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How To Fix Your Google Places & Maps Listing

A lot of businesses struggle to fix their Google Places listing. They get frustrated because they really want to help their customers (and prospects) find them easily.

However, months go by. Despite their best efforts, nothing changes.

They despair of ever being able to fix their listing.

Perhaps, you have found your business in the same situation.

Is this you?

  • Updates to your business listing is not reflected in Google Maps
  • Google maps shows the incorrect business address
  • You’ve purchases a new business and changed the name but maps shows the old business name
  • The business is listed in the wrong category (how will they ever find me)
  • Your contact details have changed

If you’ve had this issue, read on!

Here’s a possible solution that could save you hours of despair.

We used this process to help a client fix an issue within 24 hours (or pretty darn close to it).

If like us, you thought Google Places was broken then you are in for a big surprise.

Your Step By Step Solution

Here’s a step by step guide that may just help fix the issue:

  • Double check that you have updated your Google places listing
  • If your Google Places listing looks fine, check your website to make sure it shows the correct address and contact details.
  • If you have a Google Map embedded on your site, click on the map and make sure it is also correct and directs to the new address.
  • Check your listings in other directories like Hotfrog, Yellow Pages, True Local, Start Local etc. Make sure your business name, address and contact details are consistent.  If they aren’t you are going to need to get in touch with those directories and fix them.
  • If your places listing still hasn’t changed – go to Google mapmaker.  Type in your business name in the search bar and check that your business does not have multiple listings in Google maps.
  • If you see multiple listings –  bingo!  Congratulations you have just found the issue.  Navigate to the incorrect listings and click on the edit link.
Edit your listing in Google Maps
Edit your listing in Google Maps
  • You will have the option to move the location, edit or delete (and even report).
edit-listing2
  • Ensure you are logged in to your Google account and edit any incorrect listings and delete any multiple listings (if you have multiple listings, then it’s probably one of these that’s causing the issue)
  • Wait for a reviewer to review the listing (and hopefully approve it).
  • If you want to speed up the process, ask a couple of locals to review the listing for you.
  • Wait! Once your listing has been reviewed you should receive a notification to confirm the changes.  Congratulations! Months of frustration are nearly solved.  Get ready to pop out the champers!

Want to take your maps listing to the next level.

If you want to get really funky, you can also display a picture of the inside of your business in Google Maps.

How?

Sheesh – you really want to know everything don’t you.

Engage a Google Trusted photographer.  You can find out at Google Maps Business View.

For a small fee ($500 plus), you can hire a Google Photographer to photograph the inside of your business so potential customers can see your business on Google Maps.

It’s a great way to showcase businesses like hotels, restaurants, tourist destinations or even gymnasiums.

So what are you waiting- get cracking and fix your listing in Google Maps today!

Hummingbirds, Panda’s and Penguins – How they Impact on SEO

If you have been living under a rock, you may not have heard about Hummingbird – Google’s latest update to its algorithm. It was officially launched in late September but actually rolled out on 20th August. Here’s the lowdown of how it might affect you…

What is Hummingbird?

654299_83607202-300px

Hummingbird is not just an update to the current algorithm – it is a whole new algorithm that will enable Google to deliver faster and more precise results to searchers.

Instead of focusing on keyword-based activity, Hummingbird moves search results away from keywords to context-based search. For example, if a user is searching for 5S services – which could mean “iPhone 5S services” or “5S lean services”, Hummingbird tries to identify the context of the search to deliver the right result to the user.

Hummingbird aims to remove the ambiguities of our language when delivering search results.  In other words, the new algorithm aims to focus on the semantics of search queries rather than just trying to match a few keywords.

In another example, a website might have ranked very well for house renovations even though a user might actually be asking a question about how much do house renovations cost. With Hummingbird, instead of sending a user to a page about house renovations, it tries to understand the context of the search and aims to deliver a page that actually shows the cost of a house renovation.

In theory, this may mean less traffic (and sometimes more) but the traffic delivered should deliver better more qualified traffic because the traffic is more relevant.

How is Hummingbird different to Panda and Penguin?

Hummingbird focuses on the knowledge graph. It is not a penalty, unlike Panda and Penguin.

Penguin is a penalty applied to some websites that have low-quality links, over optimised anchor text and that is stuffed with keywords.  In particular, it focuses on penalising websites that either brought links or obtained them from link networks. This is a penalty caused by off-page factors – poor quality links.

You won’t fully recover from Penguin until the bad links are removed.

There have been 5 penguin updates in total. They started 0n 24 April 2012 with the latest one being rolled out on 4th October 2013.

Panda is a penalty that was applied to some websites that had thin content, high bounce rates, duplicate content and that were slow to load.

It basically is a penalty caused by on-page factors including the content on the website.

It aims to ensure that only websites that provide users with a good experience are rewarded. It was rolled out in February 2011.

There have been 25 updates to Panda with the latest official update in March 2013.

What’s the difference between Hummingbirds, Penguins and Pandas?

Panda and Penguin are penalties applied by Google for dodgy on-page and off-page activities. Hummingbird is not a penalty – it’s a whole new way of delivering search query data.

Why should you care?

The way businesses have traditionally undertaken SEO must to change. Successful SEO campaigns go beyond the practice of optimising for search engines.

Now you need to optimise for customers through engaging and search engine optimised content, smarter web design, and social media. To do this successfully, you need a content strategy.

Doing this haphazardly is unlikely to reward. Your SEO efforts need to be on delivering quality content that matches user enquiries.

SEO is not just about link building. Buying links might give you quick short term wins but they also carry the risk of a Google penalty.

Not only does it put your business at risk, the cost to clean this up is high.

What should you do to survive?

  • Develop a content strategy
  • Write good quality content regularly (or get some help)
  • Mine your adwords search query data for content ideas
  • Add semantic and structured data to your website (if your website platform allows you to do this).
  • Review any pages with high bounce rates and look to improve content on the page
  • Keep to Google’s webmaster guidelines

It’s a good idea to review our next post which covers off how to do keyword research in an era where keywords are not provided.

Who may find this difficult?

E-commerce sites, in particular, may find implementing some of the changes difficult.

This is because some of the e-commerce sites we encounter use proprietary e-commerce platforms that are not well set up for semantic search in that they are not well set up to include structured data, blogs or even control of their meta page titles and descriptions.

You may need to start planning to change platforms or having some serious talks with your web developer if the one you are using does not give you the flexibility to adapt.

Google’s Releases Penguin 2.0

Yesterday, Google announced it had released another update to its algorithm.

The official date of the change was May 22 but because we are ahead of time in Australia I’m calling the change as yesterday for Australian readers.

The change is expected to impact 2.3% of search queries. This is a significant change though it may not be noticeable to a user searching on Google.

It has officially been labelled Penguin 2.0 because it is a major change rather than a refresh but it is actually the 4th update in the Penguin series.

We havent noticed any major changes in the ranking of our clients. However it is a good reminder to monitor your website traffic on a regular basis to see if there have been any major changes that have the potential to impact you.

Google have also announced a form to report web-spam.  You can find it here.

Already Search Engine news sites are reporting stories of what type of sites have been impacted. So far the sites impacted have predominantly been porn and gaming sites. There has also been some reports that some big brands like the Salvation Army have been impacted.

How to Pick a Good SEO Company

Picking a good SEO company is hard.

No matter how well-credentialed a business might appear to be, you never know what skeletons they have lurking in the cupboard.

Would you choose an SEO company because they had been featured in several high profile magazines?

What if you knew their website traffic had tanked as in the example below?

website traffic

My guess is probably not.

The problem is that many businesses make decisions that put their business at risk everyday.  And it’s not their fault. SEO is constantly changing. It is hard to focus on a business and keep up to date with the latest changes in SEO. Especially when Google makes daily changes to their algorithm.

What’s Good and Bad SEO

So how can you tell the difference between a good provider and a not so good one?

  • Be concerned if your SEO provider only focuses on building links 
  • Find out of they use automated tools? If they answer yes, then run a mile.
  • Ask if they spin content? Avoid like the plague if they say yes.
  • Ask they if they can help you with content marketing and building your authority in the market.

Many small businesses are unable to discern between good SEO and bad SEO. Therefore, they often choose the cheapest package which invariably only includes building links.

Don’t get me wrong, link building is still very much a part of SEO. However, we think this will change dramatically in the future.

Choose Your SEO Provider Carefully

That being said if you are going on a link building mission, you need to be very careful that your links are not automated or spammy.  If you choose an SEO provider and are paying under $500 per month then you need to be careful. The fact is, good content does not come cheap.  It takes time to craft and devise a good strategy.

If you are interested in checking out the performance of your SEO provider before you sign a contract, why not check how well their own SEO has worked for them. In the chart above, I went to SEM Rush, selected Australia and typed in the web address of the SEO provider and looked at the SE Traffic Report.  SEM Rush is a paid tool but you can still get limited information for free.

A word of advice – use with caution. Some peaks and troughs can occur due to specific events i.e. press releases, radio interviews, email mail outs etc. So do take that into account – the main thing to be wary about are sites whose traffic has tanked as in the example above.

What If You Do It Yourself

If you don’t want to pay an SEO professional, then you need to start creating content for your website. Great content that people want to share with others. Content that makes people want to come back to your site again and again. Content that people naturally want to link to.

You will also need to know about on-page SEO and how to ensure your pages are correctly optimised. Though it only accounts for about 20-30% of helping a website get ranked, it is still an important part of SEO and is often overlooked.

What Are Google Targeting

Matt Cutts – Google’s head of webmaster SPAM recently made the following comments in relation to what Google was targeting in their next update (which happened May 22nd).

He said Google was targeting:

  • Black hat web spam (this means automated links, spun content that is not readable by humans, hidden links etc)
  • Advertorials that pass page rank and do not have clear and conspicuous disclosure
  • Clusters of results from one domain

As always he mentioned that if you were doing high-quality content then there shouldn’t be any issues. You need to focus on having a great site that users love and want to tell their friends about and come back to. They were also looking at ways to help sites that are considered an authority rank better.

Google has also invested in some sophisticated link analysis technology so it will be better able to detect poor links in the future. Do yourself and your business a favour and make sure have a content marketing strategy and great content that attracts links naturally.

You can see an overview of Matt Cutts latest video here.

How To Work Out Why Your Website Traffic Has Dropped

declining

A business contacted us recently to try and understand why their client’s website traffic had taken a dive. They were comparing website traffic in Google Analytics for one month this year versus the previous year. Their website traffic had dropped nearly 19% and then declined a further 35% a few weeks later bringing total traffic to the site down by 54%.

It was a significant drop and one which aroused our curiosity, particularly since a large loss of traffic impacted this business significantly.

Here are the steps to diagnose why there was a drop in traffic.

1. Look at what date the drop started to occur in Google Analytics.

In this instance, the change in overall traffic started to decline significantly on 10th January (-22%). Fortunately, this change did not coincide with any major Google algorithm changes (the last major update was 22nd January).  There were also no annotations in Google Analytics so we did not have a history of any promotions or changes that were made to the website.

Google trends revealed that there was an 11% decline in searches for key search terms in January. That might go part of the way to explain the drop but it still didn’t explain such a big drop, Time to dig a little deeper.

3. Drill down to Traffic Sources in Google analytics.

Look at the Search section and check the organic and paid search traffic. Determine if the drop is from organic or paid search. In this instance, the drop was definitely organic and the drop started to occur before January. In fact, the first noticeable drop in traffic was 26th December (26%) and the drop increased significantly on 1 January (40%) and then again on 27th January (57%).

organic-traffic

4. Think about what events happened in that time period.

Make a note about what event happened that may have impacted site traffic. For example:

  • Were there any promotions during the previous period?
  • Did the website change significantly over the past year?
  • Were there any major Google algorithm changes?
  • Have you changed SEO providers?

In this particular instance, there were 2 major Google changes (22nd December 2012 & 22nd January 2013) and the business had also changed SEO providers (18th January).

There are a couple of tools we use to review backlinks. One of the most important tools in Webmaster Tools. It’s a great little resource because not only is it free, you can also download a list of the sites that link to your website. Unfortunately, at the time we were analysing this Webmaster Tools had a little bug and did not show any data.

Fortunately, we had a backup. There are a few alternatives you can use to review backlinks. These include ahrefs, Majestic SEO or Open Site Explorer.

An analysis of backlink history showed a number of backlinks to the home page were lost in January. The backlinks that were lost were links from several domains with duplicate content that the previous SEO company-owned. Seems that when the company stopped SEO, the SEO provider removed the links. This can be a dangerous situation and it can happen more often than you think.

Apart from the loss of links, it also looked like an algorithm update (Panda version 24)  may also impacted website traffic.

6. Review anchor text of backlinks

If you have followed the steps above and still have trouble identifying the root cause, then it is also a good idea to review the hyperlinked text (anchor text) for the backlinks. If any of the links contain keyword-rich phrases in the links with very few generic or branded terms, it’s a good idea to either review the existing links and request to have them modified or aim for new links with a greater diversity of anchor text.

You can review anchor text using a paid tool like Majestic SEO. Alternatively, there are a couple of free options including one provided for free from webconfs.

Summary

In this example, it appeared that the website was impacted by two major events. The first event was the removal of backlinks from the previous SEO provider and the second event was a Google algorithm update. Whilst diagnosing the issue can be relatively straightforward, it is not always the case.

The key is to keep drilling down to understand the root cause. Once you understand the root cause, you can take steps to fix the problem.

An important thing to note is that if annotations were added in Google Analytics then this would have helped provide more richness to our review. This is because websites can be quite dynamic and change significantly over a period of time.

Trying to remember key changes after the event can be difficult.  Documenting any changes to your website at the time they occur may help assist in diagnosing anything that may have been done to impact the website. Sometimes it can be very simple things (like the removal of a couple of pages) that can impact traffic.

Google Panda Impacts 1.3% of Search Queries

Google Search Marketing

Google brought in an early Christmas present in the form of yet another update to its algorithm.

This update –  the 23rd in the Panda series impacted about 1.3% of English queries.  The previous version impacted only 0.8% of English queries.

The Panda series commenced on February 24, 2011, and its introduction significantly changed the face of SEO.

You can see an overview of all Google’s Panda updates since introduction here.

Because search activity for many Business to Business (B2B) websites and some eCommerce stores tends to slow down during the Christmas New Year period, it may not be immediately obvious that your website has taken a hit.

However, if you have been undertaking any form of off-page SEO, it’s important to check your analytics regularly.

Some useful ways to check this during seasonal periods are:

  • compare your website traffic against the traffic same period last year.
  • check webmaster tools
  • obtain a ranking report from your SEO provider.

Be aware that you need to look at all data in totality. Obviously, comparing traffic data may not be effective if you have only been undertaking SEO for a relatively short period.

In regards to the ranking report, be cautious if there are any sudden drops in rankings for all the keywords you are targeting. Small drops and gains over a week are generally quite normal but big drops of all keywords should serve as a red flag.

Feel free to contact us if you require help in analysing your data.

Why Link Building For SEO Is So 2000

search-engine-optimisation

If you are a local business aiming to get to page one of Google, it’s important to know a few facts about SEO.

The truth is that SEO is not just about building links. Link building for SEO is just so 2000.

SEO is about keywords, social, site architecture, links and content. Awesome content.

Content that is so good, useful and helpful to people that they just want to share it with others.

Content that is about giving users a balanced view so that they can appreciate your integrity and transparency and trust you for advice.

Why give people a balanced view?

Because the openness of the web means that they will find out anyhow. And if they are going to find out, why not let it be from you. Why not become a trusted and valued source of information.

So the truth is….

SEO is now (and always has been) about consistently producing good quality content that people want to share. It’s also about getting the basic website fundamentals right. Without getting into the fundamentals, lets start with a brief history lesson.

In the 1990’s and early 2000’s, SEO was about keywords.

But because users tried to rort the system and started stuffing their pages with keywords, Google developed a system called Page Rank which meant that links to websites suddenly became important.

The trouble was that websites with poor quality content got created for the express purpose of linking to other websites. Suddenly a whole legion of tools appeared to automate the process of link building. Websites with content that didn’t make sense but linked to other websites suddenly appeared. Spew! it was horrible.

Suddenly these low grade, poor quality websites started to appear and rank in Google. Google understood that people would stop using Google if the websites they provided did not contain the information people sought. They had to address the problem. And that’s how link building for SEO became so 2000.

So now in the 2010’s, SEO is about quality content, links and keywords.

A golden triangle of three essential components.

The key here is to develop content. Develop content that is so good and so useful that other businesses (or people) will like it and share it with others. Creating quality content costs. It costs in terms of great design, time, writing skill and technical know-how. But creating quality content will not put your business at risk like dodgy link building practices will.

That’s why creating good quality content consistently is the most valuable thing you can do to search engine optimise your website.  Yes, there are also on-page factors to contend with – as long as you realise that SEO is not just about link building.

Before you complain and head off to outsource some link building on the cheap, be warned.

Google has advised that websites with low-grade content, poor grammar, spelling mistakes (the list goes on), will be penalised. So you need to know not only why an SEO company is good but you also need to see first-hand the quality of the content they produce.

For the last 12 months (actually even longer)  Google have made countless algorithm updates code-named “Panda” and “Penguin” (appropriately named after arctic animals) to rid the world of bad poorly spelt and badly constructed sentences with information that is clearly incorrect.

Thousands of websites have been penalised and have ended up in worse positions than when they started So before you head off to do cheap link building, understand that losing your ranking in Google is not cheap. In fact, cheap link building could turn out to be an expensive exercise – especially if the SEO is poor quality and when you have to pay someone to undo what’s been done, fix it and do it right.

Google’s frequent algorithm changes mean it is going to be extremely expensive if an algorithmic change renders your website worthless.

So before you start to think about hiring a company to do your SEO (read link building), understand that SEO is more than links. You also need to understand how they go about SEO. Do they just build links, how good is the quality of their content, and are they taking shortcuts. I’ve seen too many SEO companies ignore these aspects in favour of building links.

There aren’t no shortcuts.

Building an audience takes time. If you don’t have the time, there are alternatives. However, the worst thing you can do is buy link packages, likes, fans or shares.

The key to good SEO is to understand the value of data, analyse it and use it to create awesome share-worthy content.

The future of SEO is about:

  • Good site architecture
  • Researching and analysing search volumes, trends & competition using the keyword tool
  • Looking at Google Analytics and Adwords data to understand conversion rates
  • Creating informative content that offers solutions to problems
  • Building audiences and relationships (this includes being responsive not only to your readers but also your business partners)
  • Getting more followers on social networks naturally

If you don’t want to put your business at risk and want help to create quality content that people will value, contact us.  We can provide training and guidance to help you on the right path.

Resources

If you like this article and want a history lesson on SEO:

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/cant-rank-link-building-wont-help-you/52127/

If you want a good overview on the future of SEO:

http://searchengineland.com/the-evolution-beyond-technical-seo-code-software-gurus-132066

What’s New In SEO

google-screenshot

A few months back I wrote an article about SEO and the big changes to Google’s algorithm that took place on April 25th this year. Since writing my article, there was another update in late May / early June.

The April “Penguin” updates followed on from the Panda updates which occurred in February 2011 with various 2.0 & 3.0 versions happening throughout last year and even as late as June this year. The fact of the matter is that updates happen all the time.

What you really need to know is what work’s & what doesn’t work since the update and what will always work. Here’s an overview.

What’s Out

  • Keyword density:  Don’t stuff your page with keywords. Don’t even try to make sure that at least 2% to 4% of the words on your page contain your keyword on it. Keyword density went out a while ago but some people still keep insisting you do that but trust me – its old hat. We don’t focus on keyword density  and haven’t for quite a long time.
  • Blog Networks: There were many blog networks available where people paid a subscription to have their articles published on websites. Many of these networks got hit hard. Avoid.
  • Spun Content: Spun content is where people use tools to replace words with synonyms. So instead of the word “cat” they might replace the word with “kitten” or “pussy.” Essentially the content of the article is the same but the words vary – often to a point where it sounds unnatural.
  • Over-optimised back-links: When you get links from another website, make sure your anchor text is varied. Anchor text is text where you send words that are hyperlinked  like you can see right here. In other words, make sure the text that has the link is varied. You don’t to have text with a link that repeatedly has the same word.
  • Irrelevant links: Avoid getting links from websites that are not contextually related to your website. For example, if you are selling men’s shoes, getting a link from a website that sells pet food is rather irrelevant. This can happen naturally but the point is that you shouldn’t seek it out.
  • Site-wide links: Many website designers and SEO companies took a hit in the search engine rankings
  • Link exchanges: Do not exchange links. In most cases, there is no benefit to you – especially if it was someone you don’t know and trust. Ask yourself if you are really going to monitor if your link is still active on their site. If you ain’t going to monitor it, chances are the link will be removed once you link to them. (Note: This was not impacted by Penguin but I am amazed at how often I still get asked this and also how often I am asked to exchange links to other site).

In truth, many of these things were flagged in the Panda updates.

What’s In

  • Write for humans not search engines. Search engines are incredibly good at working out which words are relevant, how sentences are structured and if words are being overused. Most of us got taught in school not to repeat the same word twice in the same sentence. You think a search engine might follow a similar rule.
  • Vary your anchor text on your pages: Avoid having the same words hyperlinked. Variety is the spice of life and this is especially true of search engines.
  • Get links from related sites: If you are going to get links, make sure you get your links from related sites. Directories, like Hotfrog and True Local are the one exceptions but even these have pages that have related content on it. If you are selling shade cloth, the last website you want a link from is adultshop.com – you get my drift.
  • Write guest posts to raise your profile on prominent websites: Writing articles for other peoples website is fine – especially if the site you are writing for has a loyal readership base and is willing to credit you with a link back to your site.
  • Get Infographics created that encourage other people to share your content: Info-graphics are essentially graphical pictures that display interesting facts and figures, stats and information related to your market. These are hot. These are very popular because they are visually appealing and allow people to see key facts at a glance. But be warned, infographics are on Google’s radar so may become less effective in the future. Of particular concern is the accuracy of the information and if the link goes back to a related site.

What’s In Question

  • Local directories: Google started de-indexing free local directories like www.global-web-directory.com. Services where you get free listings like True Local, Hot Frog, Aussie Web, Yellow Pages and Yelp are still fine.

What’s Evergreen – especially for start-ups

A lot of people including web designers ignore this but here are the fundamentals. We see a lot of websites that get most of these points wrong. Here is an overview:

  • Choose whether you want www or non www in front of your website (and make sure your website works for either version but not both)
  • Verify ownership in Webmaster Tools
    • Enable email fowarding so you can get important messages
  • Do a domain background check on your domain to make sure it does not have a “spammy” past
  • Use the Fetch as Google Bot feature in Websmaster tools (link to blog post)
  • Install Google Analytics code
  • have a strategy for your site design (link to blog post)
    •  Consider using personas for your website (e.g. Customers, Investors or Press)
    • Ask if your design meets the needs of each persona
    • Make sure navigation is easy
    • Make sure each page is focused on one logical topic that is obvious to visitors
  • Define your conversion and make sure your page is focused on that – don’t make users make extra clicks
  • Use natural relevant keywords on your page i.e. don’t try and optimise for a specific keyword if it does not sound natural
    • You can use research these terms using the keyword tool
    • Answer common questions that your users might have
  • Make sure every page includes:
    • a unique topic
    • Unique Page Title (meta title)
    • Unique meta description
    • Keywords that are lower case & hyphen separated
    • Descriptive anchor text for every link e.g. not “click here” but “please read our product specifications“
  • Some of the pitfalls include:
    • Hiring a rogue or shady SEO – especially if they guarantee anything. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.
    • Do not participate in link schemes or buying links.
    • Focusing on a fancy site if you don’t have indexable text
  • Focus on page speed
    • Studies show a page load time of 2 secs is acceptable for a customer, anything longer is too long (Google aims for under 1/2 a second)
  • Check how you rank for your site name by going to Google and typing in site:yourdomain.com.au
  • Get involved in forums, blogs and social media sites – attract buzz (Google+ likes, Facebook likes etc)
  • Use the appropriate Social Media for where your user is & connect users to entry point of conversion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El3IZFGERbM&feature=g-user-u?rel=0″ frameborder=”0″

If you require help, please feel free to contact us.

What To Look For In An SEO Company

search-engine-optimisation

Some SEO Firms prey on people with little knowledge. Having knowledge about SEO is a good thing and we actively encourage it. The trouble is that undertaking a cursory search on the Internet about SEO will bring information containing some truths, some half-truths and some that are just damn lies.

So firstly, I’d like to clarify what an SEO does and then cover off some of the things to look out for when engaging an SEO company.

Firstly, an SEO undertakes the following activities:

  • Reviews your website and the structure of your site
  • Undertakes keyword research and provides advice on the best keywords for your business
  • Provides training & recommendations for content
  • Provides technical advice on your website. This includes the use of redirects and strategies for your error pages
  • Can help you optimize your Google places listing
  • Can help you get back links to your website

Make Sure You Have Good Site Structure

Primarily, many SEO firms concentrate on getting backlinks. But as you can see back-links are only one part of the equation. It’s equally important to have a good site structure before your website is built. In fact, it is best practice to hire an SEO consultant before you redesign your website or redesign an existing one. An SEO consultant can also provide recommendations to improve existing websites.

Do Invest In Keyword Research & Get Keyword Advice

Unfortunately, we often see many SEO firms who sell link building services without actually providing advice on keyword advice. Now, this might be because of budget constraints, however, the budget should not be a consideration here.

Sending links to a website without keyword research is akin to building a house without a floor plan.  So if you are looking at hiring an SEO firm, make sure that they provide keyword advice rather than just ask you for the keywords you want to rank for.

We see many unethical practices. Unfortunately, some of these practices will put your site at risk.

Other Things to Avoid Are:

  • SEO Companies who guarantee a 1st page ranking. The fact is no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Google have made this implicitly clear in their webmaster tools area.
  • Companies who guarantees ranking on obscure non-competitive keywords
  • Recommendations to put links to their other clients sites on doorway pages such as a resources page.
  • Proposals requesting you allow links to their other clients on your site. Typically, a resources link will be placed in the footer area of your site and contain links to their other clients.
  • Keyword rich site wide links in the footer of your site. These types of links seem to have been penalised in the latest penguin update.
  • Having another web page set up that replicates content on your existing website on a sub domain that they own. Google want fresh, original and relevant content.
  • Companies who own listing directories and then puts a hidden link from your website to their directory and then offers to sell you a listing on their directory
  • Excessive reciprocal links and link exchanges

In many of these examples, they are risky strategies that might give you a short term lift but could easily get you in hot water in the long run.

If you do employ any of these tactics make sure you understand what happens when you finish your SEO contract if you are on one. Remember that if you are building a business on someone’s else’s asset, you risk having the link you paid for removed anyway. This means that a lot of the money you spent could be wasted.

The best way to get links is to create relevant unique content that gains traction and attracts comments. Remember that getting thousands of poor quality links will do you more harm than good. Remember that before adding a link to someone else’s website, think about whether the link is going to be beneficial to your brand as well as your site’s visitors.

Below is a snapshot of some of the links I found on a website that sells blinds on their resources page. Notice that a link from a competing firm has been added. Is this really what you want? What happens if some of these services are poor? How is this going to reflect on your brand?

Pinterest for your SEO Strategies

Last week we provided you with a brief overview of Pinterest: how it came about, its spectacular rise in the social media scene, how to use it, the people who are using it and finally and more importantly – that you can use it to promote your business. Today we are going to venture further and provide you with tips and advice on how to use Pinterest to complement your existing internet marketing strategies.

The concept of Pinterest is pretty much straight forward and uncomplicated

  • You create virtual pin boards (using only images found on the web) for practically everything: from must-read blogs, dream vacations, fashion trends, ethnic food and pink makeup down to weapons of mass destruction, junkyard items and power tools.
  • You can go through other members’ pin boards for ideas and inspirations
  • You can search the site using specific keywords for more ideas and inspiration
  • Each image that gets pinned and re-pinned is always linked back to the image source

From an internet marketer’s perspective, this means that any image you pin from your site provides great possibilities of leading a targeted audience to your website or the product page.

Other reasons why Pinterest is good for business

  • Videos can also be pinned – This allows you to share more information with your followers
  • Associate price tags with your pins – If you do, your pins will be searchable in the Gifts menu for users who are looking to purchase something. Pinterest makes buying stuff easier.
  • It’s connected to other social networks – You have the option to share your Pinterest activities on your Facebook wall as well as the Facebook ticker. Your pins and repins will be visible to your Facebook contacts and may be promoted on Twitter and Flickr, as well.
  • Add the “Pin It” button to your blog – This will encourage your niche market to join the Pinterest community as well as make it easy for Pinterest users to share images or videos found in your blog.

No wonder many businesses today consider Pinterest as a powerful support for SEO.

Tips on how you can leverage Pinterest to promote your product, service or brand

Your Profile – Make your profile SEO friendly because this is indexed by search engines. Providing complete and accurate information on your profile allows users to easily search for you.  There are brand and location search filters on Pinterest and your profile description with the right keywords will encourage relevant traffic. So make sure you put in appropriate and accurate information about yourself, including your website and even links to your Facebook and Twitter.

Your Pin Boards – It’s advisable to use keywords as titles. Remember, your pinboards should be easy to understand. Users should know what each of your boards is all about at a glance. Avoid providing your boards with vague, insignificant or complicated titles such as “What’s Hot” or “Love It” or “Living La Vida Loca” that don’t really say much about their content. And see to it that you always classify your boards into the right category while providing accurate hashtags so they always show up in search results.

Your Pins – Maximise the character limit of the pin descriptions.  It’s 500 characters, so make the most out of it. Create catchy descriptions, provide price tags if applicable and include keywords that are relevant to your pin, product and pinboard. This will help you achieve the top spot in Pinterest search results.

Your Images – Always display images of good quality. Regardless of where your image source is – your page, other websites or some user’s pinboard – make sure they look good and not blurry or indistinct. More importantly, make sure to always apply basic image optimisation practices.

Your Pinterest Community – Be an active Pinterest user. Pinterest works just like any other social network: you need to be an active user to make your presence felt and to easily increase your followers. Don’t follow EVERYBODY, though. Look for your target audience. Also, it’s not enough that you pin videos and images, you are also highly encouraged to repin relevant items from other users’ pinboards, comment on pins and interact sincerely with your followers and other Pinterest users who share the same interests. This will help establish or increase your credibility and that of your brand.

Keep in mind to never fill your pinboards with anything but your own videos and images. Pinterest frowns upon over-promoting and in the end; your only contribution to the community might as well be spam. Think outside the box and be creative so you can always provide fresh and useful information to the right people.