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Georgijevic Developer Team

Georgijevic Developer Team

Radovan

Would You Trust Facebook With Your Money In The Real World?

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These days, brick and mortar businesses displaying some kind of signage saying “Like us on Facebook,” are nearly as common as those displaying Visa and MasterCard logos. That’s worth considering, when you think about using Faceabook as a way to pay for goods and services in the physical world.

Of course, Facebook users have developed some trust issues with the site over the years. It would be quite interesting to see if a PayPal-like service from Facebook would be widely adopted. It’s one thing to trust a third party with your status updates and photos. It’s another to trust them with your money.

Would you trust Facebook to handle your money? Let us know in the comments.

Last week, Facebook announced that it is getting rid of Facebook Credits, in favor of real money. Users will start paying for virtual goods using their native currencies: Dollars, Pounds, Yen, etc. This represents the beginning of users being able to treat their Facebook account like a bank account, or at least like a PayPal account. I’m not sure if Facebook is FDIC insured.

While Facebook did not say anything about using currency to pay for things in the physical world, one can simply connect the dots. For one, Facebook has over 900 million users. Many of them carry it around in their pocket all day long. Now, consider that Facebook recently acquired Tagtile, described as “your universal loyalty card,” for which you can “visit local stores, tag the Tagtile Cube with your phone, and get rewarded for being an awesome customer.”

 

 

If Facebook is going to offer a digital loyalty card to use at stores, and Facebook is going to have user account balances based on actual money, it seems only logical that users will simply be able to pay with their Facebook accounts, as long as businesses adopt the technology.

Of course it would give Facebook yet another way to compete directly with Google.

Plink co-founder Peter Vogel wrote at TechCrunch, “Last year, 15 million people bought Facebook Credits, according to their S-1 filing, so it’s assumed Facebook has close to 15 million credit cards on file. By the end of this year, once paid apps are added to Facebook’s App Center, it wouldn’t be surprising if 50 million people, or about five percent of Facebook’s users are purchasing apps and other digital good, like movies, music and TV episodes, which means Facebook would have a pool of 50 million people who have entrusted it with their credit card information.”

“At that point it’s a very short distance to a ‘Pay with Facebook’ blue box showing up every time you make an online purchase (on web sites everywhere, not just on Facebook),” he adds. “Why re-enter your credit card number when you already trust Facebook to handle the transaction and bill your card? For users this could be seen as more convenient and safer than entering their credit card number on multiple sites. Facebook is PayPal on steroids, with the strength of a billion members.”

That’s an incredibly good point. Think about how the Facebook sign-in option already works for many sites in the web (and especially from mobile devices). It is so much more convenient to simply tap the button to sign in with Facebook than having to enter a whole other account name or email address and password. Paying this way could save a lot of time and hassle.

This already exists, you know:

Pay with Facebook

If Facebook can get people paying for things online regularly, people may start putting more of their money into Facebook accounts, which will make them a lot more likely to pay for things offline.

 

The Trust Factor

That trust factor could be a major obstacle for Facebook, however. Privacy issues have been rampant with the the social network’s dealings for years. Last year, as the result of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, regarding privacy, Facebook had to agree to regular third-party audits to make sure it remains in compliance. This all came after Facebook was found to have not kept its promises, by not warning users of privacy changes or getting their approval in advance. Essentially, changes were made an an opt out basis, rather than users opting in.

Just this week, the company switched default email addresses of users to Facebook email addresses without warning. This isn’t exactly a privacy issue, but it’s another change being made to users’ personal accounts for them. Things like this tend to irk users, and don’t do much to make users more comfortable with how the company is handling their accounts. A Lifehacker article even goes into all the reasons why the switch to a Facebook email address is less than beneficial.

Another big Facebook story this week is about a feature that Facebook rolled out called “Find Friends Nearby,” which was quickly pulled after the CEO of Friendthem claimed Facebook has stole their idea, and threatened to sue. If you’ve seen The Social Network or read book it was based on, you’ll know that Facebook has a long history of being accused of such things. That’s not to say whether or not these things have merit, but public perception is a valuable thing. Some people already have a hard enough time trusting banks with their money.

Side note: It’s unclear, by the way, if the Friendthem situation was directly related to Facebook pulling the feature. The company claims it was only a test, and not a formal roll-out anyway. It does appear to be based on the company’s acquisition of social discovery app Glancee.

We asked our Facebook fans about trusting Facebook with their money. Here is the overwhelmingly negative response we got in just a half hour’s time:

Facebook Fans Don't Trust Facebook With Their Money

Another question worth considering is whether or not people want one company to have so much control over their lives. Do you want to keep so much personal information, photos, videos, and money all under one Internet-based account. There are major hacking stories in the news frequently these days, and many may be hesitant based on that very fact.

This month, another prominent social network, LinkedIn, fell victim to a password leak. LulzSec hackers managed to gain access to 10,000 Twitter accounts via a vulnerability in a third-party app. Consider how many third-party apps are connected to Facebook. According to the company, as of March, over 9 million apps and websites were integrated with Facebook. How much bigger of a target would Facebook be with more people keeping their money tied up in their accounts.

Of course, people are already keeping some amount of money tied up in Facebook, on a much smaller scale than what the future may very well hold.

“People can store their payment information on Facebook in a trusted environment and then make purchases across a range of apps – without having to re-enter their payment information in each app,” Facebook says about its current Payments offering. “Payment options include credit and debit cards, PayPal, mobile payments, gift cards and numerous local payment options around the world.”

If Facebook makes a significant transition to the offline, non-app world (like its peers are also trying to do), will you make the transition along with them? Will you use your Facebook account to buy burgers, gas or other every day items?

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/you-may-soon-be-paying-for-burgers-and-gas-with-facebook-2012-06

Google Fueling Nonprofits with Free Technology

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Google has been working with the HandsOn Network to help U.S. nonprofits partner up with tech savvy individuals who are interested in supporting a cause.

HandsOn Tech is an initiative focused on helping nonprofit groups make a difference. Working with members of AmeriCorps VISTA, Google and the HandsOn Network will be placing twenty-eight workers in eight cities across the United States in order to help technology serve charitable organizations better.

Google comments on their work with nonprofits on their blog site:

Last year, we funded 24 full-time AmeriCorps VISTA positions. These VISTA members provided technology training to more than 1,300 small, poverty-focused nonprofits nationwide. Further, these VISTA participants engaged skilled volunteers, including lots of Googlers, to assist nearly 200 nonprofits in creating individualized, comprehensive tech plans that will help them to work more efficiently.

The program has been so successful that we’re expanding—it will now include one additional city and 28 new VISTA positions, with the goal of reaching even more nonprofits. The new HandsOnTech VISTAs will start in August with a one week training at our campus in Mountain View, Calif., where they’ll learn about cloud-based tools from a variety of technology companies including the Google For Nonprofits suite that allows many nonprofits to use free online advertising, Google Apps and YouTube channels. Once they are armed with tech know-how they’ll spend the rest of the year in two and three-person teams serving nonprofits in the Bay Area, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New York City, Pittsburgh and Seattle.

Last Year the projects Included the following:

* Migrating Dreams for Kids, a Chicago nonprofit empowering at-risk and disabled youth, to Google Apps—enabling them to more efficiently and effectively collaborate without the restriction of limited office space.

* Building a dynamic website and social media strategy for Doing Art Together, a NYC-based nonprofit providing hands-on programming and GED prep for under-resourced youth.

* Using Google Maps and Fusion Tables to help Atlanta’s The Drake House create a map that helps staff better visualize the local homeless population in order to more effectively distribute their services.

Google and HandsOn Tech are presently working on getting volunteers and coordinating the projects, they will actually be accepting applications until the 27th of June. We’ll keep you up to date on any new information coming out of the partnership. It’s a great way to give back to the community and get technology into the hands of organization who wouldn’t normally be able to afford it.

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/google-fueling-nonprofits-with-free-technology-2012-06

Everyone’s Talking Negative SEO: Should You Be Concerned?

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Negative SEO is on the minds of many search engine optimizers these days. However, SEO’s mostly talk about it within the context of Penguin update and Google’s war on spam, because there is barely enough data to discuss it as a separate subject. Well, I believe it’s still important to make an in-depth analysis of the current state of negative SEO, since many folks would like to know at this point – should they be concerned?

What made negative SEO worries arise?

Let’s take a step back and see what lead to the new wave of negative SEO concerns. Thing is, negative SEO had been discussed and dreaded many times in the past, but Google repeatedly managed to keep SEO’s assured that the former can never be effective to the extent that it should be feared.

This time, here is how the situation unfolded:

  • March 16, 2012 – Matt Cutts hints to the upcoming “over-optimization” penalty they are working on. This leads to mild negative SEO concerns among optimizers who begin to wonder whether one can artificially make a competitor’s site look “over-
    optimized”.
  • March 26, 2012 – Google cracks down on blog networks. Many SEO’s see their rankings nosedive as the result of some of their backlinks becoming devalued.
  • April 2, 2012 – Google sends tons of “unnatural links” notifications to webmasters. According to Google, they have simply
    become more vocal about what links they distrust. However, some webmasters claim their sites were down-ranked despite them practicing only white-hat SEO, and debate the probability of negative SEO.
  • April 24, 2012 – Google’s Penguin update hits. Many SEO’s shout foul and say they were unjustly affected by the update, which leads to more negative SEO concerns. Links’ anchor texts become a widely discussed issue.
  • April 27, 2012 – Panda 3.6 is released. Minor SERPs changes are observed.
  • May 26, 2012 – Penguin 1.1 is released. Some websites that had been hit by Penguin 1.0 go up, while some new websites nosedive within the search results.

As you see:

– Quite a few important changes to Google’s ranking algorithm were introduced over a relatively short period of time;

– Most of these changes have to do with backlinks and anchor texts – something webmasters do not always control;

–Stating the exact reason for each individual rankings drop is impossible in most cases (while there could be many/different factors at play).

Hence, all this gave rise to concerns and different speculations about negative SEO.

Is there substantial proof that negative SEO works?

In the light of reemerging worries, two notable incidents related to negative SEO took place. One is SEOMozchallenging the industry to take down their website. And the other one is Dan Thies’ website getting hit by spam links after Dan tweeted his support of Matt Cutts’ crackdown on blog networks.

The conclusion that can be drawn from SEOMoz’s case is that, if your site is old and reputable enough, it’s pretty much immune to negative SEO. While in the case of Dan Thies it’s very hard to tell whether the rankings changes were caused by spam links or not, since this coincided with the time of “the site move” as stated by Dan himself. He did receive the unnatural backlinks notification, though.

That said, a solid and a well-documented negative SEO study is yet to be conducted.

Is Google finally taking notice?

Of course, all this negative SEO talk could not go unnoticed by Google. As Matt Cutts said at SMX Advanced just recently (emphasis mine):

“Some have suggested that Google could disavow links. Even though we put in a lot of protection against negative SEO, there’s been so much talk about that that we’re talking about being able to enable that, maybe in a month or two or three”.

So, Google is thinking about enabling the disavowing of links. This means that soon we might see a mechanism that will let webmasters dissociate their site from particular backlinks.

Incentives and challenges for Google

No doubt, Google would like to penalize each and every trespasser of their Webmaster guidelines out there. However, in doing so, they don’t want to compromise the quality of their search results, and this is exactly what would happen if negative SEO were easily doable.

The presumption that negative SEO is now possible is based on the opinion (which, to the best of my knowledge, Google never confirmed) that, with Penguin update, Google began penalizing websites for suspicious links rather than simply discounting those links (by “penalizing” I mean ranking lower algorithmically, which is the opposite of a manual penalty).

However, if we listen to what Google did say and confirm, we’ll see that the only statement he made was that Google has now become better at identifying blog networks and deindexing them (not to confuse with deindexing the sites they link to) as well as catching paid links.

My opinion is that Google cannot afford to penalize all sites for suspicious backlinks just yet, as it doesn’t have an effective mechanism of identifying voluntarily acquired links and links that have been “donated” to the site by ill-wishing competitors.

I also think, when/if Google introduces such mechanism, it will most likely begin using suspicious
backlinks as a much stronger negative signal in their ranking algorithm.

What can one do to avoid negative SEO done to them?

Now, what makes a website immune to negative SEO? First of all, the more positive signals Google can find about your site, the harder it would be for someone to influence your rankings in a bad way.

Hence:

1. Attract quality backlinks (write about the industry’s news, post helpful posts, do something extraordinary on your site, connect with the industry folks by commenting on their blogs and taking part in forum discussions, get featured on important resources, etc.)

2. Take good care of on-page optimization (this includes using the number of keywords in your site’s copy that would be natural to use, fixing crawlability issues, preventing canonicalization confusion and removing duplicate content).

3. Get as much social media love as you can (social media signals have only become more important in recent years, not to mention that they also serve as great traffic channels).

Sounds like a traditional SEO plan? It is! The more SEO fronts you have covered, the harder it will to take your site down.;)

Another good habit you could develop is to continuously monitor your site rankings and backlinks. This would allow you to detect negative SEO done to your site early on and react accordingly.

What happens next?

Many people wonder what will eventually happen, that is, whether or not there will be more negative SEO instances, and whether or not Google will offer an effective solution to that. Here is what I think about it:

– It takes more resources to do negative SEO than to do positive SEO, because in the case of the former you invest in “SEOing” several sites, while in the case of the latter you have only one website to take care of. So, many people may not afford to do negative SEO in the first place.

– Negative SEO pays off only temporarily. If someone gets hit by a bunch of spam links and reports that to Google, eventually, the site would come back to where it was before.

– I strongly believe that, even if there will become more space for negative SEO as the result of Google’s future updates (which, I think, will be the opposite), Google will have no choice but to come up with a solution to that and might eventually introduce a disavow-your-links option.

Until then, let us not panic and continue doing the awesome SEO job we’ve been doing so far.

Source: http://site-reference.com/articles/everyones-talking-negative-seo-should-you-be-concerned/

Hit the SEO Jackpot with Meta Descriptions

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I had an aha moment the other day while poring over the Google Analytics data for the niche site that I’m building. It’s currently ranking on the first page of Google for a handful of keywords, but the number of people who are actually clicking through to my site is leaving something to be desired.

Upon closer examination, I realized that I have two very distinct problems. First, the titles of my articles are excessively long. If you check out the newest Google updates for May, you’ll learn about the importance of short, accurate titles for your content. If a title appears too long, the Big G will select a shorter, more appropriate version to display in the results – and you don’t get a say in what that title will be. It’s best to select a title that contains your keywords but is also brief and relevant if you want to pass inspection.

For the purposes of this article, however, I’d like to focus specifically on meta descriptions. I stepped back from my website work this week and thought long and hard about what makes a person click on a site listed in Google’s search results. Think about it. What makes you click a link from the list?

For me, it’s the description of the page that appears below each title in the list. I use Google multiple times throughout the day, and I always scan the descriptions before I choose a site. I do this mindlessly – but once I really started paying attention to what I was doing, it dawned on me that the descriptions were the deciding factor that ultimately influenced my click.

You can have the most fantastic content in the world, but if you’re primarily depending on search traffic, then it won’t mean a thing if your meta descriptions are a drag. Let’s look at what exactly meta descriptions are and how you can use them to skyrocket traffic to your website or blog.

So… What Are Meta Descriptions, Anyway?

Meta elements are essentially coded definitions of different parts of your website, and they’re expressed in HTML or XHTML formats. Each meta element provides metadata about the pages on your site. For example, you may have some meta elements that specify particular keywords and page descriptions and others that define your site’s language or geographical attributes.

The meta element that we’re focusing on for this post is that of the meta description. You don’t see it on the actual website; it’s in the header code. To better illustrate this point, let’s look at the meta description for Google:

Google's Meta Description

Now, here’s how that meta description appears for users in the search results for Google’s website:

Google in Search Results

The information contained in the meta description for Google provides a succinct explanation of the content that users will find by visiting the site. Most search engines cut off descriptions somewhere around 160 characters, so sticking to 155 characters or less will help to ensure that your wording won’t be truncated.

A Brief History of Meta Descriptions

Meta elements were the hot ticket in SEO back in the late 90s. This was because the old school algorithms relied heavily on meta data to classify and rank websites in search results. With the right meta elements, websites could easily occupy the top spots for any given keyword. It didn’t take long for search marketers to get hip to this fact, and the revelation resulted in millions of websites dominating the SERPs with metadata-stuffed sites.

Obviously, the search giants had to regroup if they wanted to maintain the integrity of their listings. Search engine traffic was becoming more important as the Internet became more legit, so greater safeguards were put into play. Far less significance was placed on metadata in algorithms, and now bots have become so sophisticated that using the tactic for SEO is virtually obsolete.

Write for Humans, Not Search Engines

All that background brings me back to my original point. There is still a reason to focus on meta descriptions. Abig reason. People won’t click on your site if they don’t feel you have the solution to their problem. It’s as simple as that.

You must convince searchers that you have exactly what they’re looking for – and you have to do it in 160 characters or less.

You need to think of your meta description as ad copy. It’s the blurb that will sell your site, and therefore it’s arguably the most important part of the SEO you will do for your entire website. If you write something truly compelling, then you will certainly see an increase in your clickthrough rate (CTR). It’s that simple. You need to make searchers curious and lure them to want to learn more after reading your description – that’s what will draw in the clicks.

Tips for Writing Better Meta Descriptions

Now you know just how pivotal carefully crafted meta descriptions are for each and every page of your site or blog. They are ultimately what will convince a searcher to click through to your site. But what can you do to make your meta descriptions more appealing? Here are a few guidelines to help you during the writing process:

  • Use the keyword you’re targeting in your description. When you do, the keyword will appear in bold in your meta description when it appears in the SERPs. This won’t boost your ranking power, but it will certainly help to grab the reader’s attention.
  • If you’re using a blogging platform such as WordPress, try a plugin like the All in One SEO Pack. There are many more like it, and most will allow you to enter both the title and description that you’d like search engines to display. This eliminates the need for manual coding, which is always nice.
  • Make sure that you use a unique meta description for each page. Yes, it’s a huge pain. However, if you make it part of the writing process and you write the description directly after you write your article, I’ve found that it’s actually easy. You’re already in writing mode, and you know the most appealing points to describe since the topic is still fresh in your mind.
  • Don’t ever use quotes in your meta descriptions. It’s a great way to have your text cut off by the search engines.

Source: http://site-reference.com/articles/hit-the-seo-jackpot-with-meta-descriptions-2/

Getting Ahead in Google: Dare to Be Different

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I recently did a site audit for a client who was wondering why they were having a hard time showing up in Google. When I read through the information they sent me and took a quick look at their website, it was obvious to me what the problem was: They simply didn’t deserve to be there.

Let me explain…

They have a fairly small local company that sells some common but specific types of office furniture. While they have a niche for the type of furniture they sell, for the most part it’s nothing that you can’t buy at most of the large office-supply stores such as Office Depot and Staples.

In the information they sent to me, they told me that they don’t do much (if any) marketing. Their website didn’t look horrible, but it had lots of technical issues. The category and product pages were very sparse, with very little information about the products, and nothing beyond the typical manufacturer’s description. The company had never built a brand for this website because it was one of a few sites they owned that sold slightly different lines of products. And — more important — I couldn’t find any unique selling proposition (USP). Oh, sure, they said that they had great customer service, but then, I don’t know of any business that says they have crappy customer service!

To get them to understand what they were up against, I showed them what the organic Google search results were made up of for a general phrase relating to one of the products they sold. For the most part, Google was showing mainly huge, major brands showing up on Page 1. If you think about it from Google’s point of view, why would they show this site’s product page before the ones they were currently showing? There was nothing unique or compelling about the site or what it was offering. There was nothing that set them apart from the others selling the same exact products at similar prices. Plus, they were an unknown entity compared to the big stores that everyone knows about due to their expensive marketing efforts.

Google Loves Diversity

What I noticed (and have noticed for many years) is that Google generally likes to show different types of pages within their search results. So sometimes you’ll see a page that is a directory of other sites, and one that is a main category page, one that is for a specific product, etc. But for the most part there will be something useful on the pages that they show first. At least, that’s what they shoot for — something that goes above and beyond a simple manufacturer’s description of a product that is seen on every site that sells the product. And something that perhaps the other sites on the first page didn’t have.

Big Brands Burst to the Top

For my product search, Office Depot came up No. 1 with a great page containing tons of different types and styles of the product as well as a way to compare them all. It’s also a trusted brand that people recognize and would expect to see showing up early in the search results.

Staples came next, with a page that wasn’t quite as comprehensive as Office Depot’s. And in all honesty it wasn’t much better than what my client’s site had on their main landing page for this type of product. The difference, however, was that Staples has spent millions marketing themselves and people know of them and link to them. Where they have a toolbar PageRank of 5, the page from the site I was reviewing had no toolbar PageRank at all (due to a combination of technical issues and there being very few other sites that link to this particular site). Because links are one of Google’s most important measures of quality, this one could not compete with a large brand that contains links naturally.

Showing next were the shopping results. My client did have a shopping feed, but their items didn’t seem to show up. Within the feeds that were showing up, again, most of them were recognizable names, and most also had 5-star reviews attached to them. It was pretty obvious that those were the ones that Google tended to show first.

Next in the regular organic results was a Walmart page for one specific product of the type I had searched for. But it also listed many other types on the page with nice large graphics, prices, comparisons and reviews. That one was a much better page to show than the site I was reviewing — it was easy on the eye and very comprehensive.

Next came an Amazon specific-product page. They too have branded themselves as a major company you can trust, and therefore they have a high number of links giving their product page a high toolbar PageRank.

Home Depot was next to show a specific type of the product, which also had high reviews. In fact, 20 reviews were listed right there on the page, which is extremely helpful to people looking to buy.

The next result was not a large brand! It was a smaller company’s home page that Google was likely showing because they specialize in selling only the very specific type of product I was searching for. Their home page had built up a good amount of link equity, which was probably why it was the page that Google chose to show. Not only that, but they had set themselves apart from the other sites I had seen thus far by having some cool videos about their specialized products. (Sadly, other than the videos, the site had done a lot of keyword stuffing, but hadn’t yet got caught by Google’s Panda/Penguin!)

The next few sites were OfficeMax, an eBay reviews page, and another site that specializes in the product. Then there was a page from a site that was really ugly, but it had a lot of information regarding sizes and pricing that was not on many of the other sites.

Eventually, on Page 3 of my search results, I found a page from the site I was reviewing. Given the zero amount of marketing they had done compared to their competitors, and taking all of the above into consideration, Google got it right. Most people would likely have preferred to see the pages that were in the top 10 over my client’s site.

What to Do?

I had many recommendations for this client. First, they had to fix the technical errors that were keeping them from getting ahead no matter what else they did. Next, I explained how they needed something in addition to the boilerplate text that every other site that sold those products used. Perhaps they could include additional information of their own. They could include recommendations as to who might want each particular product. They could also allow their customers to write their own reviews of the products. Basically, anything that would add value to the product pages would set them apart from the competitors. This in turn would make it more likely that Google would show their pages higher in the search results than they currently did because they would have something those other pages didn’t have.

Also, because it was going to be so difficult if not impossible to compete with the likes of Office Depot that have spent millions of dollars marketing their businesses, they needed to find some less competitive keyword phrases that would still bring targeted traffic.

Need to Branch Out

I recommended that they optimize all their product pages for more than just one phrase in the content and title tags. Still, I was skeptical that a site such as this — where almost all the phrases that related to the products were fairly competitive — would be able to compete with the big dogs for those terms. Therefore, it was critical for them to also branch out into long-tail keywords: those that get very little traffic on their own, but when taken in aggregate can bring significant targeted visitors to the site.

The way to target long-tail traffic is to provide interesting content to people who are thinking about purchasing the types of products they were selling. This could be done as extra resource pages on the site, and/or through a blog. I felt that, for this type of site and products, comparison pages would be ideal. There were lots of similar products that could be very confusing to a new buyer.

I also recommended that they ask their customer service people to put together some lists of the questions they often receive, and then address them on the site. And I looked at their Google Analytics for questions that got people there in the first place, and found at least 90 different ones they could use for various purposes.

Is any of this easy? Absolutely not! It takes time to make your website Google-worthy, but in the age of furry black-and-white animals such as Pandas and Penguins just waiting to take a bite out of you, this hard work is exactly what is necessary.
Jill Whalen is the CEO of High Rankings, an SEO Consulting company in the Boston, MA area
since 1995. Follow her on Twitter @JillWhalen.

If you learned from this article, be sure to invite your colleagues to sign up for the High Rankings Advisor SEO Newsletter so they can receive similar
articles in the future!

Google+ Local – What It Means for SEO

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On May 30th, Google announced the release of Google+ Local, replacing Google Places and adding several important upgrades including social features and Zagat reviews. The new Google+ Local pages will be indexed and show up in search results, so optimization and reviews will play an important role in future SEO strategy. This means a significant change to how businesses of all sizes deal with their Local listing, whether they create it or discover it has already been created for them.
What it is

Google+ Local page for the Museum of Making Music

Google describes these new pages as “a simple way to discover and share local information featuring Zagat scores and recommendations from people you trust in Google+.” They are integrated into Search, Maps and mobile and in Google+. The interface now has a local tab along with home, profile, circles, etc. This brings you to a personalized local home page, which offers a mix of popular, social and recommended content. At the top there is a search bar and a place to enter your location. When you conduct a search, you are given standard results along with the choice to see results from “top reviewers”, “your circles”, or “people like you”. The redesigned Google+ Local pages contain all of the basic business information along with a more prominent display of photos, a Zagat score and reviews. Google is incorporating its acquisition of Zagat in September 2011 by bringing more than 35,000 reviews and scores in 100 countries to Google+. When you are logged in, you will also be given results based on what your friends have reviewed or what Google thinks will be an appropriate match for your profile. This gives you direct insight into the preferences of your social network by integrating reviews and recommendations from friends, family and colleagues via SERPs, Maps and Google+ including on your mobile device. These features are native on Android phones linked to a gmail account – all other users (including iOS) will need a Google+ app. Clearly Google intends this to be a major step forward in their effort to integrate social factors into their search functionality.

A search result for “Italian Restaurant” in my neighborhood.

For businesses, Google+ Local pages are designed to give a social platform to interact with customers through the built-in networking features in their Google+ profile. While legacy reviews will remain, going forward, people must be logged into a Google+ account to leave a review on a business page. While this compels people to use Google+, it also forces a level of transparency that can lead to a more constructive dialogue between businesses and unsatisfied customers, as well as the opportunity to offer individualized perks and incentives to specific customers in the future. Like many Google products, this bare bones initial release leads to many questions about future features and advertising opportunities. Without a doubt, the new design offers a much more user-friendly and dynamic business profile and stands as direct competition to Facebook’s brand pages.

“We want to build a community based on a sense of trust, and we will continue to roll out new features and tools that reinforce that that concept.” – Avni Shah, director of product management at Google

Google intends to create visually engaging, interactive content pages that businesses will use regularly to communicate with customers and prospects, allowing them to add followers and have interactions similar to Twitter and Facebook, while incorporating a review structure that includes the internationally recognized brand name Zagat, its unique 30 point rating system, and the ability for Google+ users to share recommendations with and from their social networks. Combined with their dominance in search (including mobile) and the more the 50 million local businesses that already have legacy pages, it is easy to see how Google plans to make their new business listings as ubiquitous as the yellow pages 30 years ago.
What it means

By linking local business listings to Google+, Google hopes to leverage their dominance in search to create personalized (social) results and more valuable advertising opportunities. It is easy to imagine seeing an ad with a coupon for a local restaurant that a friend recently reviewed positively alerting me to that friend’s recommendation the next time I show interest in food, communicate with that friend, or search another listing in the vicinity. Google is building an environment in which social, local search, and advertising inform each other to create a unique experience for each user across the wide breadth of the web that Google touches (news, search, youtube, content showing Google ads). These changes will have a significant impact on consumers, marketers, and business owners (whether they pay attention to their Google+ Local page or not).

This does not require an immediate change in behavior on the part of the user – obviously, Google is hoping that the enhanced experience that is possible when you are logged into your Google+ account will compel more people to sign up and use the service, but even for a user who is not, Google hopes the improved business listings and Zagat information will provide a better search experience.

The implications of these changes on business owners and marketers is significant. The biggest difference is that unlike the old Google Places pages, the Google+ Local pages are indexed and show up in search results as stand alone pages in addition to pinned results. They are still controlled by Google – this means that Google has editorial discretion on the content and still displays competitor ads at the bottom of the page – but it is an indexed web page that’s content can be controlled by the business, so the need for SEO strategy is real and immediate. This compels businesses to pay attention to their Google+ listing and actively incorporate its use into online marketing efforts.

Many businesses have been effective at revolutionizing their customer service with the unprecedented speed and personal touch possible with social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook. If Google is successful in getting users to engage, an interactive web page for every business – whether they want it or not – will force businesses to learn how to compete in this new environment or ignore it at great risk. Concerns about reputation management and opportunities for SEO, PPC, and organic competition all demand attention from whoever is handling marketing – regardless of the size of the business.

Google is creating an infrastructure that will allow it to stay current with user demand to make the experience of content, search, and advertising both personal and shared. Their success depends on user engagement. The strategy to compel engagement hinges on using leverage from their dominance in search. Twitter has achieved tremendous engagement, is beloved, and has rooted itself in popular culture by mastering simplicity and ease of use (especially on mobile devices), but it has not built a profitable advertising platform despite obvious user preferences and topical relevance. Facebook has managed to saturate web users worldwide and provides advertisers an unbelievable degree of specificity in profiling a target market largely through social association, but as we have just learned, its advertising revenue is not living up to projections. It remains a walled environment – despite the “like” buttons that can now be found with all your favorite content, you are either in it or not. Because Google touches so many different aspects of our web experience, they have the potential to tie them together in a very powerful way that doesn’t feel like you are “in Google”, it’s just there. As with all things Google, this big change has been launched without many of the details worked out and much of the market preparation we expect from large companies. Still, this feels like a deeply systemic move that could very well ensure their omni-presence on the web for another 10 years.

Google Launches Webmaster Academy to Help Small Businesses Succeed

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Want to learn how to perform better in search results? If so, now Google can be your teacher.

Google launched its Webmaster Academy to help website owners do well in the search engines and grow their businesses.

The Academy is an all-inclusive resource that provides webmasters with the tools they need to establish a web presence. It discusses how Google ranks websites, what great content should look like, and how webmasters can use Webmaster Tools to their greatest advantage.

When you arrive on the Academy page you are greeted with this message…

“Welcome to Webmaster Academy! Our goal is to help you create great sites that perform well in Google search results.”

And this interface…

When you visit the site, you may glance past most of the introductory stuff, but for some of you it may be a good read. Google also publishes some interesting information on how to get your site indexed and crawled (more on that later). But, what I also found noteworthy was some updated information on how Google defines “great” content.

Google says “not to worry” about its algorithms when creating content. Your content should “deliver the best possible experience” so other sites will naturally link to it.

According to Google, you should ask yourself these questions when writing a post or article:
Would you trust the information in this article?
Is the article useful and informative, with content beyond the merely obvious? Does it provide original information, reporting, research, or analysis?
Does it provide more substantial value than other pages in search results?
Would you expect to see this in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
Is your site a recognized authority on the subject?

Wow! Those are big shoes to fill. How many of us write articles good enough to grace the pages of the encyclopedia? I guess it’s time to up our game.

Google also listed some problems…
Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
Does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites?
Does this article have an excessive number of ads that interfere with the main content?
Are the articles short or lacking in helpful specifics?

These questions can give us some insight into Google’s ranking signals, though there is no mention of this.

The third question discusses the mass production of content. This was first introduced last year; however, it included an additional blurb (emphasized in bold):

Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?

After the Penguin update and Google penalizing article directories and blog networks, I wonder how many downgraded sites were involved in some sort of article marketing or mass production. What do you think?
Make Sure Google Knows About Your Site

This next section identifies steps you can take to ensure you are putting your best foot forward for Google.

Step 1 – Make sure your site is indexed. Use site:yoursite.com in the search query box to see all of the pages Google has indexed.

Step 2 – Google instructs you to visit its Webmaster Guidelines if your site was indexed and does not show up. You may have violated its terms

Step 3 – If you are indexed but your site is lower in the rankings than previously, here are some tips:
Make sure Google can crawl your site

Make sure your content is useful and relevant

One way to do this is by checking your “Search queries” tab under “Traffic” in your Google Webmaster Tools account. There you will find the keywords people are using when they visit your site. A low CTR (click through rate) could mean that your content is not relevant enough to the specific keyword.

When visitors land on your site, they are assessing whether or not your site fulfills their desire. The keyword gives you an idea of what the searcher wanted to see. Is your content relevant to the search? The “Search Queries” section will help you answer this question.

Tip: Use this data also to discover how people are finding your site. Focus your content efforts on some of the most popular keywords and discover new ones as well.

The “HTML Improvements” page under “Optimization” in your Webmaster Tools account will tell you if you have any non-indexable content. It will also assess your metadata which is important when telling Google what your site is about.

Google also recommends following its image guidelines when publishing images on your site.

These are some of the highlights of Google’s Webmaster Academy. There is much more to read and digest, some of which you may already know. But, it’s worth taking a glance. Sometimes we forget the basics and need a quick refresher.

Website Success, the Google Algorithm, PageRank and Keyword Difficulty

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Ever wondered why your website is not on the top Google results page for your prized keywords? The answer lies in website popularity.

Top Positioning and the Google Algorithm

Google gauges website and webpage popularity, also called authority, by links from other websites. PageRank is Google’s evaluation of the popularity of a webpage. Webpage positioning for a keyword in Google’s search engine results pages is determined by the Google algorithm: Popularity carries greater weight than content.

PageRank and Keyword Difficulty

A newly indexed webpage has PageRank 0 and the most popular webpages have PageRank 10. PageRank is on a logarithmic scale. A webpage on a website with high popularity will be positioned above a webpage on a lower popularity website, everything else being equal.

Many top positioned webpages for desirable keywords have PageRank 0 and this leads most web professionals to question the value of PageRank. Others believe that PageRank is the top factor in the Google algorithm and it provides the best indication of keyword difficulty. Keyword difficulty is an indication of the competitive strength of the top webpages for that keyword.

Several keyword difficulty tools incorporate webpage PageRank to evaluate competition. In one eBook, the PageRanks of the top 10 webpages on Google for the keyword ‘Soundbar Reviews’ were:

8+4+2+0+1+1+1+9+5+8 = 39/10 = 3.9 average.

This example would support those who question the value of PageRank.

HomePage PageRank

The current HomePage PageRanks for the top webpages for ‘Soundbar Reviews’ are:

6+4+4+7+6+6+5+8+4+5 = 5.5 average.

HomePage PageRank seems to be a better indicator of keyword difficulty than the PageRank of the page. Google tells us that PageRank of websites as well as PageRank of webpages are important. The PageRank of a website may mean all the incoming PageRank link juice to the website. We have no way to measure this but HomePage PageRank acts as a useful indication.

The majority of top performing webpages are on websites with PageRank of at least 4 (64% in a series of nearly 50,000). This is compelling evidence that HomePage PageRank is a major player in the Google algorithm.

The current HomePage PageRanks for the top 10 webpages on Google.co.uk for ‘Windsor website designer’ are:

3*+3+4+4+5*+0*+1*+2+0*+5* average = 2.7

(Starred numbers indicate that these webpages are HomePages).

The three webpages with HomePage PageRanks 0, and 1 are HomePages. Thousands of keyword analyses demonstrate that Google must be giving a boost to the effective HomePage PageRank when HomePages are competing for keywords. This works like a golf handicap system designed to level the playing field. It means small business websites have a chance to successfully compete against locality and professional directory websites that have higher popularity. The majority of top positioned webpages on websites with low HomePage PageRanks are HomePages. For SEO purposes, only the HomePage receives this boost.

Every search engine optimizer believes he knows a lot about the algorithm but the truth is that only Google holds the key. We must individually look at the evidence and come to our own conclusions.

Associated HomePage PageRank

Extensive analyses shows HomePages with PageRank less than 5, are boosted to an effective PageRank of 4.5 when they are competing for a keyword. In the analysis of 50,000 top webpages for 5,000 keywords, this boost came into play for 30% of top webpages. With this adjustment boost, the effective HomePage PageRanks for the top 10 webpages for ‘Windsor website designer’ becomes:

4.5+3+4+4+5+4.5+4.5+5+4.5+5 average = 4.4.

There are at least 200 factors in the Google algorithm. HomePage PageRank has the greatest influence particularly if one accepts the ‘boost theory.’ Analyzing keyword difficulty using PageRank analysis of the webpages and corresponding HomePages on Google’s top results page for a keyword is simple to do. The only way that you can convince yourself one way or the other is to put it to the
test.

Webpage PageRank and the Google Algorithm

A problem arises when several top webpages for a keyword are HomePages. Their adjusted average HomePage PageRanks will all be around 4.5. If we look at the examples of ‘Windsor website designer’, ‘Manchester website designer’ and ‘London website designer’ their respective average adjusted HomePage PageRanks are 4.4, 4.6 and 4.8.

The HomePage of a new website would be boosted to an effective HomePage PageRank of 4.5 for the keywords it targets. It is tempting to assume that if a new website was to compete for ‘London website designer’ with its HomePage, top page positioning could be quickly achieved.

* For ‘Windsor website designer’ the average PageRank of the webpages on the top Google results page is 2.4 and two HomePages have PageRank 0.

* The average PageRanks for ‘Manchester website designer’ is 3.9 and the lowest PageRank of the top webpages is 3.

* For ‘London website designer’ it is 4.1 with a lowest PageRank of 2.

It becomes apparent that your HomePage needs popularity in the order of PageRank 3 or 4 to successfully compete for ‘London website designer’ and this will take time.

Clearly PageRank of webpages is a factor in the Google algorithm although it is not quite as powerful as HomePage PageRank. Full analysis of webpage and associated HomePage PageRanks of the webpages on the top Google results page (SERP) for your keywords shows you the popularity of your main competitors websites and webpages.

Research shows:

* HomePage PageRank is the top factor in the Google algorithm.

* Google boosts the effective PageRank of HomePages of low authority websites to 4.5 when they are competing for keywords.

* Averaged HomePage PageRanks, including the boost, of the webpages on the top Google results page for a keyword is the top indicator of keyword difficulty.

* PageRank of webpages remains an important factor in the Google algorithm.

* Averaged PageRanks of the webpages on the top Google results page is a secondary indicator of keyword difficulty.

Website Success

Search engine optimization aims to maximize targeted visitors to a website. There are many programs and optimizers who promise that with their guidance you can reach the top on Google for any keyword you choose.

The fact is that if your competition for a keyword has high popularity as indicated by webpage and HomePage PageRanks, and you have a website that has low popularity, you cannot succeed.

If you target niche keywords that are in range for your website, you will gradually increase the popularity of your websites and ever more desirable keywords can be successfully targeted. Start small and build gradually.
David Viniker MD FRCOG has 30 years experience with computer applications for medical education and he has applied the principles of evidence based practice to SEO: He is a doctor trained to practice evidence based medicine. David has published compelling and easily verifiable evidence that HomePage PageRank is the top factor in the Google positioning algorithm and that Google provides a boosting adjustment to HomePages that are competing for a keyword. He has developed a new, essential keyword technique and corresponding tool – http://www.KeywordSEOPro.com which calculates keyword difficulty based on HomePage PageRank.

Danny Dover, who was the lead SEO at SEOmoz.org, in his book “Search Engine Optimization Secrets” explains the difficulty in producing a program that automatically obtains PageRank information.

Several keyword difficulty tools incorporate webpage PageRank to evaluate competition. In one eBook, the PageRanks of the top 10 webpages on Google for the keyword ‘Soundbar Reviews’ were:

YouTube Marketing Tips That Work

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YouTube is already become one of the most popular websites on the internet and people admit that they spend hours on the video sharing site that has millions of views on a daily basis. The site continues to grow and people are now able to use YouTube marketing tips that work for their own benefit. A lot of businesses are now able to use YouTube as their platform to reach out and find more potential customers. However, there are several tips that you can use to help you garner the right people to see your YouTube videos.
Know Your Keywords

You most likely have a great video but no one will ever find it if you have horrible keywords. This means that you will need to do research and use keywords that would be smart to optimize for. You will just use these keywords and then create a title with the keyword in front. Simply put this keyword in the description box and also in the tags section so that you will be able to optimize for that keyword. Once people start to search for that keyword, they will then find your video and allow you to get more views.
Content Is Crucial

Though some people will be able to find your videos, it does not necessarily mean that they will watch it or like it. You will need to make sure that the content of the video is good enough to really have people want to share it to others. This is certainly something that you must think about while you are creating the video and you need to understand just how hard it is to grab a person’s attention. Focus on making the first 15 seconds very intriguing and then making the rest of the video just as good.
You Need To Have Fun

The last step is to simply not take it too seriously. A lot of online marketers will take the process of making videos too seriously and it will show on the videos. This means that there are plenty of online videos that are just taken too seriously and it just creates bad videos that are just not great. The problem that a lot of YouTube marketers will encounter is the fact that they work very hard on a video and then realize that no one is watching.

If you are serious about being able to see your YouTube video getting attention on the internet, then you must know how to market your videos with these simple tips. The process of making a good video, sharing it, and then marketing the video to the right people, can take a while but it will be very helpful for your online business. The majority of small businesses owner know that YouTube videos can be very helpful and expand their online presence. Though this will definitely require a lot of effort on your part, it will be very worth it when you start to see your business getting more attention.

Post written and researched by Alex Duke from HighwaySEO. An SEO Company based in Atlanta offer range of Search Engine Optimisation & Web Design services to clients throughout the US.