Tag Archives: Google

Internet Marketing

Google places change again… (Yawn)

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Local SEO ExampleGoogle places has made some changes to what is displayed in your businesses Google places account.  Gone are the reviews from other than Google places users, although it will still show the links and number of reviews found on other review site (Yelp, Insider pages, and mores)

They also have removed the long studied (by local SEO firms) citations at the bottom of the page. Many bloggers are calling this a major blow to local SEO firms.  They base this on old and outdated local SEO tactic where a SEO would research the Citation sites found on the top ranked local maps competition and use those citations to get ranking for a client.  Frankly, that has not worked since fall of 2010. (Our estimate)

As we have been blogging about from time to time, Local SEO changed last October, when Google decided to mix both a sites organic rankings and Maps placement.  We had always used both Local directories as well as organic SEO to get our clients better Internet visibility, but for the “Local SEO” firms that where just using Local only tactics, the changes must have had a negative effect on client rankings.

So what do yesterdays changes mean to Local SEO?  Nothing. It’s still  the same premise.  Do great promotion and visibility programs for your site.  Don’t try to keep up with every change Google makes (it will drive you crazy),  just use sound marketing and promotion principles to get the right people to your site.

As this post is getting a great deal of attention and is ranked number 1 on Google for “Google places Changes”  I thought I should add some additional content that might be of use to someone interested in the subject.  I am assuming you are either a SEO or a business owner manager involved in the on-line promotion of your site?

Best current Local Maps (Google places) promotional tactics.

First, don’t fall in love with Maps.  Organic SEO on local intent SER can do as much if not more for you. Remember only 30%-60% of searchers are searching with a local intent term. The others are being served local sites because Google assumes they are looking for a local company.

Second.  Citations are dead. This is my opinion, but watching and assessing rankings for new clients seems to strongly suggest that  building the old Citation links and mentions is a complete waste of time. Only add your site to local directories that will actually bring you traffic!  Here is our YES list:  Yelp, Angie’s, local Better Business Bureau, and your chamber.  Also any niche directory’s with less than 10 0r 15 listings can be very valuable.  Don’t pay for listings!

Third. In the beginning your physical address has as much to do with your local ranking as anything. The address of your company and its proximity to what Google considers “city center” is a huge factor. Also, make sure your address(s) are displayed on your home page and contact page. As your site gains better trust and SEOmoz page authority your physical address will become less of a factor. Make sure Google knows what cities you service by using your Google places account, and mention this on your site.

Fourth. Using SEOmoz page authority as your guiding light is the best method for improving your rankings on Maps and organic. Combine the other tactics I am talking about with high quality back linking and content is the only way to improve your rankings that I see consistently work.

Fifth. Link’s and mentions from other local site’s are highly respected with Google.  Get your associates to mention you on their sites. Sponsor a local charities page, write real reviews of your local vendors that they can post on their site (include your Company Name Address and Phone, as well as your www if they will do that.

Eight.  Domain names matter. So do Company names. Yes, I understand that if you have been in business 10 years you can not change your name,  domain and address. Or can you?  If it’s a new campaign, go ahead and start with a keyword based domain name.

Nine. No follow links are good.  You hear a lot that no follow links pass no link juice (or whatever).  The point is to get your site promoted, so if a site is no follow, but can bring you good traffic, use it!  Twitter, Face book, most wordpress blogs are no follow, but have great traffic and, do you really thing Google is just blindly following the instructions of the site owner for what link is trustworthy and what link is not? Please.

Ten.  If you are going to work on your sites ranking and visibility, you are going to need to put in the time to do it. Figure an hour a day for 3 months. That’s 60 hours of sometimes productive, and many times non productive time, some one has to invest.

And then the golden rule: No one thing is going to put you in the top of a Google Places  search. I think you would agree, that all of the tactics I talk about are just good old fashion P.R. and promotion. Use this mind set… the P.R. mind set, what can I do to get my site (businesses/services) seen and noticed by the largest group of prospects possible.  And once I am noticed, what is it they are going to experience?

Putting all this work into a poorly developed site is a pretty big mistake, I had three restaurants I owned years ago and did a BIG radio promotion selling any thing on the menu for .79 cents on a Saturday morning. It was a disaster of course, we had a line out the door, and ran out of half our items. Service was slow, and the product went out lousy.  Not only did the promotion not work, it hurt us!

As in life, as in SEO ” above all, do no harm”

The best SEO advice?  Build content your prospects want to see.

If you are interested in doing your own SEO, or are a SEO looking for a little help, you may want to check out our web optimizer club

 

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Internet Marketing, SEO Analysis Denver

Local Search Engine Optimization Changes

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SEO in Denver ClientRecently there has been a great deal of discussion on the SEO forum’s and professional sites about how the Google Map rankings are changing.

We have been watching it very closely, and in a nut shell, the big difference between how you places account was ranked last year, and how they seem to get ranked this year is this:

Google places rankings now are based more on organic SEO  than maps criteria. There are two elements that remain important that were and are unique to Places. First, and I know this sounds  like I don’t have to say it, but you need to list your company in Google places if you are not there now, and fill out the profile with good categories.  Two, the address of your business as it relates to the city center still is important.

After that, We use to add a bunch of known citation sites. Most of those don’t even show up as a citation any more, and many don’t even show up as a link.  I wouldn’t forget citations, but I would down grade their importance a bunch.

Now it’s all about standard organic optimization.  Get your home page up to speed (easy)  and then add quality content to your site, and then add links from quality popular sites.

The best way we have found to determine how strong your site is (from an SEO prospective) is to use the free tool bar from www.seomoz.com If some or all of this is above your head, but you want to learn, SEOmoz is a great resource, as is SEO book  and Majestic SEO.

Once you have it downloaded it will give you a Page Authority rank for any page you are on.  It’s called PA  and you need to see how the sites that are ranking above you ranked on PA, and then look at yours.

Many sites that have had very little attention will be around a 10 PA.  In most local categories you will need a 25 to 40  PA for your site to get on the front page.  You can learn how to add ranking to your site at any of the sites I listed above.  I use the rule of thumb that you will need 10 hours SEO to get from 20-30, and 40 hours more to move from 30 to 40.  If you follow with that logic you are looking at 120-160 hours to move from 40 to 50. And of course, if you are a beginner Triple the time, as you will  be learning as you go.

Most SEO companies charge at least $100  to $150. an hour.  If you do the math, you can then decide if SEO is  viable  option for your business.  We have other options as well, including SEO management consulting, where we work with your employee to work through an SEO program.  And we do the complete SEO programs for you as well.

If your interested in Doing your own SEO work, you may want to look at joining our Web Optimizers club. It makes your life easier

 

 

 

 

 

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Internet Marketing

Googles new Billion Dollar Opportunity

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Google Appliance as shown at RSA Expo 2008 in ...
Image via Wikipedia

Recently Google ran an advertisement for a sales manager and sales team in Seattle. In it they talk about their new billion dollar opportunity, selling services to the small and medium business community.  Having run a national sales force doing exactly that, with over 600 outside sales reps, I think they may find it more difficult than they think…  I have a better idea, and I am pretty sure Google would find this a much better and faster way to generate the next billion they need.

Ready? Here it is

Provide Customer Service, and charge a small fee to do so. It fits into their model, (don’t be evil).  I assume, that the reason they don’t do it now is multifarious, but one is basic. Costs to much money to service the peasant companies of the world. This being businesses that spend less that $600,000.  a year in advertising. That was the bench mark last time I looked, could have changed.

Google has no idea the time and energy small and medium businesses put into trying to figure out simple things like, how to get a business location listed in Places.  Or, how to set up and manage an ad words account.

In the SEO community one of the greatest frustrations for Local SEO’s (you see this in the forums all the time) is Google places. Listings pending, listings that are wrong. Right now one of my own company listing on Google places  is showing testimonials from a major competitor.  Sent a help request months ago.  Will do so again.

So, Google…  a $1.00 a  minute?  $20.00  per help ticket request?  Name your price!  We know what you are, now we just are negotiating the price 😉

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Internet Marketing

SEO Tips Denver CO.

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SEO Tips in Denver

SEO tips for Denver Colorado web master s and business owners.

Recently Matt Cutts, the voice of Google for SEO , has been talking a bunch about the recent Panda changes at Google.  Here is what all this comes down to for SEO  and business owners.  Google says if someone will “book m,rk” your site, your in good shape for better rankings,  and then they add a hundred other things.  But, to me,  if we can focus on just that one aspect, the rest will fall in line quickly.

Here are some tips to get you thinking about why someone would book mark your site:

  • Calculators.  Useful information. How much will they save, spend, or what ever, for your service
  • Cartoons.  I know, odd, but a well done funny cartoon can get a lot of attention
  • Pictures of customers.  Good pictures will bring your customers back and they will tell there friends
  • Forums. Information with good interaction on your industry can bring lots of attention
  • Q  and A.  A well thought out Q.A. about important items in your industry
  • Videos  of ________.  How are process works, who are customers are, how we got started.
  • Tips.  Good tips they can not find somewhere else
  • DIY. Why not!  This can be very helpful
  • Contests. A good old fashion contest!

You don’t have to spend a ton of time linking other sites to yours if your site naturally attracts visitors through interesting and unique content.

Let us know what ideas work for you.

 

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Jump Start Your Sales

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Three

Three ways to jump start your sales.

Working with small and medium sized businesses we see the same challenge over and over.  Most businesses need to find decent R.O.I. tactics to bring in more revenue.  The economy over the last 3 years has certainly made this more challenging than ever, and it’s important to spend sales and marketing dollars wisely.

Here are some things not to do.  Don’t let a  sales person sell you on trying print, radio, or T.V. advertising.  One of the reasons is they have such a great sounding sales pitch is they have to, otherwise you may asked for references from three similar business to yours in the same market, and they won’t have those.  Trust me.  This year we have asked 4 different fast talking, well intentioned sales people for references from three customers in the same market, and none have supplied any. Two became very upset we would even  ask.

So, rule one… ask any company asking for your marketing or advertising dollars for three local references from similar customers. How hard can that be?

No more buying rules, just three proven systems that might jump start your sales with a reasonable to good return on investment.

There are 3 type lead and sales generation programs.  Short, mid and long term results.   We all want short, so lets start there.

Need sales this week?

Use Google ad words with a well thought out limited keyword campaign, have a company with experience in Ad Words develop the campaign, or you may end up throwing your money away.

Your company can be on the first page of Google search results tomorrow. Fast results,  people clicking to your site (and you will pay each time they do). Budget needed,  any where from $30.  a day to skies the limit.

Mid term:

Hire a business development manager either full time or part time.  A business development managers job is to get you and your company in front of well qualified buyers. Caution, if you don’t have experience managing a sales person, you’re going to throw money away 85%  of the time. Not joking. I have worked with many business owners who have hired sales people, having no experience hiring or managing sales people, and the results are predictable.  Here is a good blog on hiring and managing sales people and why sales people are like plumbers  BTW.

So, what can you do?  Either hire a sales manager and a sales person (two different humans), or make your service so irresistible that you don’t need sales people, or use the My One Call business development team to do it all for you.  You can see it here A PDF will open in your browser.  Do look through it. Its interesting.

And Mid to Long term:

Get your web site wildly popular!  Use SEO, Social Media, P.R, and every possible legal and white hat method to get people to your web site.  The fastest way is to hire a highly competent, experienced SEO firm in Denver like us.  Just make sure who ever you use, they have 3 good references from similar businesses in your local area. It’s not going to happen overnight, but once it does this is one of the best R.O.I. in marketing you can ever make.

Those are the three we know work.  We know because we talk to business owners every day, and we talk about this stuff… what works and what doesn’t. We know because we provide all of the marketing programs listed above, and we do because they work. But don’t take our word on it, ask me for 3 (or 5 or 10) local references from similar businesses in Denver. It would be our pleasure to provide that information.

 

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Internet Marketing, SEO Analysis Denver

Google Citation and Links DEnver

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Interesting Changes in Citations and Links this year.

Last year, as a matter of practice , when we did on line visibility programs for clients we added directory links to many of the major on line directories, yellow pages, and other local web sites.  We would then track the traffic from each (as part of the analytics) and quality scoring. Part of that was watching the back links report to see when the listing, citation or link was “indexed”.

We do much more than just this process during on line visibility programs, so we have a very rounded profile to drive traffic to a clients site.

The interesting thing is,  most of the local directory and y.p sites are no longer showing up as links, or as indexed, and the traffic to a clients site from these sources is way down

 

Here is an example.  Hot Frog has traditional been a good citation site and gets a lot of traffic.  But sine January, we have not seen a clients listing appear as a link to there site, and traffic is almost non existent.

This listing has been live for almost three months. No sign of it any where on Google Web Master, SEOmoz reports and any other reports we use.

I could add 10 more examples here.  But the point being, has the search world stopped recognizing this directory listings?  And if so how valuable are they to driving traffic to a site.

Let me know what you have seen.

 

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Is Google the Universal Mind?

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The first iteration of Google production serve...
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So if all things material (even the digital empire) are reflections of the true and one intelligence, and our development of these material manifestations of spiritual truths continue to advance as our collective understanding advances, then could it be that Google is in fact… the material manifestation of the universe mind? The keeper and communicator of all knowledge?

Or is all that technology, just something they use to promote ad words.


 

Yes, these are the thoughts that dance through my little mind from time to time.

 

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SEO should always work with Web Design

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Received a call yesterday from a business who had been investing in SEO and seeing limited results.  After looking over the site and off site SEO it was very clear their current SEO had done no  on site work.  The days of adding a few links to a poorly thought out (from the SEO prospective) site and seeing rankings, are long gone, yet many Search engine optimization firms continue to ignore this.

Although generally speaking, the most respected SEO firm’s in the country (SEOmoz, SEObook, Majestic SEO)  will publish research that about 25% of your rankings come from on site, and the rest of rankings happen through off site, social, and citations and such,  the 25% that is your web site structure is the foundation.

We work with several highly competent web design firms accross the country, most of which provide SEO to their local clients and are very good at it. One is being featured in the USA today evry 6 weeks. We also will work directly with our client’s web design firm if needed. We don’t do web design on any large level, but we understand the principles of good web design from both the marketing, and SEO stand point and can direct the web design firm in these matters.

We also do SEO for several Web design firms nationally.  When their clients ask for SEO, its our services they receive under their company name.

I would recommend you do not work with an SEO who doesn’t offer web design, or work directly with a web design firm (including yours). These two elements are both essential in rankings success.

There also is an advantage to working with a SEO that also provides your web design.  One point of contact, and more efficient communication.  If they are good at both, its a win win.  Is there a down side? Depends on the firm.  All your eggs in one basket isn’t a bad thing if the basket is great.

It’s the same principle as buying any other service. Get references for both the web design and SEO.


 

 

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Internet Marketing, SEO Analysis Denver

Bing and Yahoo now 30% of Search Engine Traffic

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For businesses in Denver and throughout Colorado, who are interested in promoting their services utilizing the Internet, this weeks news that Bing + Yahoo is now over 30% of searches should not go ignored.

The Bing Yahoo combo picked up over 6% while Google fell 3% in Search traffic. These are big numbers, but they still represent the “gross” numbers. We will be watching to see if we can get more industry specific statistics. It should be noted that on a very small scale we have seen Bing searches (Clicks)  pick up in the home improvement area last month, but, far to little data to make a definitive statement.

What to do?  Check your Bing SEO rankings.  Make sure you read information (specific) on Bing optimization.  Make sure you use the Bing web master tools, and have your local company listed in Bings local program.

If you are using Google exclusively for pay per click it may be time to divide the budget and spend 30%  with Bing- Yahoo.  Or add 30% and use them.

We will follow up with a few specific tips on SEO on Bing for Denver and Colorado Businesses over the next few weeks.

 

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