SEARCH NEWS – MAY 2012

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MN Design 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.

First Up: Google Panda Update 3.5

Google frequently tweaks its algorithm to target sites with low-quality content, particularly those that scrape content. Google calls these updates “Panda.” The first one came out in February 2011 and the latest kicked into gear on April 19, 2012. Google says, “We’re continuing to iterate on our Panda algorithm as part of our commitment to returning high-quality sites to Google users. This most recent update is one of the over 500 changes we make to our ranking algorithms each year.”

Next Up: Google Penguin Update

On April 24, Google released an update that’s designed to target those who have been spamming Google through activities such as keyword stuffing, cloaking and link schemes that violate Google’s guidelines. The update is called “Penguin” and is also known as the “webspam algorithm update.” Google specifically points out that the goal of this update is to punish outright spam.

Every business should know the SEO tactics that are being used to build its search rankings. Many SEO firms don’t reveal their tactics and their clients have no idea whether or not they’re at high risk for Google penalties. We are transparent; we believe in honesty. Everything we do for your SEO campaign is displayed on your dashboard.

We continue to stress the importance of diversification for both SEO and online marketing to help you maintain well-rounded strategies that keep you on a steady course through updates and other changes. We encourage all our clients to use a variety of online marketing channels, such as social media, email, PPC, guest blog posts and press releases. Call us for more details on our online marketing services.

Beware of New Google PPC Rules

Google frequently makes changes to its PPC platform and you want to stay on top of them so you can make the right choices for your campaigns.

Google recently announced “new matching behavior for phrase and exact match keywords.” Starting in mid-May, exact and phrase match keywords will “match close variants, including misspellings, singular/plural forms, stemmings, accents and abbreviations.”

Google has also made a change to the ad rotation settings. After 30 days, Google will run only your ad with the highest clicks. The ad with the most clicks may not necessarily be the ad that brings the highest quality traffic to your site. An ad that Google takes out of rotation may be your most profitable ad. Google will make more money from the higher clicks, but you may not.

If you’re running an Adwords campaign, be aware of these changes and take the extra steps to be in control of your campaign. Better yet, leave PPC to the professionals—US! Our PPC analysts are Google Adwords Certified and it’s their job to keep on top of the latest changes and configure the settings to make the most of your budget.

Are You Taking Every Opportunity to Be Visible Online?

SEO is just the first step to boosting your online visibility. We recommend that you use social media to amplify your online “footprint.”

Facebook is the second most popular site in the world, according to the latest three-month Alexa traffic rankings, and the time spent on a typical visit to Facebook is roughly 24 minutes. Reportedly, Facebook now has more than 900 million active users.

Chances are, you have customers and prospects who are very involved with Facebook. Get in there and start connecting with people. Your fans may not check your website everyday but they will know what you’re up to when you post news, specials, coupons, events and other timely information on your Facebook page. Once you build your presence on Facebook or any social media site, you need to remain active and engaged.

Interested in learning more about using social media to diversify your online marketing? Give us a call.

SEARCH NEWS – APRIL 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.

Making Sense of Google’s Latest “Updates”

Recently, Google identified a number of blogger network sites that existed purely to build links to websites. Google targeted one of the larger blogger networks called “Build My Rank.” The Build My Rank site was de-indexed, along with an overwhelming majority of its posts. Businesses that were over-reliant on the links from Build My Rank (and other blog networks that may be facing de-indexing) saw a significant drop in rankings. Businesses that used Build My Rank but also acquired links from a variety of other sources fared much better. The more you diversify, the less impact a Google update will have on your rankings.

We have always stressed that SEO and marketing overall needs diversification. Links should come from as many different sources as possible and be relevant. Diversity coupled with relevant and useful content is what builds value. Our diversified approach to link-building in combination with your relevant and useful website content (we cannot overemphasize the importance of relevant and useful website content!), puts you on the path to improved search rankings. If you’d like to diversify even more, consider adding pay-per-click advertising, email marketing and/or social media to the mix. Let us know if you’re interested.

Meanwhile, Over At Yahoo

Thousands of Yahoo employees are out of a job due to layoffs earlier this month. Since August 2010, Bing has powered Yahoo’s search results and in October 2010, Microsoft adCenter began powering paid search for both Bing and Yahoo. Rumor has it that Yahoo is discussing a renegotiation of its search and advertising deals with Microsoft, and Yahoo is “in active discussions” with Google about Google taking over Yahoo’s search business.

Google powered Yahoo’s search results from 2000 until Yahoo went independent in 2004. Yahoo partnered with Google on advertising in 2008, which attracted the attention of the Department of Justice–Google pulled out of the deal later that year over broader antitrust concerns and fear of being labeled a “monopolist”. Seems unlikely that Google will go down that road again. Google is under antitrust scrutiny from the FTC because competitors charge that Google is using its search dominance to promote its own services at the expense of competitors and consumers.

Time to Get Serious About Social Media

According to data from Experian Marketing Services, Facebook had 7 billion visits (not unique visitors) in March; Twitter, 182 million; and LinkedIn, 86 million. Newcomer, Pinterest, kicked LinkedIn out of its third place spot in March with 104 million visits. You simply cannot ignore those numbers. Participating in social media is a must for every business if only because your customers and prospects are spending a lot of time there! In addition to massive numbers of visits, social media sites are taking steps to give businesses more opportunities to engage with their customers and prospects.

All Facebook brand pages have transitioned to the new timeline format. Facebook is also improving its self-service ad feature to make setting up ad campaigns easier and more tailored to achieving specific marketing objectives. Twitter has launched self-service ads for small businesses, but release is currently limited to cardmembers and merchants using American Express. LinkedIn has announced a new program that lets brands embed a “follow company” button from the social network on their homepages; followers will receive automatic updates from the brand in their LinkedIn feeds.

It’s no longer so simple to set up and manage a social media campaign. More advertising and marketing opportunities mean more time strategizing, implementing, updating and communicating. Once you have a social media page, you must monitor and respond to messages to be effective at community building. We’ll take care of all of those details–call us and we’ll get your social media campaign rolling. We can help you figure out where you should concentrate your efforts to best suit your budget.

The Fight for Internet Privacy Goes On

While search engines’ tracking of Internet activity is great for online marketers, allowing for more targeted advertising, the government and many Internet users disapprove. The Federal Trade Commission and The White House want more transparent privacy options for consumers, like an easy to use “do not track” option. Some browsers have tracking protection but the concern is that they’re not easy to use, not very effective, or both.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz is pushing for five key “do not track” principles: universal implementation, ease of use, no option to override, no technical loopholes and the ability to opt out of not just targeted ads but all behavioral data tracking.

SEARCH NEWS – MARCH 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.

Get Ready: Facebook’s “Timeline” Coming to Brand Pages

Facebook’s brand pages are about to get a makeover. The “timeline” format that many Facebook users have applied to their personal profiles is now available for brand pages. All brand pages will transition to the new look by March 30.

If you’re promoting your business on Facebook, now is the time to start optimizing for the new layout. Showcase your brand, products and services in the large cover photo space. It’s huge! The new layout provides countless new ways to promote your brand. But it’s only worth doing if you have a social media strategy, goals and the time to manage your page. We have a multi-tiered social media marketing service — you can choose the level of support that suits your needs. And, you can log in to your reporting dashboard at any time and see data from your social media campaign alongside your other online marketing campaigns. Please call us for more information.

Google’s Putting It All Together for Online Marketers

On March 1, Google implemented its new privacy policy. We’ve been writing about the downside of the new policy in terms of Google users’ privacy concerns, but there is an upside for those of us in the online marketing business.

Google users will now have one comprehensive profile and data will be shared across all of its platforms (Search, Google+, Gmail, YouTube and so on), making it easier for Google to be more precise with ad targeting. Theoretically, we should see better return on our investment in PPC and SEO as a result of Google’s ability to get a clearer picture of each individual who uses Google.

A survey done by the Pew Internet & American Life Project after the new policy was announced found that 83% of U.S. search engine users rated Google as their preferred search engine. (Yahoo was a distant second at 6%.) Nearly 75% of survey participants said they don’t want search engines to analyze personal information for advertising purposes. More than 33% said they don’t want ads to be customized based on their web surfing activities. Will people will turn away from Google now that the new policy has been implemented? Very doubtful. Big search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing, and social media platforms like Facebook, all collect personal information for advertising purposes. People who are concerned about privacy aren’t going to find it on the internet.

New On the Social Scene: Pinterest

Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board that allows users to share images and links. It’s getting noticed by online marketers because reportedly, unique visitors to Pinterest are skyrocketing and Pinterest is driving more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn, Reddit, and YouTube.

Pinterest does permit businesses to set up accounts for their brands, but it’s a very unique platform that requires “thinking outside the box.” Read the Pinterest Brand Best Practices page for examples of how some businesses, such as Whole Foods and Bergdorf Goodman, are using Pinterest to build their social networks.

Who’s Very Likely to Be Your Next Customer?

The person who has already bought your products and services! And one of the best ways to bring that customer back is an email marketing program. Make your customers repeat customers by nurturing them with an email marketing campaign. It’s easy to do if you sign up for our email marketing service. We can create a campaign for your business and customize content for your customers so they’ll keep coming back. We can also create a targeted campaign for your prospects. Data from your email campaigns will be reported on your dashboard, alongside data from your other online marketing campaigns.

A survey by ExactTarget showed that more than 50% of consumers make purchases as a direct outcome of email. And, according to Direct Marketers Association, email marketing garners an average ROI of $43.52 for every dollar spent. That’s expected to reach $44.25 in early 2012. Email marketing works. Give us a call for more information about on our email marketing service.