Optimize your site for the latest Google changes

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

Google’s recent changes have had all local SEO pros backing away and rechecking what they are doing and why. The changes are not that complex, but you need to be aware of them and what actions you need to take to make sure your sites remain SEO friendly.

So, what do you do if you were impacted by Google’s moves or what can you learn from this to make sure you are in good shape going forward even if you escaped with rankings in tact on this one?

First step is to get a professional marketing review of your site. You can do this by contacting me, Chuck Taft, local Asheville SEO Pro. I can do free quick reviews for businesses anywhere, but can especially help you if you are in the Asheville area.

From what we know now, we can surmise the following:

Sites that have a high percentage of duplicate content are going to be considered low quality.

Develop new, unique content and grow your site.

Let’s look at this scenario: If you have a page here and there that has duplicate content but the rest of the site has unique content, those pages with the dupe content may not fare well but your site as a whole should still do OK.

But when going page by page, if the engines are hard pressed to find quality, unique content then it will end up impacting your site as a whole.  Google’s official take on this: low quality content on part of a site can impact a site’s ranking as a whole. So be careful!

Those that repost content and then add a line or two with their opinion on the content, and feel that is enough unique content to satisfy the engines are going to find it  problematic heading forward.  If lots of pages have only a small percentage of the page’s content being unique, those pages won’t fare well either.

Google also seems to be looking for pages that have a high volume of ads that aren’t relevant to the content of the page (especially if the ads are higher up on the page).  These pages will not fare well in today’s Google.

Be sure to review your site and get rid of ads that are irrelevant.  Also be sure your site isn’t too cluttered with ads.

If your site happened to rank well for a phrase but the phrase is not really present in the Title tag or the body content, the page isn’t going to continue to do well going forward.

Review your site and make sure each page has unique Title Tags that use keywords that are also present in the body content.

Keywords being repeated over and over and over and over will trigger the new algorithm to devalue the page.  Keywords should be used appropriately.

Review your content, tone down your keyword density of you need to.  Be sure it reads well. One test many copywriters share is reading your content out loud, your brain processed it differently when it hears the text out loud and you’ll know if there are too many keywords stuffed in there.

The next one is something a lot of people struggle with:

High bounce rates and low time spent on the site can impact rankings.  This will force people to really look at the quality on their site and improve things so they entice visitors to not bounce and to stay longer.  It means strong marketing principals and good copy are going to be more important than ever.

Improve headlines, calls to action and general usability of the site.  CTR (clickthrough rate) from the SERPs (search engine results pages) will also impact rankings.  If your site comes up a lot but no one is clicking, you can be sure it’ll impact things.

Review your Title tags:

Pay attention to the length of your Title tags and be sure your descriptions on the SERPs aren’t being truncated before you reveal the most important info. This is key!  People need to be able to see what you offer and how it’s relevant to their query.  So also get your keyword in there early.  In other words, look at where Google is pulling the data from that they display in the SERPs (usually your Title tag is what they use to create the main headline for the listing) and make sure that area of text is compelling, and that is explains exactly what the page has to offer, it’s also helpful if it includes a keyword phrase.

Ex: A Must Have Comprehensive Guide: Learn How To Care For Your Pet Fish – not so good – the keyword phrase is pushed to the back of the phrase and will likely get truncated.

Ex: How To Care For Your Pet Fish – Must Have, Comprehensive Guide  – much better – they keyword phrase is at the start but you also still got the descriptive compelling content in there.

If you need your company name in your Title tag, put it at the end.

Think of your Title tag like an ad – be descriptive of what the page is about but be compelling so people want to click through.  Promise a benefit (as long as your content delivers on what you promise)

They don’t want to see boilerplate content (content that is the same and repeated on every page).

Review your site and look for blocks of content that you are reusing on multiple pages.  Tweak it, so it’s unique.

Sites that aren’t getting some social exposure (mentions and links from social media sites) won’t do well.

Yep we keep saying it, and it’s true – you need to be on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.  Need some help with that?  Email me with questions!

Even if you weren’t hit in the big update, if your site has many issues in the areas outlined above you can and will lose rankings over time.  Sites that excel in what Google is looking for will dominate.

Now is actually a GREAT time to optimize your site.  You can jump in there and show Google that your site is worthy of rankings.

Tags: asheville SEO expert, chuck taft asheville, google panda, google tags, local SEO, local SEO expert

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SEO update: Google adds +1 recommendations in search results

Friday, April 1st, 2011

The folks at Google continue to make recommendations important to SEO. Today they’ve rolled out a new function increasing that aspect that you should be aware of as you focus on building and promoting your webpage.

Google’s goal is to get you the most relevant results as quickly as possible. But relevance is about relationships as well as words on webpages. That’s why they recently started to include more information from people you know—stuff they’ve shared on Twitter, Flickr and other sites—in Google search results.

Today they’re taking that a step further by enabling you to share recommendations with the world right in Google’s search results. It’s called +1—the digital shorthand for “this is pretty cool.” To recommend something, all you have to do is click +1 on a webpage or ad you find useful. Soon these +1’s will then start appearing in Google’s search results.

Say, for example, you’re planning a winter trip to Tahoe, Calif. When you do a search, you may now see a +1 from your slalom-skiing aunt next to the result for a lodge in the area. Or if you’re looking for a new pasta recipe, we’ll show you +1’s from your culinary genius college roommate. And even if none of your friends are baristas or caffeine addicts, we may still show you how many people across the web have +1’d your local coffee shop.

The beauty of +1’s is their relevance—you get the right recommendations (because they come from people who matter to you), at the right time (when you are actually looking for information about that topic) and in the right format (your search results). For more information about +1, watch this video:

So how do they know which +1’s to show you? Like social search, Google uses many signals to identify the most useful recommendations, including things like the people you are already connected to through Google (your chat buddies and contacts, for example). Soon they may also incorporate other signals, such as your connections on sites like Twitter, to ensure your recommendations are as relevant as possible. If you want to know who you’re connected to, and how, visit the “Social Circle and Content” section of the Google Dashboard.

To get started +1’ing the stuff you like, you’ll need to create a Google profile—or if you already have one, upgrade it. You can use your profile to see all of your +1’s in one place, and delete those you no longer want to recommend. To see +1’s in your Google search results you’ll need to be logged into your Google Account.

Google will be be slowly rolling out +1’s, starting in English on Google.com. If you can’t wait to start seeing +1’s, they’ll soon let you opt-in to the launch by visiting the experimental search site. Initially, +1’s will appear alongside search results and ads, but in the weeks ahead they’ll appear in many more places (including other Google products and sites across the web). If you’re an advertiser and want to learn more about how the +1 button works on search ads and websites, visit Goggle’s AdWords blog.

The new +1 feature, combined with all of the social content Google  is now including in search, will mean even better, more relevant results than you get today. It’s effect on SEO and local SEO will be huge as you will want people to +1 you as much as possible, raising your page rank on Google searches.

Tags: +1, google, google tags, local SEO, seo

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Using Google Places to rank in local searches

Wednesday, November 10th, 2010

Google Places is by far the strongest free marketing tool out there for local businesses. Originally introduced in March 2004 as Google Local, it displays local business info at the top of Goggle’s organic search returns accompanied by a map. Most searches turn out 7 businesses, which means ranking in the top 7 of Goggle Places can be a huge lift to a local company.

Breaking into the top 7 of Goggle Places takes expert knowledge and time and staying there takes continued effort. It begins with claiming and optimizing your Google Places local business listing. Once done you can examine your ranking and then decide if you want to bring a local SEO expert in to make sure you are up in the top 7 returned results.

Check out the screen shot below to see the way Google Places displays its 7 results, and also the position of sponsored ads.

To begin the process visit Google and search for Google Places. Register for an account. Follow the bouncing ball until you can click on the button that says “Add a Business”. The first page of the submission form is mostly fill in the blank, but there are several important opportunities to optimize the listing.

Business Name

You must choose your business name wisely. While no one audits the listings to verify that the company name matches your incorporation documents, you must still be wary. If your company’s legal name is “Joe’s Computer Repair” you need to tweak it for the purposes of Google Places optimization. One easy way to do this is to add a keyword descriptor or your primary city. For example: “Joe’s Quick Computer Repair” or “Joe’s Computer Repair of Miami”.

Goggle Places Description

Carefully craft a 200 character description of your business focusing almost exclusively on your key products and services. Don’t waste space here for marketing speak such as “Proudly serving the Miami area since 1976”. Also, do not waste space here by including geographic references. The geography is almost entirely controlled by the city you list for your address. Inclusion of additional cities does virtually nothing when it comes to optimizing your Google Places listing.

For our hypothetical painting company, “Joe’s Computer Repair”, an optimized description would go something like:

Computer repair shop specializing in PC repair and speed enhancement for PCs. Services include hard drive repair and backup, data recovery, speed optimization and general computer repairs.

It is important to remember that the description is designed to reach a broader search audience – not win awards on Madison Avenue. Keep it simple and include your top keywords. 200 characters is not a lot of room, so make sure not to waste space.

Category

Google Places requires the use of at least one standard category. Begin by typing your top keywords and choose the most relevant category. Google Places provides the ability to include 5 categories. Use them. If your top keywords are not standard categories, then use one or two closely related standard categories and use the remaining three slots for specific keywords.

For our hypothetical company, the categories might look something like:

Computer (Standard)
Computer Repair (Top keyword search / Custom Category)
PC Repair (Top keyword search / Custom Category)
Data Recovery (Top keyword search / Custom Category)
PC Shop (Standard, but an extremely popular related search term)

Service Areas and Location Settings

The Service Areas and Location Settings options are designed to allow a business to establish a service area if the company does not have a storefront of some sort. If in doubt, complete the option accurately for your business.

Business hours and payment options are purely optional and serve little if any value to the optimization process. Potential customers certainly will find the information useful.

Google Places provides the ability to add up to 10 photos and 5 videos (from YouTube.com). Make sure you always use keywords to name your photos and take advantage of the “tag” functions provided by YouTube.com. The impact on Google Places traffic is limited, but any impact is good.

Additional Details

To optimize your listing, create a table of your key products and services using as many keywords as possible. Each detail consists of two fields with a maximum space of 200 characters each. Include as many additional details about your company, your products and your services as possible.

The new Google Places local business listing will not be active until verified. Usually, verification can be completed by triggering a phone call from Google’s computers to the phone number of record for the listing.

Sponsored Ads?

Once verified you will be included in Goggle Places. If you find you are not listing among the top 7 in Google Places you should think about bringing in a local SEO expert to fine tune and continuously monitor your Google Places status. That is likely a better option for you than paying Google for ad sponsorship and placement, as an actual SEO expert working for you not only will have you ranking in the top 7 but will otherwise optimize your information and site so that you rank effectively and keep customers on your listing.

Tags: google places, google tags, local search, local search engine optimization

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