Every search engine marketing business has a love hate relationship for Google when they make changes to their search algorithm! Google makes little changes all the time but when they post details on the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog you know it could be a game changer… and this one is!
Is the change for the best or worst?
Well that depends on what end of the rope you are on, one end is awesome, the other is a disaster.
How have things changed?
Prior to this change Google would sometimes return 2 results from the same domain in its results. Now you may find 7 results from the same domain being returned for a particular search. Yep 7 out of the possible 10 on the first page! Your website may have been sitting comfortably at number 2 or 3, but now be lucky to be still on page 1!
From the Google Blog
We’ve launched a change to our ranking algorithm that will make it much easier for users to find a large number of results from a single site. For queries that indicate a strong user interest in a particular domain, we’ll now show more results from the relevant site
Google uses the following example to demonstrate the changes. A search for exhibitions at amnh previously you would see 2 results, now you would see the following:
So why have Google made these changes?
Using the above example, Google have determined that the user is likely interested in the Museum of Natural History’s website, so why not show them more results that will help them find what they are looking for faster.
How can these changes benefit you or destroy you?
I think the benefits are pretty obvious if you are getting 7 results in page 1, you will find an increase in traffic that will lead to an increase in brand awareness, increase user satisfaction that should generate an increase in responses, eg, increase in sales.
The other side is also pretty obvious – you could be lucky to be still on page 1 if your competitor starts getting 7 results on the first page. This means less natural search traffic for your website and less brand awareness created via search engine marketing, you may find that you need to spend more on Google Adwords to counter this to keep generating targeted traffic and sales via search.
Have you experienced these changes in your market yet?
Quality Score, it is one of those topics that we are asked about constently and is one of those areas of Google Adwords that non-seasoned professionals struggle to improve.
So why do you need to improve you Adwords Quality Score? It’s simple, to save you money by lowering you CPC!
Why does Google have a quality score system? Essentially Google Quality Score is a way for Google to reward advertisers for writing awesome ads and providing relevant information to consumer search queries! But it does not stop there, there are more factors that Google takes into consideration when calculating your quality score. Unfortunately Google will not reveal all the factors that they take into consideration as the advertisers “in the know” would get an unfair advantage but below are some steps you can take to improve your quality score!
4 Improvements To Your Google Adwords Ad You Need To Make
Keyword phrase in text, preferably in the headline and the body of the ad if possible
Address the consumer/searcher in first person
Connect with the consumer/searcher with features and benefits on an emotional level
Include a call to action to entice the consumer/searcher to click on your ad
5 Webpage Improvments You Can Make To Improve Your Quality Score
Include the keyword phrases from your Adwords keyword list in the text of your landing page. NB: In an image will not help you at all!
Use the keyword phrases in page headings, eg, H1, H2 etc
Page titles should also inlude your keyword phrases
Page descriptions (meta descriptions) should also include your keyword phrases
Content is still king, 1 page or even 10 page websites just don’t cut it these days! Add a blog to your site and add extra deepth to your website with relevant content. More on adding content and improving your quality score – 3 Strategis To Stop Google Robbing You
Don’t forget to check out the “Other Related Posts” below for more ways to improve your quality score in Google, Yahoo or other PPC networks
Google has added a new aspect to their Place Pages that all businesses should be utilising. Google has given you the opportunity to respond to reviews of your business left by happy or unhappy customers.
This move by Google is a fantastic opportunity for all business to actively engage in their online reputation management. To publicly respond to reviews left by others you must have a verified business listing, you can do this here – Google Places.
If you are not sure what Google Places are, they can be seen listed at the top of search results with a Google Map and the heading “Local business results for [insert your search term]” , see below for an example.
Why is this new feature on Google Places important?
Engaging with the people who have shared their thoughts about your business is a great way to get to know your customers and find out more. Both positive and negative feedback can be good for your business and help it grow (even though it’s sometimes hard to hear). By responding, you can build stronger relationships with existing and prospective customers.
For example, a thoughtful response acknowledging a problem and offering a solution can often turn a customer who had an initially negative experience into a raving supporter. A simple thank you or a personal message can further reinforce a positive experience. Ultimately, business owner responses give you the opportunity to learn what you do well, what you can do better, and show your customers that you’re listening. Source – John Maguire, Google Place Page Team – Lat Long Blog
Keeping up to the second with all the latest cool stuff in this crazy search engine medium can almost be a full time job in itself. Most of my friends call it wasting time, I like to call it “research”.
So here are 5 blog post that I thought you could do some time wasting “research” on a Monday morning! Enough of my jibba jabba, check em out!
How to Name Your Site’s Images to Get More Traffic - When most business stick their toes in the search engine marketing waters, one of the first things they hear about is search engine optimization (SEO), as it relates to content. Not a lot of talk revolves around images; but it should for, everything on your site (eg, videos, photos, etc.) can help it rank well in search engines. Read more
9 steps to SEO PR that won’t drive the PR team crazy - SEO PR is important. Having a press release ranking for the right phrase can be a real boost. It can occupy a top 10 ranking for your company name, thereby pushing down a site that says bad stuff about you and your brand. If hosted by a wire service, it may rank for a long-tail phrase even when your site cannot. Put a quality link out on the web. Sometimes (gasp) get you media attention. Read more
Source Quality Content … Continuously - What does every blogger need more of? Quality content! This is the first of a series of six posts that tackle key content questions. Today, we’re looking specifically at content sources: places where you can get ideas and information that, with a little work, you can turn into quality blog posts. Read more
Email Still Beats Social Networks for E-Commerce - A new report from Econsultancy suggests that email still beats social networks when it comes to marketing for e-commerce. The report says that over a third (37%) of consumers don’t use a social networking site, and that those who have become a “fan” or “friend” of a company or brand online are still in the minority. Read more
Tying Social Media to the Most Important Business Question - If you had one, just one, business question to answer, what would it be? The most important one is “What does success look like?” If you can’t envision this or answer it, you can not obtain it. If you are an executive, you must communicate it. If you are part of a team in a company, you must understand it. Read more
We have all seen them, phone numbers in paid ads like Google Adwords or Yahoo Sponsored Ads, but what are they doing for you?
Giving a perspective customer your phone number right?
Hmmm maybe, but they are also costing you in a big way!
A phone number has no relevance to the keyword phrases you are bidding on for your ad and can decrease your click-through-rate (CTR) and quality score. This will in turn drive up your cost-per-click (CPC) and pushes your ad further down in the results and possibly out of sight from what your potential customer. Not what you were hoping for!
With paid search ads, you really want people to click your ad and go to your website so try leaving your phone number out of the ad. You should find your CTR and quality score increase therefore giving you a lower CPC.
Now that Google or Yahoo are rewarding you with lower CPCs due to a better performing ads, you will be receiving more clicks = more traffic for the same budget, now you have the opportunity to convert all this new traffic from window shopper to lifelong customer!
Often when we suggest to business owners that blogging will help your search rankings we are faced with helping them overcome some hurdles. The two main hurdles for business owners are that they believe blogging is super time consuming and you need to write/post multiple times a day, or every day and then is my personal favourite:
I thought blogs were for teenagers or geeks that don’t have anything to do after school or on weekends!
In the below video, Matt Cutts from search engine giant Google, address the point of frequency V’s quality when blogging and some of the benefits for users or search engines.
Sorry, according to the “What You Don’t Know About YouTube” panel at SMX, there is no magic bullet for viral success on YouTube.
You will need to optimise your videos to see strong ROI from YouTube, here are some factors that Gregory Markel of Infuse Creative points out each of your YouTube video will to help achieve YouTube greatness!
Title
Description
Tags
Links
Keywords
Playlists
Flagging
Close captioning/transcriptions
Social media outreach
Inbound link building
Subscriber rate
Annotation usage
Social bookmarking
Blogger outreach
Press releases
Crowd sourcing
To be truly victorious on YouTube you will need an integrated strategy, all the planets must align and the following fundamentals should be kept in mind along the way:
Respect the audience’s intellect but a little shock and awe never hurts
Find the equilibrium between entertainment and branding
Include a clear call to action to be able to measure results
Promote the video with honesty and transparency
Don’t underestimate the power of a few key influencers blogging or tweeting about your video
If organic success doesn’t happen, a paid campaign is always a good option
Conventional search marketing is a many-to-many approach: Many searchers asking questions, and many marketers providing answers. However with Twitter now receiving 18 billion searches queries per month, the concept is shifting.
This new, so-called “real-time” search is one-to-one. One person asks a question that anyone can see and answer within seconds. With Twitter, nothing like traditional search, you know precisely who is asking and who is answering. This creates a gigantic opening for marketers.
According to Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan, marketers need to go further than just brand monitoring on Twitter. He points to new tools like Replyz which make it easy for marketers to find relevant questions that Twitter users are asking. Sullivan’s guidance boils down to Marketing 101: Listen to what your audience needs, present first-class answers and observe your reputation soar…in real-time of course!
The goal posts on SEO are changing all the time as search engines make adjustments to their algorithms, like the introduction of Google Caffeine. However, some things never change, like Google’s view on spammy links.
Google has recently given advice on their Webmaster Central Blog how you can achieve higher quality links that will help your search results. Below is the advice Google has provided:
If your site is rather new and still unknown, a good way marketing technique is to get involved in the community around your topic. Interact and contribute on forums and blogs. Just keep in mind to contribute in a positive way, rather than spamming or soliciting for your site. Just building a reputation can drive people to your site. And they will keep on visiting it and linking to it. If you offer long-lasting, unique and compelling content — something that lets your expertise shine — people will want to recommend it to others. Great content can serve this purpose as much as providing useful tools.
A promising way to create value for your target group and earn great links is to think of issues or problems your users might encounter. Visitors are likely to appreciate your site and link to it if you publish a short tutorial or a video providing a solution, or a practical tool. Survey or original research results can serve the same purpose, if they turn out to be useful for the target audience. Both methods grow your credibility in the community and increase visibility. This can help you gain lasting, merit-based links and loyal followers who generate direct traffic and “spread the word.” Offering a number of solutions for different problems could evolve into a blog which can continuously affect the site’s reputation in a positive way.
Humor can be another way to gain both great links and get people to talk about your site. With Google Buzz and other social media services constantly growing, entertaining content is being shared now more than ever. We’ve seen all kinds of amusing content, from ASCII art embedded in a site’s source code to funny downtime messages used as a viral marketing technique to increase the visibility of a site. However, we do not recommend counting only on short-lived link-bait tactics. Their appeal wears off quickly and as powerful as marketing stunts can be, you shouldn’t rely on them as a long-term strategy or as your only marketing effort.
It’s important to clarify that any legitimate link building strategy is a long-term effort. There are those who advocate for short-lived, often spammy methods, but these are not advisable if you care for your site’s reputation. Buying PageRank-passing links or randomly exchanging links are the worst ways of attempting to gather links and they’re likely to have no positive impact on your site’s performance over time. If your site’s visibility in the Google index is important to you it’s best to avoid them.
Directory entries are often mentioned as another way to promote young sites in the Google index. There are great, topical directories that add value to the Internet. But there are not many of them in proportion to those of lower quality. If you decide to submit your site to a directory, make sure it’s on topic, moderated, and well structured. Mass submissions, which are sometimes offered as a quick work-around SEO method, are mostly useless and not likely to serve your purposes.
It can be a good idea to take a look at similar sites in other markets and identify the elements of those sites that might work well for yours, too. However, it’s important not to just copy success stories but to adapt them, so that they provide unique value for your visitors.
Social bookmarks on YouTube enable users to share content easily.
Finally, consider making linking to your site easier for less tech savvy users. Similar to the way we do it on YouTube, offering bookmarking services for social sites like Twitter or Facebook can help spread the word about the great content on your site and draw users’ attention.
For more information on this blog post from Google, take a look at what WebProNews had to say here
Quality Score, it is one of those topics that we are asked about constently and is one of those areas of 
We have all seen them, phone numbers in paid ads like Google Adwords or Yahoo Sponsored Ads, but what are they doing for you?
The goal posts on SEO are changing all the time as search engines make adjustments to their algorithms, like the introduction of 