SEARCH NEWS – SEPTEMBER 2012

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Sell SEO Make Money Search News is your monthly source to keep you up to date on the latest trends in search engine marketing. You’ll know about emerging trends in online marketing and we’ll explain how those trends can be put to use in your business.

Google Rolls Out Another Panda Refresh

On September 18, Google announced they would be rolling out another Panda refresh. Panda is Google’s code name for a series of updates they started in 2011 that remove low quality content from Google’s search index. This latest refresh is expected to only impact less than 0.7% of search results. So what does this mean for you? It serves as a good reminder that you should have a diversified and well-rounded marketing strategy that is built on a foundation of quality content. Make the content on your website useful and informative. To learn more about ways to take your content marketing program to the next level, give us a call.

Google+ Is Making It Easier To Find You

Google+ recently introduced pre-approved Custom URLs to well known brands like +Toyota and +Coca-Cola. A custom URL is a short, easy to remember web address that links directly to a company’s or a person’s profile on Google+. You want something short and sweet to put on your business card and marketing collateral. Right now only the largest brands can get Custom Google+ URLs but they will almost certainly open up the program to more brands and individuals in the future. When you are selected, you will see an alert bar on the top of your screen that lets you claim your suggested URL. Keep your eye out for when Google opens up the program to your business… you don’t want to have to settle for a second rate Custom URL.
Twitter Gets Fancy

There’s ALWAYS something new in social media!

This month Twitter CEO Dick Costolo announced a svelte new look for Twitter profile pages. Now, you can plaster a large image that represents your company across the top of your Twitter page. The new feature hasn’t been rolled out to everyone just yet, but should eventually be available for all profiles.

In addition, your avatar has been promoted from its subtle spot in the corner to smack dab in the center of your page. The photo stream has been moved up too, and will now be accessible on the new mobile apps.

Twitter’s new layout let’s people and brands express more about themselves. A well designed background and header image let’s prospective followers know that you are a credible company committed to communicating with its customers on social media networks.

How To Create Your Twitter Header Image:

  1. Click “Edit Profile” under the settings icon on the top right of your screen.
  2. Select “Design” on your left menu bar
  3. Scroll down to “Customize Your Own” and select “Change Header”
  4. Choose either “Take Photo” or “Choose Existing Photo” (“Take Photo” will allow you to take a new photo via your computer’s/phone’s camera. “Choose Existing Photo” has you select from your image library.)
  5. Move and scale your image to your heart’s content (Original image size cannot exceed 1252×626 pixels. We recommend you go no smaller than 640 pixels wide.)
  6. Ta-dah! You now have a new header image.

Feeling overwhelmed by the evolution of social media? Call us and we’ll manage your social media platforms. Our proprietary technology allows us to effectively monitor your online reputation and engage followers in social networks. Don’t let the opportunity to talk with consumers directly fall by the wayside.

Apple Ditches Google for Yelp! in the new Apple Maps

In its debut weekend, over 5 million units of the iphone 5 were sold. For all of its beauty, people universally dislike the new Apple Maps app. Businesses will notice that Apple now uses Yelp! instead of Google Places for local business listings and reviews. This is pretty big for Yelp, a young public company, and a pretty big deal for you! Check to see if your business shows up on the iPhone 5 or any other Apple product running iOS 6, Apple’s latest version of its operating system. Also check if your business shows up in the relevant Yelp! categories. If your business does not show up, call us to get you set up on Yelp!.

SEARCH NEWS – JULY 2012

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Sell SEO Make Money Search News is your monthly source to keep you up to date on the latest trends in search engine marketing. You’ll know about emerging trends in online marketing and we’ll explain how those trends can be put to use in your business.

Content Marketing Builds Extra Value

Though Google is known for being incredibly vague with its SEO guidelines, one thing is very clear: Google wants high quality content so users get relevant search results 100% of the time and advertisers keep coming back.

Content marketing is all about educating and informing consumers about topics that are related to a particular industry. It’s not a hard sell. The company that is the “sponsor” of the helpful article gets its brand in front of consumers who are likely to need its services. That article sends traffic from Google and other search engines and fortifies the campaign with traffic from referrals, social media, customer reviews, word of mouth and more.

When we market content for your campaign, we place it where it will bring value to you, the audience and the search engines. Content marketing has the added benefit of attracting high-quality natural links that are less vulnerable to Google updates, like Penguin.

It’s Not Just You. Google+ Local Is Really Confusing!

Google+ Local has replaced Google Places. However, your Google+ Local information is still managed through your Google Places for Business dashboard.

If you have a Google+ page for your business, currently, there is no way to combine your Google+ Local page with your Google+ page. For now, you have to manage them separately.

What’s the payoff for setting up a Google+ Local page? A few things: Google+ Local pages will be indexed (Google Places pages were not). It’s very likely that in the future, social signals tracked on Google+ Local pages will be displayed as local annotations in the search results and as featured recommendation positions within Google+ Local internal searches.

Got all that?! Wouldn’t it just be easier to hand off the management of your Google+ profile to us? Call us and we’ll take care of it.

Social Media Twists and Turns

There’s ALWAYS something new in social media!

Due to Twitter’s new restrictions on how third-party developers are permitted to use its API, the LinkedIn/Twitter partnership that began in 2009 is over. In a blog post, Ryan Roslansky, LinkedIn head of content wrote, “If you had previously synced your LinkedIn and Twitter accounts, and selected the option to share Tweets on LinkedIn, those Tweets generated from Twitter will no longer appear on LinkedIn.”

The ongoing patent dispute between Facebook and Yahoo has been resolved and the former enemies are now working toward an advertising and content partnership.

Facebook is reportedly planning to sell mobile ads that will target users based on the apps they’ve downloaded through its Facebook Connect feature. Read more about the controversial advertising strategy here.

Google Panda Rolls Through Again

Google’s Panda update, released over a year ago, was designed to target low quality content. In June, Google pushed out two Panda refreshes. For those of you keeping score, we’re now up to Panda 3.8.

Note that a refresh is different from an update:

  • An update is a change to Google’s algorithm
  • A refresh reruns the existing algorithm to catch any sites that are in violation. Unlike an update, it does not change the algorithm.

The original Panda update impacted about 12% of search worldwide and the refreshes in June impacted only about 1%. This is yet another reminder of the importance of online marketing diversification and producing quality content with the end user in mind.

SEARCH NEWS – JUNE 2012

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Sell SEO Make Money Search News is your monthly source to keep you up to date on the latest trends in search engine marketing. You’ll know about emerging trends in online marketing and we’ll explain how those trends can be put to use in your business.

Google Local Is Going Social

It’s finally happened — Google has integrated local business listings and maps into its social platform, Google+. Google Places is on the way out but the complete transition hasn’t happened quite yet. Google’s latest blog post says this:

If you are a business owner, you should continue to manage your information in Google Places for Business. You’ll still be able to verify your basic listing data, make updates, and respond to reviews. If you don’t yet have a Google+ Page for your business, we encourage you to create one now. And if you do already have one, hold tight for news on how to get it linked to your local listing.

Once you create your Google+ Page for your business, your business can be found across Google search, maps, mobile and Google+. Zagat’s user generated reviews, using a 30 point rating scale, replace Google’s star ratings. The new layout and design put more focus on photos and reviews. Your local listing is no longer “set it and forget it.” You cannot allow your listing to get stale and you must take measures to encourage your customers to review your business. Who has the time for that? We do! We offer a local listings service and a customer review service. Call us for more information.

Which Search Engine Has the Largest Market Share?

No surprises here! The winner is Google. Last year at this time, Google had 65% of the market share and now, 66%. Bing has 15% (up from 14%) and Yahoo 13% (down from 16%). Yahoo has been on a serious decline and at 13%, this is Yahoo’s lowest share ever.

As if Google hasn’t had enough success already, it owns about 95% of market share for mobile search too. If you ever wonder why we focus most of our SEO efforts on Google, well, there you go.

Speaking of Mobile, This is…Shocking!

Based on the sales of smartphones and tablets, mobile marketing has a bright future and is definitely something to consider when devising your marketing strategy. Mobile marketing is still relatively new, so there’s plenty of room for growth and innovation in the mobile space.

What’s shocking? Take a look at this graph that shows how much time people spend on various advertising mediums and the percentage of advertising dollars spent for each medium. Print gets 25% of advertising spend and mobile, only 1%. Some businesses haven’t caught up with the age of the Internet!

Google Penguin and Panda Updates: The Aftermath

The Google updates will keep coming, the rules will keep changing and we will continue to stress the importance of diversification. The best protection against Google updates is diversification of online marketing, to include things like PPC, email marketing and social media marketing. Call if you want more information on any of our online marketing services.