land also has these columns that cover paid search topics:
Brand Aid
Conversion Science
In House
In The Trenches
Industrial Strength
Locals Only
Small Is Beautiful
Strictly Business
Video Search
Search Ads Library Archives: This area of Search Engine Land provides a collection of all stories we’ve written on the topic of paid search. We also have subcategories, including:
Search Ads: Behavioral Targeting
Search Ads: Contextual
Search Ads: Domaining
Search Ads: General
Search Ads: Mobile Search
Search Ads: Pay Per Call
Search Ads: Video
In addition to covering paid search generally, Search Engine Land also has paid search areas specifically for each of the major search engines:
Google: AdWords
Microsoft: adCenter
Yahoo: Search Ads
Remember, those with Search Engine Land memberships also have access to a wide-range of video content about paid search recorded at our SMX: Search Marketing Expo conferences. Our Search Marketing Now webinar site also has PPC / Paid Search presentations available on demand, to anyone, for free.
Continuing Advice & News
There are a number of blogs and forums that focus heavily on SEO topics, including: aimClear, bg Theory, Bruce Clay Blog, ClickEquations, Efficient Frontier Insights, PPC Blog, PPC Hero, Search Engine Guide, Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Watch, Traffick, WebProNews and WebmasterWorld.
Looking for an easy-to-scan compilation of paid search news? Check out Alltop. For compilations of the best articles on paid search in a given year, visit The Semmys. At Search Engine Roundtable, you’ll discover a regular compilation of important discussions happening on a variety of search marketing forums.
Don’t forget to get our free SearchCap newsletter! SearchCap has a recap of all the day’s paid search news from sources all over the web, as well as the day’s news from Search Engine Land and from Search Engine Land’s related social news site, Sphinn.
Official Google Panda Update Version 3.7 On June 8th
Google has confirmed the rumors of a Panda refresh happening over the weekend.
Google said this refresh started rolling out on Friday, June 8th and has an impact of less than 1% of search queries in the U.S. and about 1% worldwide.
As I said, the search forums took notice to major changes in the search results, specifically impacting sites that were originally hit by the Panda update. I reached out to Google this morning for a confirmation and they have confirmed the update.
Previously, Google pushed out Panda 3.6 on April 27th, about 6 weeks before this update. Google tends to do Panda and even Penguin refreshes every one to two months.
For more on Panda update, see our Panda update category.
Related Articles
Confirmed: Panda Update 3.6 Happened On April 27th
Panda Update 3.5 Is Live: Winners & Losers
Infographic: The Google Panda Update, One Year Later
Google Says Panda 3.4 Is ‘Rolling Out Now’
Dropped In Rankings? Google’s Mistake Over Parked Domains Might Be To Blame
Google Launches Update Targeting Webspam In Search Results
Did Google’s Search Results Get Better Or Worse?
Google said this refresh started rolling out on Friday, June 8th and has an impact of less than 1% of search queries in the U.S. and about 1% worldwide.
As I said, the search forums took notice to major changes in the search results, specifically impacting sites that were originally hit by the Panda update. I reached out to Google this morning for a confirmation and they have confirmed the update.
Previously, Google pushed out Panda 3.6 on April 27th, about 6 weeks before this update. Google tends to do Panda and even Penguin refreshes every one to two months.
For more on Panda update, see our Panda update category.
Related Articles
Confirmed: Panda Update 3.6 Happened On April 27th
Panda Update 3.5 Is Live: Winners & Losers
Infographic: The Google Panda Update, One Year Later
Google Says Panda 3.4 Is ‘Rolling Out Now’
Dropped In Rankings? Google’s Mistake Over Parked Domains Might Be To Blame
Google Launches Update Targeting Webspam In Search Results
Did Google’s Search Results Get Better Or Worse?
Wednesday, 30 January 2013
Sunday, 27 January 2013
Google Announces 24th Panda Refresh; Not Related To January 17th
Despite it being just five days from extremely strong signs of a Google update, which Google denied, Google announced yesterday on Twitter that they have pushed out a new Panda refresh.
This would make the 24th revision or refresh to the Panda update since launching in February 2011. This update has a noticeable impact of 1.2% of English queries. The previous once, version 23 on the holidays had an impact of about 1.3%.
Honestly, the forums are not that noisy about this change. The January 17th change, which Google said was nothing, seemed like a much larger Google search update than this 1.2% Panda refresh they announced yesterday.
This would make the 24th revision or refresh to the Panda update since launching in February 2011. This update has a noticeable impact of 1.2% of English queries. The previous once, version 23 on the holidays had an impact of about 1.3%.
Honestly, the forums are not that noisy about this change. The January 17th change, which Google said was nothing, seemed like a much larger Google search update than this 1.2% Panda refresh they announced yesterday.
Thursday, 24 January 2013
SEO Revelations for 2013
The past 2 years have brought in a tremendous amount of change in the world of search, and 2013 will be no different. More Panda releases, Penguin, The EMD update, top heavy ads, and the DMCA update all mark a shift in capabilities for Google. There is more to come.
Today I'm going to take a shot at six predictions for 2013. Some of these predictions may relate to things that you already suspect or believe, but for which tangible proof will emerge. Others may be a bit more controversial. Here goes.
1. We'll get confirmation that steering anchor text in links you get is bad.
Many have suggested that the initial Penguin algorithm included some adjustments for anchor text mix, but I think the surface has barely been scratched on that one, and I believe that Google will do a lot more to discourage artificially created anchor text.
Here is one idea of what they might do with it – instead of penalizing abusive behavior they could simply downgrade the weight of anchor text in ranking. That presumes that they have alternative signals, but I think more and more of those are becoming available (see below).
2. The relevance of a linking page will carry increasing weight.
Many of us already believe that this is a big deal, but it is still really easy to find publishers who obtain strong rankings with lots and lots of links from sites with low relevance. If you believe in links being treated like academic citations, valuing low relevance links doesn't make sense.
One possibility is that this may be driven by a shakeup in the world of guest posting. I don't believe that guest posting will become a bad practice, as there is there is a lot of value in people producing great content and having it carried on high authority sites. Such sites publishing that content does represent a legitimate endorsement of the author's expertise. However, guest posts on sites with low relevance to the topic could start to hurt the site taking the post, and stop helping the publishers that provide the posts.
3. People will finally accept that +1s are not treated by Google like a link.
Matt Cutts has stated it many different times, and in many different ways. Here is what he said in an October 2012 Google+ Hangout:
"In the short term, we're still going to have to study and see how good the signal is, so right now, there is not really a direct effect where if you have a lot of +1s, you'll rank higher."
However, we will see published proof that Google+ shares and +1s influence discovery (i.e., if you create new page, don't link to it, but then +1 it, the page will be crawled and indexed). I also think we will see specific vertical ways that +1s influence ranking, but it just won't be "like a link".
So how else are social signals going to be used in the near term? Read on!
4. Rel=author will become a ranking signal
In the same Google+ Hangout, Cutts has made several references to authorship data as a signal. Here is one of the more recent comments he made:
"...over time, as we start to learn more about who the high quality authors are, you could imagine that starting to affect rankings."
This will be the big new ranking signal for 2013. Not only that, I bet that this will go well beyond the rel=author tag. We have already seen evidence that Google is looking for more signals to flag authorship. Consider this erroneous authorship tagging example:
The article is tagged as being written by me, yet it was written by Stephan Spencer, and even says so in the snippet: "About The Author: Stephan Spencer ...". The page is properly tagged with Stephan's rel=author tag as well, pointing to his Google+ profile. Yet Google picked up my name from the bio reference to The Art of SEO.
This may in fact have something to do with my Google+ profile, and could represent tangible evidence of Google+ as an SEO signal. I believe there are lots of other ways that Google+ activity and authorship will end up interacting.
5. Google+ will begin to show some of its true influence in search results
Not just an indication that someone I know +1'ed or shared an article, but in other ways. Consider the role of Google+ in validating what other signals are saying. Imagine two sites with strong link profiles, but differing social interaction:
For this discussion, assume that all the links referenced have exactly equal value, the link signals would suggest that Site A is the better site. However, Site A has no social activity related to it.
Even if they have no active Google+ promotional effort, there should be some pulse there for a site with such a strong link profile. It just doesn't look right. It certainly seems to me, at least, that Site B is a better site which is far more likely to have earned its links naturally.
6. The industry will start to talk about the role of landing page optimization in SEO
We already have proof that this impacts search as shown in detail in this post by AJ Kohn. Consider the case of a search on link building that brings up this Search Engine Watch article:
If you stay on the article for a period of time (believed to be 2 minutes) and then to back to the SERPs, the results are altered:
The altered result displays a list of other articles I've written. This shows us two things:
Google is measuring time on site via time delays in interaction with the search results.
Google considers a longer time on site to be an indication of interest in the site by the user.
While this shows Google modifying the presentation of the results, not altering the order, there are many in the industry, including myself, that believe that Google tracks users who bounce back to the SERPs and click on a different result as a potential negative ranking signal. This would be especially true if the bounce back from the initial click happens quickly.
These are strong indicators that the user experience on your site is an SEO factor. Put simply: Want better rankings? One element of doing this is improving the user experience on your site!
Wrap Up
These are a few of the things I expect to see in 2013. One thing is quite certain – many changes will take place.
Expect another big update from Google in the first quarter of the year, and ongoing activity throughout the entire year. As always, learn to focus on serving the needs of your audience as your first priority, as this is one of your most important SEO tactics.
Today I'm going to take a shot at six predictions for 2013. Some of these predictions may relate to things that you already suspect or believe, but for which tangible proof will emerge. Others may be a bit more controversial. Here goes.
1. We'll get confirmation that steering anchor text in links you get is bad.
Many have suggested that the initial Penguin algorithm included some adjustments for anchor text mix, but I think the surface has barely been scratched on that one, and I believe that Google will do a lot more to discourage artificially created anchor text.
Here is one idea of what they might do with it – instead of penalizing abusive behavior they could simply downgrade the weight of anchor text in ranking. That presumes that they have alternative signals, but I think more and more of those are becoming available (see below).
2. The relevance of a linking page will carry increasing weight.
Many of us already believe that this is a big deal, but it is still really easy to find publishers who obtain strong rankings with lots and lots of links from sites with low relevance. If you believe in links being treated like academic citations, valuing low relevance links doesn't make sense.
One possibility is that this may be driven by a shakeup in the world of guest posting. I don't believe that guest posting will become a bad practice, as there is there is a lot of value in people producing great content and having it carried on high authority sites. Such sites publishing that content does represent a legitimate endorsement of the author's expertise. However, guest posts on sites with low relevance to the topic could start to hurt the site taking the post, and stop helping the publishers that provide the posts.
3. People will finally accept that +1s are not treated by Google like a link.
Matt Cutts has stated it many different times, and in many different ways. Here is what he said in an October 2012 Google+ Hangout:
"In the short term, we're still going to have to study and see how good the signal is, so right now, there is not really a direct effect where if you have a lot of +1s, you'll rank higher."
However, we will see published proof that Google+ shares and +1s influence discovery (i.e., if you create new page, don't link to it, but then +1 it, the page will be crawled and indexed). I also think we will see specific vertical ways that +1s influence ranking, but it just won't be "like a link".
So how else are social signals going to be used in the near term? Read on!
4. Rel=author will become a ranking signal
In the same Google+ Hangout, Cutts has made several references to authorship data as a signal. Here is one of the more recent comments he made:
"...over time, as we start to learn more about who the high quality authors are, you could imagine that starting to affect rankings."
This will be the big new ranking signal for 2013. Not only that, I bet that this will go well beyond the rel=author tag. We have already seen evidence that Google is looking for more signals to flag authorship. Consider this erroneous authorship tagging example:
The article is tagged as being written by me, yet it was written by Stephan Spencer, and even says so in the snippet: "About The Author: Stephan Spencer ...". The page is properly tagged with Stephan's rel=author tag as well, pointing to his Google+ profile. Yet Google picked up my name from the bio reference to The Art of SEO.
This may in fact have something to do with my Google+ profile, and could represent tangible evidence of Google+ as an SEO signal. I believe there are lots of other ways that Google+ activity and authorship will end up interacting.
5. Google+ will begin to show some of its true influence in search results
Not just an indication that someone I know +1'ed or shared an article, but in other ways. Consider the role of Google+ in validating what other signals are saying. Imagine two sites with strong link profiles, but differing social interaction:
For this discussion, assume that all the links referenced have exactly equal value, the link signals would suggest that Site A is the better site. However, Site A has no social activity related to it.
Even if they have no active Google+ promotional effort, there should be some pulse there for a site with such a strong link profile. It just doesn't look right. It certainly seems to me, at least, that Site B is a better site which is far more likely to have earned its links naturally.
6. The industry will start to talk about the role of landing page optimization in SEO
We already have proof that this impacts search as shown in detail in this post by AJ Kohn. Consider the case of a search on link building that brings up this Search Engine Watch article:
If you stay on the article for a period of time (believed to be 2 minutes) and then to back to the SERPs, the results are altered:
The altered result displays a list of other articles I've written. This shows us two things:
Google is measuring time on site via time delays in interaction with the search results.
Google considers a longer time on site to be an indication of interest in the site by the user.
While this shows Google modifying the presentation of the results, not altering the order, there are many in the industry, including myself, that believe that Google tracks users who bounce back to the SERPs and click on a different result as a potential negative ranking signal. This would be especially true if the bounce back from the initial click happens quickly.
These are strong indicators that the user experience on your site is an SEO factor. Put simply: Want better rankings? One element of doing this is improving the user experience on your site!
Wrap Up
These are a few of the things I expect to see in 2013. One thing is quite certain – many changes will take place.
Expect another big update from Google in the first quarter of the year, and ongoing activity throughout the entire year. As always, learn to focus on serving the needs of your audience as your first priority, as this is one of your most important SEO tactics.
Wednesday, 23 January 2013
5 Common SEO Mistakes with Web Page Titles
1. Not Having a Title
There is a tremendous number of websites that don’t have a title tag or that use a default title like "Untitled Document". Just try a search in Google for "untitled document" and you won’t believe the millions of results that matches your search.
Because search engines use your <title> tag to display in their search results, not having one — or having one that isn’t meaningful — makes it hard to find and index your pages.
Page titles give a web page some context. It tells a web robot like Google’s search spider what the web page is about.
2. Page Titles That Are Too Short or Too Long
Even though this is not a massive issue, short page titles will limit the potential of a page to rank for several keywords. Google, for example, can display up to 70 characters in their search engine results page (SERP) — why not take advantage of that?
But don’t overdo it. Keep in mind that the more keywords there are in the title, the more diluted they become. Having too many keywords in the page title, although visible by Google, can lead to the common issue of keyword cannibalization (which we will talk about next).
Terms that appear first in the title are the ones that will be given more importance. For example, if a web page talks about how to repair a broken hard drive on a Dell XPS laptop and the main keywords are "repair", "Dell", and "XPS", a title like:
<title>DIY: How to Repair a Broken Hard Drive on a Dell XPS Laptop</title>
Can be revised to:
<title>Repair a Dell XPS Laptop's Broken Hard Drive<title>
Notice how the key terms are closer to the beginning in the second example, and that it is shorter than the first example. Not only is it better for search engine ranking, but it’s also easier to read and comprehend.
Devise great titles that give your web pages meanings, and remember that web users want information quickly — don’t make them have to think about what your page titles are by writing informative page titles that are neither too short and lacking information or too long and hard to read.
3. Keyword Cannibalization
This is a situation when pages titles are stuffed with too many keywords. Keyword-stuffing is an unscrupulous tactic that a few SEO consultants use to improve their clients’ search engine rankings. Though I am an SEO consultant myself, I don’t recommend blatantly loading your pages with keywords because not only does it affect your search engine ranking’s effectiveness, but is also the reason that we sometimes see non-relevant web pages ranking highly for a specific keyword.
Because your web pages are (or should be) distinct and should have unique content, the same should be the case with page titles. Repeating the same keywords in various pages regardless of whether or not they are relevant to that particular page is not going to help, mainly for two reasons:
Irrelevant web pages may be picked up by the search engines, but will have high bounce rates as it doesn’t convert effectively due to the fact that the page isn’t what the searcher is looking for
It violates Google’s mantra of "Don’t be evil"
4. Using the Company/Site Name in All Web Pages
As previously said, Google displays up to 70 characters of a given page title in their SERPs. It does see longer ones, though, and despite what many SEO professionals preach, it isn’t a huge problem to have page titles that are greater than 70 characters in a page title.
Nevertheless, you need to think of what should and shouldn’t appear in the title. Many website owners tend to include their business name in the title, some of which can be very lengthy. What is even worse is that they want their name to appear first in every single web page.
Including your company name (unless it’s a search term that will likely be used), is unnecessary, and is consistent with some of the mistakes I’ve discussed earlier.
For example, study this title:
<title>ACME Exporting/Importing Company, LLC: Export Surfboards to Hawaii<title>
With the page title including the company’s name, it is using 37 more characters (with spaces)!
Search engine ranking might be better if it was simply:
<title>Export Surfboards to Hawaii</title>
It would make sense displaying your company name in the homepage, contact page, and about page but avoid them in content pages.
5. Duplicate Web Page Titles
Another common mistake is having duplicate page titles. This makes it difficult to determine which page is which when they are all displayed in search engine results pages.
As previously said, all of your web pages should be unique — so by logic, all of your web page titles should also be unparalleled.
There is a tremendous number of websites that don’t have a title tag or that use a default title like "Untitled Document". Just try a search in Google for "untitled document" and you won’t believe the millions of results that matches your search.
Because search engines use your <title> tag to display in their search results, not having one — or having one that isn’t meaningful — makes it hard to find and index your pages.
Page titles give a web page some context. It tells a web robot like Google’s search spider what the web page is about.
2. Page Titles That Are Too Short or Too Long
Even though this is not a massive issue, short page titles will limit the potential of a page to rank for several keywords. Google, for example, can display up to 70 characters in their search engine results page (SERP) — why not take advantage of that?
But don’t overdo it. Keep in mind that the more keywords there are in the title, the more diluted they become. Having too many keywords in the page title, although visible by Google, can lead to the common issue of keyword cannibalization (which we will talk about next).
Terms that appear first in the title are the ones that will be given more importance. For example, if a web page talks about how to repair a broken hard drive on a Dell XPS laptop and the main keywords are "repair", "Dell", and "XPS", a title like:
<title>DIY: How to Repair a Broken Hard Drive on a Dell XPS Laptop</title>
Can be revised to:
<title>Repair a Dell XPS Laptop's Broken Hard Drive<title>
Notice how the key terms are closer to the beginning in the second example, and that it is shorter than the first example. Not only is it better for search engine ranking, but it’s also easier to read and comprehend.
Devise great titles that give your web pages meanings, and remember that web users want information quickly — don’t make them have to think about what your page titles are by writing informative page titles that are neither too short and lacking information or too long and hard to read.
3. Keyword Cannibalization
This is a situation when pages titles are stuffed with too many keywords. Keyword-stuffing is an unscrupulous tactic that a few SEO consultants use to improve their clients’ search engine rankings. Though I am an SEO consultant myself, I don’t recommend blatantly loading your pages with keywords because not only does it affect your search engine ranking’s effectiveness, but is also the reason that we sometimes see non-relevant web pages ranking highly for a specific keyword.
Because your web pages are (or should be) distinct and should have unique content, the same should be the case with page titles. Repeating the same keywords in various pages regardless of whether or not they are relevant to that particular page is not going to help, mainly for two reasons:
Irrelevant web pages may be picked up by the search engines, but will have high bounce rates as it doesn’t convert effectively due to the fact that the page isn’t what the searcher is looking for
It violates Google’s mantra of "Don’t be evil"
4. Using the Company/Site Name in All Web Pages
As previously said, Google displays up to 70 characters of a given page title in their SERPs. It does see longer ones, though, and despite what many SEO professionals preach, it isn’t a huge problem to have page titles that are greater than 70 characters in a page title.
Nevertheless, you need to think of what should and shouldn’t appear in the title. Many website owners tend to include their business name in the title, some of which can be very lengthy. What is even worse is that they want their name to appear first in every single web page.
Including your company name (unless it’s a search term that will likely be used), is unnecessary, and is consistent with some of the mistakes I’ve discussed earlier.
For example, study this title:
<title>ACME Exporting/Importing Company, LLC: Export Surfboards to Hawaii<title>
With the page title including the company’s name, it is using 37 more characters (with spaces)!
Search engine ranking might be better if it was simply:
<title>Export Surfboards to Hawaii</title>
It would make sense displaying your company name in the homepage, contact page, and about page but avoid them in content pages.
5. Duplicate Web Page Titles
Another common mistake is having duplicate page titles. This makes it difficult to determine which page is which when they are all displayed in search engine results pages.
As previously said, all of your web pages should be unique — so by logic, all of your web page titles should also be unparalleled.
Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Manager
If you have used different Google products like, Google Analytics, Google Adwords, Remarking, Conversion tracking then you must be knowing that, each time you want to experiment something or track something, you need to add a separate code on your website, and if you are working in a big organization then your trouble gets doubled, as you need to run around your project manager & then webmaster who manages the coding & server of your website & request them to add new code & all that. But now, thankfully, it will not be needed with Google Tag Manager.
Yes, One code snippet & you can track whatever you want to track with Google services without adding any additional code to your website. That’s what Google Tag Manager is all about. In a recent announcement, Google shared that,
Google Tag Manager is a free tool that consolidates your website tags with a single snippet of code and lets you manage everything from a web interface. You can add and update your own tags, with just a few clicks, whenever you want, without bugging the IT folks or rewriting site code. It gives marketers greater flexibility, and lets webmasters focus on other important tasks
If you have used different Google products like, Google Analytics, Google Adwords, Remarking, Conversion tracking then you must be knowing that, each time you want to experiment something or track something, you need to add a separate code on your website, and if you are working in a big organization then your trouble gets doubled, as you need to run around your project manager & then webmaster who manages the coding & server of your website & request them to add new code & all that. But now, thankfully, it will not be needed with Google Tag Manager.
Yes, One code snippet & you can track whatever you want to track with Google services without adding any additional code to your website. That’s what Google Tag Manager is all about. In a recent announcement, Google shared that,
Google Tag Manager is a free tool that consolidates your website tags with a single snippet of code and lets you manage everything from a web interface. You can add and update your own tags, with just a few clicks, whenever you want, without bugging the IT folks or rewriting site code. It gives marketers greater flexibility, and lets webmasters focus on other important tasks
Directory Maximizer Review
Building a solid SEO strategy can do wonders for any website. The SEO world has been through various changes by Google at regular intervals. Some websites have benefited and reached the apex whereas some have been completely eradicated off the web. And then there are some websites that are hanging in between not sure where they are heading to.
With umpteen SEO & Link Building service providers out there, it makes sense to partner with the best for your SEO needs and follow the right track. SEO service providers not only help you in taking the best decisions, they also serve as a guiding light protecting you from search engine updates like Panda and Penguin which have become more frequent these days.
There are different types of SEO service providers, some offering full service, but you have to pay a huge amount as monthly fees and there are others who specialize in certain aspects of SEO such as link building, on page-optimization etc. With such services, usually you need to pay only for the services you use, not a fixed monthly fee. This post is about Directory Maximizer, a link building service provider.
Directory Maximizer and their Service Offerings
Directory Maximizer offers link building services like general, niche, paid and local directory submissions, guest blogging etc. They seem to be maintaining a good list of quality directories and they claim to submit to directories manually, which is really good. They also have a good directory selection and submission processes, ordering features, live reporting, high approval rates and good customer service.
Apart from Directory submissions, they also offer a range of other SEO services to help you build a diverse link profile thereby increasing your SERPs. Here’s a look at their services –
General Directory Submissions – They will submit your site to SEO friendly general directories one by one following each directory guidelines. This helps you build a diversified link profile. They charge a nominal fee of 14 cents per directory submission.
Niche Directory Submissions – They have a list of niche directories from 9 popular industries. If you have a site related to any of those niches, they will help you get listed in them. Niche submissions help you build links from relevant and reliable sources. Price – 96 cents per directory submission.
Paid Directory Submissions – Using this service, get permanent links from High PR directories. You can even build links to some of your inner pages using this service. Price starts from $5.5 for a PR3 directory listing.
Local Directory Submissions – Get your business listed in top local business directories making your business visible to local searchers in your area. Packages start from $30.
Custom Link Building – If you wish to submit your site to some particular directories or if you want them to source a list of directories, they help you with that as well.
Guest Blogging Service – Increase your brand visibility through their guest blogging service. Get links from relevant sites and improve your rankings as well as traffic. With $85 per article, get high quality, unique content written by native US writers.
With umpteen SEO & Link Building service providers out there, it makes sense to partner with the best for your SEO needs and follow the right track. SEO service providers not only help you in taking the best decisions, they also serve as a guiding light protecting you from search engine updates like Panda and Penguin which have become more frequent these days.
There are different types of SEO service providers, some offering full service, but you have to pay a huge amount as monthly fees and there are others who specialize in certain aspects of SEO such as link building, on page-optimization etc. With such services, usually you need to pay only for the services you use, not a fixed monthly fee. This post is about Directory Maximizer, a link building service provider.
Directory Maximizer and their Service Offerings
Directory Maximizer offers link building services like general, niche, paid and local directory submissions, guest blogging etc. They seem to be maintaining a good list of quality directories and they claim to submit to directories manually, which is really good. They also have a good directory selection and submission processes, ordering features, live reporting, high approval rates and good customer service.
Apart from Directory submissions, they also offer a range of other SEO services to help you build a diverse link profile thereby increasing your SERPs. Here’s a look at their services –
General Directory Submissions – They will submit your site to SEO friendly general directories one by one following each directory guidelines. This helps you build a diversified link profile. They charge a nominal fee of 14 cents per directory submission.
Niche Directory Submissions – They have a list of niche directories from 9 popular industries. If you have a site related to any of those niches, they will help you get listed in them. Niche submissions help you build links from relevant and reliable sources. Price – 96 cents per directory submission.
Paid Directory Submissions – Using this service, get permanent links from High PR directories. You can even build links to some of your inner pages using this service. Price starts from $5.5 for a PR3 directory listing.
Local Directory Submissions – Get your business listed in top local business directories making your business visible to local searchers in your area. Packages start from $30.
Custom Link Building – If you wish to submit your site to some particular directories or if you want them to source a list of directories, they help you with that as well.
Guest Blogging Service – Increase your brand visibility through their guest blogging service. Get links from relevant sites and improve your rankings as well as traffic. With $85 per article, get high quality, unique content written by native US writers.
What is Digital Sharecropping?
Back in August 2011 I came across this post on Copyblogger about digital sharecropping and it has stuck with me ever since. In a nutshell, digital sharecropping means you create content but then publish it on a site you have no control over, such as Facebook. You may “own” the content as the original author, but the site you published it on (the landlord, so to speak) is the one that reaps all the benefits. As Sonia Simone of Copyblogger said in her post:
In other words, anyone can create content on sites like Facebook, but that content effectively belongs to Facebook. The more content we create for free, the more valuable Facebook becomes. We do the work, they reap the profit.
So what does digital sharecropping have to do with your SEO campaign?
I’ve read more than a few blog posts and articles over the last few years that suggest it’s better to abandon the traditional website (which some say is nothing more than an online brochure) and focus the majority of your online marketing efforts into building up your social profiles. And while there is no denying the power and impact of social media marketing and social networking sites on a company’s bottom line, I firmly believe that choosing a social profile over a company website and blog is the wrong way to go and digital sharecropping is the reason why.
The Landlord Sets The Rules
When you publish your content on a platform that you don’t own 100% you are completely at the mercy and the whim of your digital landlord. Right now any company can set up a brand page for free on Facebook (and many have) but what if one day Facebook decides to make brand pages a paid service. It’s not that unreasonable to assume now, especially since the company went public. Let’s say Facebook creates a pay-to-play system and you can’t afford to pay—what happens to your online presence then? All that content you created, all those connections you created and all that traction you built up will vanish in an instant.
Digital sharecropping means the landlord (be it Facebook or another 3rd party) sets the rules and you have to play by them even if you don’t like it. I wouldn’t want me entire online presence and brand resting on the whims of someone else, would you?
Facebook Promoted Posts
Did you know that when you publish a piece of content on Facebook there is no guarantee that it goes out to all your Fans? Yup, all those hard-earned and valuable fans it took you months (or years) to get and they aren’t even seeing your updates. But wait! You can Promote your posts (for a fee of course) to ensure that all your Fans see your content. A blogger did the math and in order for her blog posts to reach all 90,600 fans she would need to pay $500 PER POST. I don’t know about you but I don’t have $500 to spend on promoting one blog post. But if that content only existed on Facebook and you had no other way of getting people to it you’re pretty much stuck with it.
You also have to realize that even when you promote your content on Facebook there is no guarantee that all 90,600 fans will check it out. And even if they do what happens then? You just paid $500 to get people who already Like and interact with your brand to interact with your brand again. Yes, it’s possible that those Fans will share your content and introduce your brand to their social network (one of the most valuable things about social networks) but I’d much rather take that $500 and invest in a company blog that I can control 100%.
In other words, anyone can create content on sites like Facebook, but that content effectively belongs to Facebook. The more content we create for free, the more valuable Facebook becomes. We do the work, they reap the profit.
So what does digital sharecropping have to do with your SEO campaign?
I’ve read more than a few blog posts and articles over the last few years that suggest it’s better to abandon the traditional website (which some say is nothing more than an online brochure) and focus the majority of your online marketing efforts into building up your social profiles. And while there is no denying the power and impact of social media marketing and social networking sites on a company’s bottom line, I firmly believe that choosing a social profile over a company website and blog is the wrong way to go and digital sharecropping is the reason why.
The Landlord Sets The Rules
When you publish your content on a platform that you don’t own 100% you are completely at the mercy and the whim of your digital landlord. Right now any company can set up a brand page for free on Facebook (and many have) but what if one day Facebook decides to make brand pages a paid service. It’s not that unreasonable to assume now, especially since the company went public. Let’s say Facebook creates a pay-to-play system and you can’t afford to pay—what happens to your online presence then? All that content you created, all those connections you created and all that traction you built up will vanish in an instant.
Digital sharecropping means the landlord (be it Facebook or another 3rd party) sets the rules and you have to play by them even if you don’t like it. I wouldn’t want me entire online presence and brand resting on the whims of someone else, would you?
Facebook Promoted Posts
Did you know that when you publish a piece of content on Facebook there is no guarantee that it goes out to all your Fans? Yup, all those hard-earned and valuable fans it took you months (or years) to get and they aren’t even seeing your updates. But wait! You can Promote your posts (for a fee of course) to ensure that all your Fans see your content. A blogger did the math and in order for her blog posts to reach all 90,600 fans she would need to pay $500 PER POST. I don’t know about you but I don’t have $500 to spend on promoting one blog post. But if that content only existed on Facebook and you had no other way of getting people to it you’re pretty much stuck with it.
You also have to realize that even when you promote your content on Facebook there is no guarantee that all 90,600 fans will check it out. And even if they do what happens then? You just paid $500 to get people who already Like and interact with your brand to interact with your brand again. Yes, it’s possible that those Fans will share your content and introduce your brand to their social network (one of the most valuable things about social networks) but I’d much rather take that $500 and invest in a company blog that I can control 100%.
Google Panda Update vs. Google Penguin Updates
The SEO community has been a buzz this past week with the latest update from Google, named Penguin. Penguin came down the pipeline last week, right on the tail of the latest Panda update. Since most of the big updates in the past year have been focused on Panda, many site owners are left wondering what the real differences between Panda and Penguin are. Here is a breakdown:
Google Panda Update Overview:
According to Google’s official blog post when Panda launched,
This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.
Basically, Panda updates are designed to target pages that aren’t necessarily spam but aren’t great quality. This was the first ever penalty that went after “thin content,” and the sites that were hit hardest by the first Panda update were content farms (hence why it was originally called the Farmer update), where users could publish dozens of low-quality, keyword stuffed articles that offered little to no real value for the reader. Many publishers would submit the same article to a bunch of these content farms just to get extra links.
Panda is a site wide penalty, which means that if “enough” (no specific number) pages of your site were flagged for having thin content, your entire site could be penalized. Panda was also intended to stop scrappers (sites that would republish other company’s content) from outranking the original author’s content.
Here is a breakdown of all the Panda updates and their release dates. If your site’s traffic took a major hit around one of these times there is a good chance it was flagged by Panda
1. Panda 1.0 (aka the Farmer Update) on February 24th 2011
2. Panda 2.0 on April 11th 2011. (Panda impacts all English speaking countries)
3. Panda 2.1 on May 9th 2011 or so
4. Panda 2.2 on June 18th 2011 or so.
5. Panda 2.3 on around July 22nd 2011.
6. Panda 2.4 in August 2011(Panda goes international)
7. Panda 2.5 on September 28th 2011
8. Panda 2.5.1 on October 9th 2011
9. Panda 2.5.2 on October 13th 2011
10. Panda 2.5.3 on October 19/20th 2011
11. Panda 3.1 on November 18th 2011
12. Panda 3.2 on about January 15th 2012
13. Panda 3.3 on about February 26th 2012
14. Panda 3.4 on March 23rd 2012
15. Panda 3.5 on April 19th 2012
16. Panda 3.6 on April 27th 2012
17. Panda 3.7 on June 8th 2012
18. Panda 3.8 on June 25th 2012
19. Panda 3.9 on July 24th 2012
20. Panda 3.9.1 on August 20th 2012
21. Panda 3.9.2 on September 18th 2012
22. Panda Update #20 on September 27 2012 (overlapped the EMD Update)
23. Panda #21 on November 5th 2012
24. Panda #22 on December 4th 2012
25. Panda #23 on December 21st 2012
Search Engine Land recently created this great Google Panda update infographic to help walk site owners through the many versions of the Google Panda updates.
Many site owners complained that even after they made changes to their sites in order to be more “Panda friendly,” their sites didn’t automatically recover. Panda updates do not happen at regular intervals, and Google doesn’t re-index every site each time, so some site owners were forced to deal with low traffic for several months until Google got around to re-crawling their website and taking note of any positive changes.
Google Penguin Update Overview:
The Google Penguin Update launched on April 24. According to the Google blog, Penguin is an “important algorithm change targeted at webspam. The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines.” Google mentions that typical black hat SEO tactics like keyword stuffing (long considered webspam) would get a site in trouble, but less obvious tactics (link incorporating irrelevant outgoing links into a page of content) would also cause Penguin to flag your site. Says Google,
Sites affected by this change might not be easily recognizable as spamming without deep analysis or expertise, but the common thread is that these sites are doing much more than white hat SEO; we believe they are engaging in webspam tactics to manipulate search engine rankings.
Site owners should be sure to check their Google Webmaster accounts for any messages from Google warning about your past spam activity and a potential penalty. Google says that Penguin has impacted about 3.1% of queries (compared to Panda 1.0’s 12%). If you saw major traffic losses between April 24th and April 25th, chances are Penguin is the culprit, even though Panda 3.5 came out around the same time.
Unfortunately, Google has yet to outline exactly what signals Penguin is picking up on, so many site owners that were negatively impacted are in the dark as to where they want wrong with their onsite SEO. Many in the SEO community have speculated that some contributing factors to Penguin might be things like:
1. Aggressive exact-match anchor text
2. Overuse of exact-match domains
3. Low-quality article marketing & blog spam
4. Keyword stuffing in internal/outbound links
It’s important to remember that Panda is an algorithm update, not a manual penalty. A reconsideration request to Google won’t make much a difference–you’ll have to repair your site and wait for a refresh before your site will recover. As always do not panic if you are seeing a down turn in traffic, in the past when there is a major Google update like this things often rebound. If you do think you have some sort of SEO penalty as a result of either the Google Panda or Google Penguin updates, please contact your SEO service provider to help or start trouble shooting.
Google has so far rolled out the following Penguin updates:
1. Initial Penguin Update, April 24th 2012
2. Penguin 1.1, May 25th 2012
3. Penguin #3, October 9th 2012
Google Panda Update Overview:
According to Google’s official blog post when Panda launched,
This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.
Basically, Panda updates are designed to target pages that aren’t necessarily spam but aren’t great quality. This was the first ever penalty that went after “thin content,” and the sites that were hit hardest by the first Panda update were content farms (hence why it was originally called the Farmer update), where users could publish dozens of low-quality, keyword stuffed articles that offered little to no real value for the reader. Many publishers would submit the same article to a bunch of these content farms just to get extra links.
Panda is a site wide penalty, which means that if “enough” (no specific number) pages of your site were flagged for having thin content, your entire site could be penalized. Panda was also intended to stop scrappers (sites that would republish other company’s content) from outranking the original author’s content.
Here is a breakdown of all the Panda updates and their release dates. If your site’s traffic took a major hit around one of these times there is a good chance it was flagged by Panda
1. Panda 1.0 (aka the Farmer Update) on February 24th 2011
2. Panda 2.0 on April 11th 2011. (Panda impacts all English speaking countries)
3. Panda 2.1 on May 9th 2011 or so
4. Panda 2.2 on June 18th 2011 or so.
5. Panda 2.3 on around July 22nd 2011.
6. Panda 2.4 in August 2011(Panda goes international)
7. Panda 2.5 on September 28th 2011
8. Panda 2.5.1 on October 9th 2011
9. Panda 2.5.2 on October 13th 2011
10. Panda 2.5.3 on October 19/20th 2011
11. Panda 3.1 on November 18th 2011
12. Panda 3.2 on about January 15th 2012
13. Panda 3.3 on about February 26th 2012
14. Panda 3.4 on March 23rd 2012
15. Panda 3.5 on April 19th 2012
16. Panda 3.6 on April 27th 2012
17. Panda 3.7 on June 8th 2012
18. Panda 3.8 on June 25th 2012
19. Panda 3.9 on July 24th 2012
20. Panda 3.9.1 on August 20th 2012
21. Panda 3.9.2 on September 18th 2012
22. Panda Update #20 on September 27 2012 (overlapped the EMD Update)
23. Panda #21 on November 5th 2012
24. Panda #22 on December 4th 2012
25. Panda #23 on December 21st 2012
Search Engine Land recently created this great Google Panda update infographic to help walk site owners through the many versions of the Google Panda updates.
Many site owners complained that even after they made changes to their sites in order to be more “Panda friendly,” their sites didn’t automatically recover. Panda updates do not happen at regular intervals, and Google doesn’t re-index every site each time, so some site owners were forced to deal with low traffic for several months until Google got around to re-crawling their website and taking note of any positive changes.
Google Penguin Update Overview:
The Google Penguin Update launched on April 24. According to the Google blog, Penguin is an “important algorithm change targeted at webspam. The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines.” Google mentions that typical black hat SEO tactics like keyword stuffing (long considered webspam) would get a site in trouble, but less obvious tactics (link incorporating irrelevant outgoing links into a page of content) would also cause Penguin to flag your site. Says Google,
Sites affected by this change might not be easily recognizable as spamming without deep analysis or expertise, but the common thread is that these sites are doing much more than white hat SEO; we believe they are engaging in webspam tactics to manipulate search engine rankings.
Site owners should be sure to check their Google Webmaster accounts for any messages from Google warning about your past spam activity and a potential penalty. Google says that Penguin has impacted about 3.1% of queries (compared to Panda 1.0’s 12%). If you saw major traffic losses between April 24th and April 25th, chances are Penguin is the culprit, even though Panda 3.5 came out around the same time.
Unfortunately, Google has yet to outline exactly what signals Penguin is picking up on, so many site owners that were negatively impacted are in the dark as to where they want wrong with their onsite SEO. Many in the SEO community have speculated that some contributing factors to Penguin might be things like:
1. Aggressive exact-match anchor text
2. Overuse of exact-match domains
3. Low-quality article marketing & blog spam
4. Keyword stuffing in internal/outbound links
It’s important to remember that Panda is an algorithm update, not a manual penalty. A reconsideration request to Google won’t make much a difference–you’ll have to repair your site and wait for a refresh before your site will recover. As always do not panic if you are seeing a down turn in traffic, in the past when there is a major Google update like this things often rebound. If you do think you have some sort of SEO penalty as a result of either the Google Panda or Google Penguin updates, please contact your SEO service provider to help or start trouble shooting.
Google has so far rolled out the following Penguin updates:
1. Initial Penguin Update, April 24th 2012
2. Penguin 1.1, May 25th 2012
3. Penguin #3, October 9th 2012
Monday, 21 January 2013
Innovative SEO : Now An Inbound Marketer
Well, Yes, New Year greeting message does not go well with the Title, but then it’s the reality :(Since you are reading this blog that means that some way you are connected with SEO Industry and you might be shock or surprised but the truth is, YES, SEO is going to die in 2013.
So, What’s Next ?
Well, Death is not the end but a new beginning, and that’s what applies to SEO. With major update of Google Panda & Google Penguin, the old school SEO techniques will not going to play anymore. Google has changed the rule & make it stricter to offer quality & relevant results to its user. All those Back link game of Article submission, Press Release & Directory submission are slowly getting replaced with Citation, Social signals & mentions.
Ah ? So, What exactly changed? Well, the way SEO was done has been changed, the way Online promotion done is going to change in 2013 & Industry refer it as “Inbound Marketing”.
What is Inbound Marketing ?
· Inbound Marketing is about earning a visitor with interesting content useful to visitors.
· Its about getting found & not about shouting on the face.
· And when we say, content, it widen its definition and includes, Text, Image, Video, Info-graphics, Flash, Audio, anything form of inf
In 2013, Its all about earning visitor & with series of update I can sense with Google, it requires holistic approach for Online Marketing,
3 Predictions about Online Marketing in 2013
1. Now only SEO, Only SEM or Only SMO will not work to make campaign successful. One needs to expand their skills in all these areas to be successful in Online medium.
2. In 2013, the goal of marketing will to be to “get found” by customers when they are looking, not “get in their face”. Marketers need to transform from “telling & selling” action plan to “building relationship” goals.
3. Inbound Marketers will be In-demand, Individual skill experts needs to enhance their skill to survive in this Online Industry.
And so, I predict that, it’s a death of SEO and if you are an SEO expert, its high time you adapt to “Inbound Marketing” to survive till the next change :)
Anything missed out, then please share in comments? Would love to know your opinion about Death of SEO ? Do you guys agree with me?
Friday, 18 January 2013
Building a solid SEO strategy can do wonders for any website
Building a solid SEO strategy can do wonders for any website. The SEO world has been through various changes by Google at regular intervals. Some websites have benefited and reached the apex whereas some have been completely eradicated off the web. And then there are some websites that are hanging in between not sure where they are heading to.
With umpteen SEO & Link Building service providers out there, it makes sense to partner with the best for your SEO needs and follow the right track. SEO service providers not only help you in taking the best decisions, they also serve as a guiding light protecting you from search engine updates like Panda and Penguin which have become more frequent these days.
There are different types of SEO service providers, some offering full service, but you have to pay a huge amount as monthly fees and there are others who specialize in certain aspects of SEO such as link building, on page-optimization etc. With such services, usually you need to pay only for the services you use, not a fixed monthly fee. This post is about Directory Maximizer, a link building service provider.
Directory Maximizer and their Service Offerings
Directory Maximizer offers link building services like general, niche, paid and local directory submissions, guest blogging etc. They seem to be maintaining a good list of quality directories and they claim to submit to directories manually, which is really good. They also have a good directory selection and submission processes, ordering features, live reporting, high approval rates and good customer service.
Apart from Directory submissions, they also offer a range of other SEO services to help you build a diverse link profile thereby increasing your SERPs. Here’s a look at their services –
General Directory Submissions – They will submit your site to SEO friendly general directories one by one following each directory guidelines. This helps you build a diversified link profile. They charge a nominal fee of 14 cents per directory submission.
Niche Directory Submissions – They have a list of niche directories from 9 popular industries. If you have a site related to any of those niches, they will help you get listed in them. Niche submissions help you build links from relevant and reliable sources. Price – 96 cents per directory submission.
Paid Directory Submissions – Using this service, get permanent links from High PR directories. You can even build links to some of your inner pages using this service. Price starts from $5.5 for a PR3 directory listing.
Local Directory Submissions – Get your business listed in top local business directories making your business visible to local searchers in your area. Packages start from $30.
Custom Link Building – If you wish to submit your site to some particular directories or if you want them to source a list of directories, they help you with that as well.
Guest Blogging Service – Increase your brand visibility through their guest blogging service. Get links from relevant sites and improve your rankings as well as traffic. With $85 per article, get high quality, unique content written by native US writers.
With umpteen SEO & Link Building service providers out there, it makes sense to partner with the best for your SEO needs and follow the right track. SEO service providers not only help you in taking the best decisions, they also serve as a guiding light protecting you from search engine updates like Panda and Penguin which have become more frequent these days.
There are different types of SEO service providers, some offering full service, but you have to pay a huge amount as monthly fees and there are others who specialize in certain aspects of SEO such as link building, on page-optimization etc. With such services, usually you need to pay only for the services you use, not a fixed monthly fee. This post is about Directory Maximizer, a link building service provider.
Directory Maximizer and their Service Offerings
Directory Maximizer offers link building services like general, niche, paid and local directory submissions, guest blogging etc. They seem to be maintaining a good list of quality directories and they claim to submit to directories manually, which is really good. They also have a good directory selection and submission processes, ordering features, live reporting, high approval rates and good customer service.
Apart from Directory submissions, they also offer a range of other SEO services to help you build a diverse link profile thereby increasing your SERPs. Here’s a look at their services –
General Directory Submissions – They will submit your site to SEO friendly general directories one by one following each directory guidelines. This helps you build a diversified link profile. They charge a nominal fee of 14 cents per directory submission.
Niche Directory Submissions – They have a list of niche directories from 9 popular industries. If you have a site related to any of those niches, they will help you get listed in them. Niche submissions help you build links from relevant and reliable sources. Price – 96 cents per directory submission.
Paid Directory Submissions – Using this service, get permanent links from High PR directories. You can even build links to some of your inner pages using this service. Price starts from $5.5 for a PR3 directory listing.
Local Directory Submissions – Get your business listed in top local business directories making your business visible to local searchers in your area. Packages start from $30.
Custom Link Building – If you wish to submit your site to some particular directories or if you want them to source a list of directories, they help you with that as well.
Guest Blogging Service – Increase your brand visibility through their guest blogging service. Get links from relevant sites and improve your rankings as well as traffic. With $85 per article, get high quality, unique content written by native US writers.
Thursday, 17 January 2013
Updates - 17/01/2013
Top News
Report: PLAs Drove 28% Of Google Non-Brand Ad Clicks In Q4
Jan 16, 2013 at 3:51pm ET by Ginny Marvin
Google Product Listing Ads generated 28% of Google non-brand clicks in Q4 according to RKG’s latest Digital Marketing Report released today. PLA CPCs were 26% lower than CPCs for competitive text ads. RKG also found a larger than average gap between bids and actual CPCs for PLAs, suggesting competition is still relatively light. Product Listing Ads [...]
________________________________________
Up Close With Facebook Graph Search
Jan 15, 2013 at 4:38pm ET by Danny Sullivan
We’ve covered the launch of Facebook Graph Search, explored how it differs from Google search but now it’s time for the hands-on. Come along for a tour of how it works. Sign-Up & Wait To get started, you have to sign-up, where you’ll be added to a waiting list. There’s no particular ETA of when [...]
________________________________________
SEO For Facebook Graph Search? Facebook Has Some Tips
Jan 15, 2013 at 3:04pm ET by Matt McGee
With today’s announcement of the new Facebook Graph Search, many business owners will eventually be wondering, “How do I make sure my business gets found in Facebook search?” Never fear: Facebook itself has already shared a few tips to help make that happen. We’ll get to that below, but first a quick bit of background [...]
________________________________________
How The New Facebook Search Is Different & Unique From Google Search
Jan 15, 2013 at 2:22pm ET by Danny Sullivan
At long last, Facebook’s search challenge to Google has arrived. But it has arrived in a much different format than many expected. Indeed, Facebook’s not using its data to provide a better search than Google. Facebook is providing a new type of search that you simply can’t do on Google or anywhere else. The Connections [...]
________________________________________
Facebook Graph Search Arrives To Challenge Google, Yelp, Foursquare & Others
Jan 15, 2013 at 1:23pm ET by Matt McGee
After largely ignoring that little white box at the top of its interface for years, Facebook is finally getting serious about search. The company announced today a new experience that it’s calling Facebook Graph Search. It relies heavily on “Likes” and other connections to determine what to show as the most relevant search results for [...]
________________________________________
77 Percent Of Online Health Seekers Start At Search Engines [Pew Study]
Jan 15, 2013 at 12:05am ET by Matt McGee
Although there’s long been a debate over the accuracy of health information online, many U.S. Internet users aren’t hesitant to use the Web when they want answers to health-related questions. And rather than dedicated health sites, the vast majority of them begin their research at a search engine. A new study out tonight from the [...]
________________________________________
Welcome AJ Kohn & Ginny Marvin To Search Engine Land, Marketing Land
Jan 14, 2013 at 4:13pm ET by Matt McGee
It’s a pleasure to announce the two newest members of our Third Door Media editorial team: AJ Kohn and Ginny Marvin. Ginny joins us as a Contributing Writer and will focus primarily on covering paid advertising topics — paid search on Search Engine Land and paid social media/display advertising on Marketing Land, for example. When [...]
________________________________________
Wayback Machine Now Has 240 Billion URLs
Jan 14, 2013 at 7:01am ET by Gary Price
The Wayback Machine from the Internet Archive, one of the most useful and important Internet research tools, recently reached a major milestone. In a blog post, archive founder Brewster Kahle announced that The Wayback Machine now provides access an index containing more than 240 billion URLs (about five petabytes of data), with archived pages dating [...]
________________________________________
RIP Aaron Swartz, One Of The Earliest Google Bloggers
Jan 12, 2013 at 2:35pm ET by Danny Sullivan
I was saddened to see the news that Aaron Swartz had committed suicide. Such a tragedy. Swartz is known for a wide-range of things, such as helping create Reddit, RSS and being an internet activist. But I remember him most as one of the earliest Google bloggers. The Google Weblog went up on March 17, [...]
________________________________________
Why Asking StumbleUpon To Remove Your Links Is Dumb
Jan 11, 2013 at 11:53am ET by Danny Sullivan
Turns out, StumbleUpon is getting regular requests each week from people asking for it to remove links to their sites, people who are worried that being linked to from a popular and long-standing social media sharing site is somehow hurting them with Google. The linksanity sadly continues. Every since Google stepped up its attack on [...]
________________________________________
Analyst: Mobile Continues To Take Share From Desktop Search
Jan 11, 2013 at 10:20am ET by Greg Sterling
Later today comScore will release its US search market share numbers for December 2012. Based on early release information from Wall Street analysts this is what the numbers will be: Google: 66.7 percent (vs. 67 percent in November) Bing: 16.3 percent (vs. 16.2 percent in November) Yahoo: 12.2 percent (vs. 12.1 percent in November) Ask: [...]
________________________________________
EU Antitrust Chief: Google “Diverting Traffic” & Will Be Forced To Change
Jan 10, 2013 at 1:12pm ET by Danny Sullivan
While saying he’s “still investigating,” the head of the European Union’s antitrust regulatory body has told the Financial Times that he’s convinced Google is “diverting traffic” and that it will be forced to change its results. From the FT interview: “We are still investigating, but my conviction is [Google] are diverting traffic,” Mr. Almunia told the [...]
________________________________________
Reports: Tablet Paid-Search Spend Surpasses Smartphones
Jan 10, 2013 at 10:55am ET by Greg Sterling
Two reports out this morning from Marin Software and IgnitionOne capture a range of Q4 paid search ad spending data. For purposes of this article I’m going to focus only on the mobile component of the reports. Both show paid search spending on tablets surpassing smartphones. The IgnitionOne report, focused on the US market, shows [...]
________________________________________
Survey Shows Americans Confused By How Google, Facebook Make Money
Jan 9, 2013 at 10:14am ET by Greg Sterling
A new survey from Harris Interactive on behalf of The Search Agency finds, among other things, that large numbers of people in the US don’t really understand how Facebook and Google make money. The online survey was conducted in August 2012 with a sample of just over 2,000 adults. The Search Agency (via Harris) asked [...]
________________________________________
Google, Mobile Search And The Paradox Of Competition
Jan 8, 2013 at 12:28pm ET by Greg Sterling
How much does Google figure into the “future of search,” whose advances will largely be determined by mobile and non-traditional devices? That’s a hard question to answer. On the one hand Google is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) brand in the world, with almost unlimited resources to develop technology or buy companies [...]
________________________________________
Google Is Hiring Someone To Find Ways To Make You Want To Search While Signed-In
Jan 8, 2013 at 9:09am ET by Barry Schwartz
Google is hiring a new product marketing manager for search with one of the key goals being to find ways to get people to sign-in while they search. The job description says: As Product Marketing Manager within the search growth team, you will be responsible to developing plans, creatives, campaigns and programs to increase the [...]
________________________________________
Google Fixes Definition URLs, Makes Them Clickable Links
Jan 8, 2013 at 9:05am ET by Danny Sullivan
When Google introduced a new format last month for the definitions it sometimes shows at the top of its search results, something was missing. The source URL wasn’t a clickable link. That’s now been fixed. Here’s an example, the definition box that Google shows for a “define speed of light” search: The URL shown under [...]
________________________________________
Library Of Congress Struggling To Make A Searchable Twitter Archive
Jan 7, 2013 at 8:02am ET by Matt McGee
The Library of Congress is still working on plans to create a searchable archive of nearly every public tweet ever sent, but the challenges inherent in that task are making it a slow process. Understandably so, considering the substantial growth in tweets in recent years; the LoC is essentially trying to tame a very rapidly [...]
________________________________________
The Strange Explanation Of Why Windows Phone Users Lost Access To Google Maps
Jan 5, 2013 at 10:32pm ET by Danny Sullivan
On Friday, Windows Phone users supposedly found themselves unable to access Google Maps. But Google said it made no sudden change on its end to cause this. What happened? It seems likely many people simple noticed for the first time long-standing redirection that Google had in place for those not using Android or iOS devices. Windows Phone [...]
________________________________________
From Praise To Outrage: Reactions To Google’s Antitrust Settlement
Jan 4, 2013 at 2:54pm ET by Greg Sterling
The post-mortem analysis of Google’s antitrust settlement happened very quickly yesterday and this morning with some journalists and analysts concluding that factors other than the law were responsible behind the scenes. For example, Politico asserts it was largely “a calculated and expensive charm offensive” (lobbying) that drove the outcome yesterday. An even more absurd analysis argues that [...]
Report: PLAs Drove 28% Of Google Non-Brand Ad Clicks In Q4
Jan 16, 2013 at 3:51pm ET by Ginny Marvin
Google Product Listing Ads generated 28% of Google non-brand clicks in Q4 according to RKG’s latest Digital Marketing Report released today. PLA CPCs were 26% lower than CPCs for competitive text ads. RKG also found a larger than average gap between bids and actual CPCs for PLAs, suggesting competition is still relatively light. Product Listing Ads [...]
________________________________________
Up Close With Facebook Graph Search
Jan 15, 2013 at 4:38pm ET by Danny Sullivan
We’ve covered the launch of Facebook Graph Search, explored how it differs from Google search but now it’s time for the hands-on. Come along for a tour of how it works. Sign-Up & Wait To get started, you have to sign-up, where you’ll be added to a waiting list. There’s no particular ETA of when [...]
________________________________________
SEO For Facebook Graph Search? Facebook Has Some Tips
Jan 15, 2013 at 3:04pm ET by Matt McGee
With today’s announcement of the new Facebook Graph Search, many business owners will eventually be wondering, “How do I make sure my business gets found in Facebook search?” Never fear: Facebook itself has already shared a few tips to help make that happen. We’ll get to that below, but first a quick bit of background [...]
________________________________________
How The New Facebook Search Is Different & Unique From Google Search
Jan 15, 2013 at 2:22pm ET by Danny Sullivan
At long last, Facebook’s search challenge to Google has arrived. But it has arrived in a much different format than many expected. Indeed, Facebook’s not using its data to provide a better search than Google. Facebook is providing a new type of search that you simply can’t do on Google or anywhere else. The Connections [...]
________________________________________
Facebook Graph Search Arrives To Challenge Google, Yelp, Foursquare & Others
Jan 15, 2013 at 1:23pm ET by Matt McGee
After largely ignoring that little white box at the top of its interface for years, Facebook is finally getting serious about search. The company announced today a new experience that it’s calling Facebook Graph Search. It relies heavily on “Likes” and other connections to determine what to show as the most relevant search results for [...]
________________________________________
77 Percent Of Online Health Seekers Start At Search Engines [Pew Study]
Jan 15, 2013 at 12:05am ET by Matt McGee
Although there’s long been a debate over the accuracy of health information online, many U.S. Internet users aren’t hesitant to use the Web when they want answers to health-related questions. And rather than dedicated health sites, the vast majority of them begin their research at a search engine. A new study out tonight from the [...]
________________________________________
Welcome AJ Kohn & Ginny Marvin To Search Engine Land, Marketing Land
Jan 14, 2013 at 4:13pm ET by Matt McGee
It’s a pleasure to announce the two newest members of our Third Door Media editorial team: AJ Kohn and Ginny Marvin. Ginny joins us as a Contributing Writer and will focus primarily on covering paid advertising topics — paid search on Search Engine Land and paid social media/display advertising on Marketing Land, for example. When [...]
________________________________________
Wayback Machine Now Has 240 Billion URLs
Jan 14, 2013 at 7:01am ET by Gary Price
The Wayback Machine from the Internet Archive, one of the most useful and important Internet research tools, recently reached a major milestone. In a blog post, archive founder Brewster Kahle announced that The Wayback Machine now provides access an index containing more than 240 billion URLs (about five petabytes of data), with archived pages dating [...]
________________________________________
RIP Aaron Swartz, One Of The Earliest Google Bloggers
Jan 12, 2013 at 2:35pm ET by Danny Sullivan
I was saddened to see the news that Aaron Swartz had committed suicide. Such a tragedy. Swartz is known for a wide-range of things, such as helping create Reddit, RSS and being an internet activist. But I remember him most as one of the earliest Google bloggers. The Google Weblog went up on March 17, [...]
________________________________________
Why Asking StumbleUpon To Remove Your Links Is Dumb
Jan 11, 2013 at 11:53am ET by Danny Sullivan
Turns out, StumbleUpon is getting regular requests each week from people asking for it to remove links to their sites, people who are worried that being linked to from a popular and long-standing social media sharing site is somehow hurting them with Google. The linksanity sadly continues. Every since Google stepped up its attack on [...]
________________________________________
Analyst: Mobile Continues To Take Share From Desktop Search
Jan 11, 2013 at 10:20am ET by Greg Sterling
Later today comScore will release its US search market share numbers for December 2012. Based on early release information from Wall Street analysts this is what the numbers will be: Google: 66.7 percent (vs. 67 percent in November) Bing: 16.3 percent (vs. 16.2 percent in November) Yahoo: 12.2 percent (vs. 12.1 percent in November) Ask: [...]
________________________________________
EU Antitrust Chief: Google “Diverting Traffic” & Will Be Forced To Change
Jan 10, 2013 at 1:12pm ET by Danny Sullivan
While saying he’s “still investigating,” the head of the European Union’s antitrust regulatory body has told the Financial Times that he’s convinced Google is “diverting traffic” and that it will be forced to change its results. From the FT interview: “We are still investigating, but my conviction is [Google] are diverting traffic,” Mr. Almunia told the [...]
________________________________________
Reports: Tablet Paid-Search Spend Surpasses Smartphones
Jan 10, 2013 at 10:55am ET by Greg Sterling
Two reports out this morning from Marin Software and IgnitionOne capture a range of Q4 paid search ad spending data. For purposes of this article I’m going to focus only on the mobile component of the reports. Both show paid search spending on tablets surpassing smartphones. The IgnitionOne report, focused on the US market, shows [...]
________________________________________
Survey Shows Americans Confused By How Google, Facebook Make Money
Jan 9, 2013 at 10:14am ET by Greg Sterling
A new survey from Harris Interactive on behalf of The Search Agency finds, among other things, that large numbers of people in the US don’t really understand how Facebook and Google make money. The online survey was conducted in August 2012 with a sample of just over 2,000 adults. The Search Agency (via Harris) asked [...]
________________________________________
Google, Mobile Search And The Paradox Of Competition
Jan 8, 2013 at 12:28pm ET by Greg Sterling
How much does Google figure into the “future of search,” whose advances will largely be determined by mobile and non-traditional devices? That’s a hard question to answer. On the one hand Google is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) brand in the world, with almost unlimited resources to develop technology or buy companies [...]
________________________________________
Google Is Hiring Someone To Find Ways To Make You Want To Search While Signed-In
Jan 8, 2013 at 9:09am ET by Barry Schwartz
Google is hiring a new product marketing manager for search with one of the key goals being to find ways to get people to sign-in while they search. The job description says: As Product Marketing Manager within the search growth team, you will be responsible to developing plans, creatives, campaigns and programs to increase the [...]
________________________________________
Google Fixes Definition URLs, Makes Them Clickable Links
Jan 8, 2013 at 9:05am ET by Danny Sullivan
When Google introduced a new format last month for the definitions it sometimes shows at the top of its search results, something was missing. The source URL wasn’t a clickable link. That’s now been fixed. Here’s an example, the definition box that Google shows for a “define speed of light” search: The URL shown under [...]
________________________________________
Library Of Congress Struggling To Make A Searchable Twitter Archive
Jan 7, 2013 at 8:02am ET by Matt McGee
The Library of Congress is still working on plans to create a searchable archive of nearly every public tweet ever sent, but the challenges inherent in that task are making it a slow process. Understandably so, considering the substantial growth in tweets in recent years; the LoC is essentially trying to tame a very rapidly [...]
________________________________________
The Strange Explanation Of Why Windows Phone Users Lost Access To Google Maps
Jan 5, 2013 at 10:32pm ET by Danny Sullivan
On Friday, Windows Phone users supposedly found themselves unable to access Google Maps. But Google said it made no sudden change on its end to cause this. What happened? It seems likely many people simple noticed for the first time long-standing redirection that Google had in place for those not using Android or iOS devices. Windows Phone [...]
________________________________________
From Praise To Outrage: Reactions To Google’s Antitrust Settlement
Jan 4, 2013 at 2:54pm ET by Greg Sterling
The post-mortem analysis of Google’s antitrust settlement happened very quickly yesterday and this morning with some journalists and analysts concluding that factors other than the law were responsible behind the scenes. For example, Politico asserts it was largely “a calculated and expensive charm offensive” (lobbying) that drove the outcome yesterday. An even more absurd analysis argues that [...]
Links From Press Releases Do Have Ranking Benefit Despite What Google Says
A few weeks ago, Google's Matt Cutts posted in the Google forums that links from within press releases do not "benefit your rankings." I covered this tidbit of news at the Search Engine Roundtable and it got a lot of feedback from the community. Today, the SEO Consult blog posted a test showing how links from within press releases can indeed have a ranking benefit in Google. This was tested, ironically, on Matt Cutts blog, where SEO Consult issued a press release on PR.com with the anchor text "sreppleasers" pointing to Matt's blog. The press release was indexed by Google and shortly lat [...]
Related Topics: Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Link Building: General | Link Building: Paid Links
Related Topics: Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Link Building: General | Link Building: Paid Links
Monday, 7 January 2013
The process of involved in generating leads is time consuming and complex if you do not possess the tools and equipments, as well as skills and knowledge needed for it.
The process of involved in generating leads is time consuming and complex if you do not possess the tools and equipments, as well as skills and knowledge needed for it. If you want to ensure that you will be able to respond to the leads immediately, it would be better to hire the services of companies that specialize in this field.
You will find many companies that offer leads generation services online. They will always try to persuade you through flowery words and tempting prices. However, you need to spend some time in checking the quality of their services to ensure that you are picking the right one. The right company can help you prepare a message for potential clients and send traffic your way.
When you are choosing a lead generation company, the first thing you need to do is to check their experience. You need to make sure that they have a consistent record of excellence throughout their years of practice. The company must be able to provide a list of referrals to you so that you can use them as a reference when checking the quality of their services. Furthermore, it is important to look for companies that are willing to learn more about your business, so that they will be able to create and launch the perfect campaign for it.
The company must have a complete set of tools, equipments and personnel needed for analysing lead traffic and ensure that you will get the best benefit from their services. Of course, the trends always change and this will affect the way you generate the leads. Therefore, you need to make sure that the company will be able to go along with the changes and make the necessary adjustments in order to generate leads effectively.
Utilizing the internet to your advantage will enable you to get ahead of the competition. Instead of following the traditional way of advertising through pamphlets and printed media, it would be much better to hire the services of reputable lead generation companies. Effective lead generation will enable you to identify your targeted audience, reply to their inquiries and convince them to buy or hire your products and services. The quicker you respond to your leads, the higher your chances of converting them into regular customers. Therefore, we can conclude that lead generation can help you increase your sales, which is very essential for business growth.
Read more: http://latestseoupdates.com/#ixzz2HPVPIl6K - See more at: http://latestseoupdates.com/#sthash.EFp5axzw.dpuf
You will find many companies that offer leads generation services online. They will always try to persuade you through flowery words and tempting prices. However, you need to spend some time in checking the quality of their services to ensure that you are picking the right one. The right company can help you prepare a message for potential clients and send traffic your way.
When you are choosing a lead generation company, the first thing you need to do is to check their experience. You need to make sure that they have a consistent record of excellence throughout their years of practice. The company must be able to provide a list of referrals to you so that you can use them as a reference when checking the quality of their services. Furthermore, it is important to look for companies that are willing to learn more about your business, so that they will be able to create and launch the perfect campaign for it.
The company must have a complete set of tools, equipments and personnel needed for analysing lead traffic and ensure that you will get the best benefit from their services. Of course, the trends always change and this will affect the way you generate the leads. Therefore, you need to make sure that the company will be able to go along with the changes and make the necessary adjustments in order to generate leads effectively.
Utilizing the internet to your advantage will enable you to get ahead of the competition. Instead of following the traditional way of advertising through pamphlets and printed media, it would be much better to hire the services of reputable lead generation companies. Effective lead generation will enable you to identify your targeted audience, reply to their inquiries and convince them to buy or hire your products and services. The quicker you respond to your leads, the higher your chances of converting them into regular customers. Therefore, we can conclude that lead generation can help you increase your sales, which is very essential for business growth.
Read more: http://latestseoupdates.com/#ixzz2HPVPIl6K - See more at: http://latestseoupdates.com/#sthash.EFp5axzw.dpuf
SEO for New Bloggers
When you’re looking to become a successful blogger you need to learn proper search engine optimization tips in order to make sure your blog is the success. Choosing the right keywords is not the only thing that will lead you to success. The following are several tips that you should keep in mind if you own a blog and are looking to make a blog successful.
The first thing that you should do is research other bonds that are similar to your niche. While you are writing for your audience you’re also writing for the search engines. When you take the research that you have learned from other quality blogs you will be much more likely to be able to place your blog higher in the search engine rankings. Do not worry about whether are not your keyword density is correct as you should be more worried about whether not you are providing well- researched an well-written blog posts.
You should also look into integrating Google Analytics somewhere onto your blog. It will only take a few minutes and it will give you the ability to be able to see the percentage of new visitors that are coming to your blog every day.
You should also take advantage of all that social media has to offer you. In today as online world there’s really nothing more important than sharing your blog posts on different social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter. If you deal of research on just about anything you’ll find something being mentioned about it on some type of social media website.
Use a service like sharethis, it allows you to add facebook and twitter buttons to your website allowing your visitors to easily share valuable content amongst friends and colleagues, Google likes it when your site is talked about, it shows your sites is useful to visitors and has valuable content.
Search engines are most definitely starting to give importance to websites that are sharing content on social media platforms. This is why it would be an excellent idea to create a Facebook page in order to share the content as you posted on your website as it is a wonderful way to get a lot of followers.
These are just a few of the things that you should keep in mind when you are looking into how search engine optimization can better assist your blog to success.
These are just a few of the things that you should keep in mind when you are looking into how search engine optimization can better assist your blog to success.
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