Google Updates « Webmarketing123

Social Influence on SEO

December 10th, 2010 by Webmarketing123

Yesterday, Ben Cheng, our SEO specialist and Barbara Dizon, our Social Media expert, presented an analysis of the Google and Bing revelation that social media does influence search. The majority of the webinar was spent discussing the different ways social media affects your search rankings, and what Google and Bing take into account when incorporating social media posts into your website’s ranking. Below are some key take-aways you probably won’t find on the slides .

Barbara reminds us that:

Social media engages with a community, not a specific generation. The point of Twitter, for example, is to give relevant information that will be helpful for your followers.

To continue the topic of Twitter, it is generally used for specific information and/or as a news filter. When people realize that you are consistently sending them to pages and links that they consider relevant, they start to trust your company.

Social authority does depend on the quantity of fans and followers you have, but they MUST be relevant and active as well! In other words, having 100,000 followers where 50% of them are irrelevant spammers will do no better than having 1,000 followers that are completely relevant, and actually engage with your content (RT, @ reply, etc.).

Social Media for B2B is less about marketing and more about thought leadership. The best way to get people on your brand’s bandwagon is to have great content that will make the ride much more pleasant.

Ben reviews:

The links you share on your Twitter or Facebook have a direct impact on your rankings. Why? Because they can be shared and Re-Tweeted, which impacts the level of authority you have.

With enough social/author authority, your company will be indexed. Getting your website pages mentioned on Twitter, for example, is synonymous link building.

Another important component of authority is not just the amount of friends or followers but also how often they visit your site, or ping it!

Make social waves through Bing and Google’s discussion tab. This allows real time tweets to be in the feed if you are well-followed and connected.

A product page can be crawled by Google spiders up to three times quicker if it is tweeted (tested in-house at Webmarketing123).

The main point in integrating social and search now lies in your social authority. If you are a trusted authority with decent amount of fans/followers that all repurpose & engage with your relevant content, your rankings will benefit from social media. Repeat after me: trust, repurpose, engage, relevancy, rankings. Therefore, get social to get noticed!

If you would like a copy of the slides from this week’s webinar, e-mail Mark Powers at mark@webmarketing123.com. Ask him to hook it up with that good social/search knowledge—he should know what you’re talking about .

Tags: Author authority, Barbara Dizon, Ben Cheng, Bing, facebook, Google, Highlights, link building, Mark Powers, Search, SEO, social, Social authority, Social Media, twitter, Webinar, Webmarketing123
Posted in Google Updates, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Webinar Highlights | No Comments »

Creativity Killed the Cat — at Google, that is.

December 2nd, 2010 by Barbara Dizon

When the news leaked about “Googlers” getting a 10% raise (in cash) by the New Year, everyone saw it for what it really was: an act of desperation. Why? Well first off, a Googler ratted out its own employer—kind of a red flag. Secondly, nearly 1 in 5 Facebook employees listed on LinkedIn came from Google (thanks to Glenn Kelman’s research). Even though Google is ranked the 4^th best company to work for in 2010, they’re obviously not doing something right—so what could it be?

This topic has been in discussion for the past month now, and after keeping up with countless articles, it all comes down to the creative mind. Yes, Google launched a few innovations that haven’t really taken off (e.g. Google Wave), but everything is a learning process. Creativity sparks innovation, but some of the top engineers that left Google for Facebook was due to a struggle with their creativity being hindered.

The most recent article I’ve read still provides insight on former Google employees feeling the liveliness of Facebook compared to Google in getting things done. Though all this talk doesn’t mean Google is going out of business any time soon, this rivalry is interesting to follow, and Facebook is definitely becoming more appealing to those with the most out-of-the-box ideas. As I was searching for a quote to relate, I came across this one, by Brian Graham: “Competition creates better products, alliances create better companies.” We’ve already seen this happen with Yahoo! and Bing, as well as Facebook and Bing, so I’m curious to see how these partnerships will flourish (or fail) in 2011.

Anywho, I’m anxious for what Facebook has in store for 2011, but I’m hoping whatever they release will spark even more innovation—from Google, Bing, whoever can keep with this rapidly moving snowball. Speaking of snowball, it’s that time of the season…hope everyone is enjoying the start of the Holidays!

-@barbaradizon

Tags: creativity, facebook, Google, Google raise, rivalry, Social Media
Posted in Google Updates, Social Media | No Comments »

Back to the Basics: Long Tail Keywords vs. Short Tail Keywords

October 18th, 2010 by Ray Mao

If you’ve ever seen one of our webinars, or know the first thing about SEM (search engine marketing), you know how essential keywords are to your SEO (search engine optimization) efforts. You may also know that keywords can be split up into 2 groups, long tail and short tail keywords.

Short tail keywords are generic or broad keywords that are highly searched. They lack any specificity that can characterize the user as uninformed about the search term. Also, unless your company is a giant monopoly and a household name in your industry, it’s going to be pretty tough (and expensive) to rank for and go after generic keywords. On the other hand, long tail keywords are phrases that are detailed. Though they are less widely searched, ranking for long tailed keywords will refine your audience and bring qualified users to your site, increasing your chances of conversion. Seems pretty simple, right? But with SEM, we know that’s not always the case.

Effects of Google Instant

With the new Google Instant that rolled out last month, the days of waiting for Google to deliver results are long gone. As you may have noticed, Google will actually deliver search results as you type– does this mean the end of long tail keywords? One might think that the months, perhaps years they have spent eliminating short tail keywords and going after the quality converting phrases will go to waste now that Google delivers instant results, but here’s what I think:

From a user perspective, I can see how Google Instant’s predictive search opens up a new can of worms for chasing keywords. I mean, who could resist a recommended search for juicy gossip about your favorite band when what you originally wanted were their tour dates–but really, how often will the predictive results influence a user’s search? I’m willing to bet not that often. Only time will tell if Google Instant will have an effect on long tail keywords but after one month, I have not seen much of a change. Personally, I like predictive search. It shows me what else is being searched and rarely do I find myself getting carried off track by a predicted search term. If a user really knows what they are looking for, don’t you think they’re going to follow through with their search query? And if they don’t, they aren’t necessarily the users you want to bring to your site anyway.

Tags: Google, Google Instant, keyword selection, long-tail keywords, predictive search, SEM, SEO, short-tail keywords, Webmarketing123
Posted in Google Updates, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »

Google Instant–Will it Affect Your SEO?

September 17th, 2010 by Webmarketing123

The biggest question from our webinar yesterday (held by Travis Low–@TravisLowSEO) was: Will Google Instant Affect SEO?

Before we get into the details, we want to make sure we define a few key terms that will be used throughout the post:

Short-tail/Head Match Keywords – a general 1-2 keyword search term. For example, with keywords such as “black running shoes size 12,” “nike running shoes for women” or “light running shoes” the head match is “running shoes.”

Long-tail Keywords – at least 3+ keyword search term. For example, “business process management software solutions.”

Impressions – (defined post-Google Instant)

1) User begins a search query and clicks anywhere on the page

2) User chooses a particular query by clicking the search button, hitting enter, or selecting an auto-complete suggestion

3) User stops typing and results are displayed for a minimum of 3 seconds

An example of seeing impressions through Google Adwords can be seen below:

Impressions on Google Adwords - KW: "bpm software" with 1,600 Impressions

Now that we addressed key terms, we can discuss how Instant has changed. Google Instant displays the predicted query—unless searchers continue typing or click on the search button. What is important to know is that Google Instant is changing the overall experience for the user, and now it is even more important that your website ranks on the first page, preferably within positions 1-3. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

Keywords should be in your site content, meta content, inbound links, hyper text links, URL, and content silos
Focus on your title and meta descriptions
Short-tail keywords will get a lot more impressions, but the quality of search terms will improve over time as users are given more long-tail suggestions
You need to start focusing on optimizing for the long-tail keyword suggestions Google provides

For example:

Keyword “BPM Software” - Google Instant Predictive Text

Google captures what are the most searched queries on certain topics. If one of your keywords, for example, is “bpm software” (seen above), you want to start optimizing for the long-tail keywords that Google suggests. Frequently check to see if there are newer keywords Google suggests, or if the ones shown above remain to be the top searched queries on “bpm software” and optimize for those.

Keep in mind that with Google Instant, there is no change to the organic algorithm. If you ranked #1 prior to Google Instant, then you remain #1. The significant affect of Google Instant is with user experience.

Key Takeaways:

1) Google makes no changes in ranking algorithm, it’s primarily just changing the user ranking

2) Too early to tell how user behavior may change, but first page rankings and auto complete suggestions are more important. Essential to optimize for these suggestions.

3) Impressions for head match terms will definitely increase. The quality for the search terms will improve as we are starting to give more long-tail suggestions.

4) Important that your SEO campaigns focus on your return on investment. What are your overall marketing and business goals? Once these are defined, it’ll be easier to optimize.

We will keep you updated on the progression and/or any changes with Google Instant, and how or if it will affect your Search Marketing efforts–so keep checking back! To download a copy of the slides, click here.

Tags: Google, Google Adwords, Google Instant, head match, impressions, long-tail keywords, organic algorithm, PPC, ranking, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, short-tail keywords, Webinar
Posted in Google Updates, Search Engine Optimization | 1 Comment »

Yahoogle? A New Alliance of Search Engines in Japan

August 3rd, 2010 by Cynthia Everson

A week ago, I wrote a blog entry chronicling Google’s gradual move into Japan. I was living and working in Tokyo from April 2008 to April 2010, and in that two-year time-frame Google started popping up all over the place in a country that otherwise had been dominated by Yahoo Japan.

Fortunately, we hadn’t gotten around to publishing that blog post yet, because in it I concluded that Google would never have the presence in Japan that Yahoo has. Then last week I found out…they’re teaming up, forming an alliance of sorts. Not a merger (Yahoo will keep its logo and interface), but the organic search and paid results will be based on Google’s technology. This doesn’t necessarily mean that Google will take over Yahoo’s presence, per se, since the logo will remain Yahoo’s, but it does mean that they will hold a virtual monopoly over what you can find on the Internet in Japan.

As someone who has lived in Japan, I believe the real power of Yahoo Japan comes from their partnership with SoftBank, the largest cell phone provider in the country, that owns a 40% stake in Yahoo Japan (compared to Yahoo Inc.’s 35% stake). I used Softbank while I was in there and found myself, always a loyal user of Google in the US, slowly switching to Yahoo. I never had the chance to sneak into a Japanese person’s house to track their search engine usage, but the feeling I got was that most people used the Internet more on their cell phone than at home from a personal computer. Trains in Tokyo are an odd site. They’re jam-packed with people to the point that you can barely move at rush hour (and rush hour, by the way, is more like eight hours), and still most of the people are glued to their phones, either text messaging (a major Japanese pastime), surfing the web, reading the news, or even watching TV. With the default browser of the biggest cell phone provider set to Yahoo, the Yahoo search engine maintains a very high status.

I think the affinity for SoftBank in Japan goes beyond what we as Americans can understand as brand loyalty to a cell phone provider. Because mobile phones are such a way of life in Japan and marketing is as amazing as it is, it’s not uncommon to see the mascot, a big white dog who used to be a human father of a family of normal people, dangling from people’s bags or worn as slippers at home. I follow the dog on Twitter. He has a separate account from actual Softbank. Furthermore, Softbank sponsors a baseball team, the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks, which plays at the Fukuoka Yahoo! JAPAN Dome. Sweet deal.

As proof of Softbank’s status in Japan, here’s a fascinating commercial, featuring Brad Pitt carrying a gigantic sumo wrestler.

Anyway…

I think the biggest concern among Japanese people that are keeping up with the news of this alliance is that the organic search results are going to be really different. It always seemed to me that when I ran a search in Japanese on Google, the results weren’t as relevant as the ones Yahoo Japan pulled up. But I’m not a native speaker, so I’m not really the person to ask.

So what does the future hold for Google Japan? Probably a lot. But with the Yahoo logo still staying up as the SoftBank default browser, I don’t know that their presence will surpass Yahoo’s dominance as the most popular search engine in Japan. Yahoo is pretty settled into the Internet world there and I highly doubt Google could take over the dominance of their weather reports, auctions (did you know they had auctions? I didn’t! ), and aforementioned train schedules. It would be pretty cool, though, if they took over Yahoo! JAPAN Dome and painted it multi-colored…

Tags: alliance, Google, Japan, mobile search, organic search, paid search, search engines, Softbank, Yahoo, Yahoo Japan
Posted in Google Updates, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | 2 Comments »

Cookies or Chocolate Chip Cookies? Which Keyword is Optimal for SEO?

May 28th, 2010 by Webmarketing123

Yesterday’s webinar was all about the ABC’s of keywords optimization. Or as Travis puts it: “How much is that keyword worth to you?”

KEYWORDS are the FOCAL POINT of your SEO efforts. So naturally, identifying your highest impact keywords, and then strategically incorporating them into your site are crucial to your SEO success.

Keywords fall into two buckets: Head match and long-tail match. Head Match keywords are general searches, like “shoes” or “cookies”, whereas long-tail match keywords are more descriptive searches, like “women’s dress shoes” or “chocolate chip cookies”. Because long-tail keywords are more specific, they are better matched to the searchers needs, have less competition than generic head match keywords, and therefore can produce a high volume of impressions.

The first step in maximizing sales from: SEO is setting the right keywords. This means focusing on a short and ideal list of key phrases your sales prospects and customers use to find you.

On May 5th or 6th 2010, depending on where you live, Google changed its search results page. One of the changes included the Google Wonder Wheel, a keyword expansion tool which shows related searches to your current search inquiry. The Wonder Wheel is an incredible tool and particularly helpful with finding other options for keywords.

Using the example that Travis used during the webinar, let’s say your company is in conveyor services.

In Google, search “conveyor systems” and on the left side of your screen click on “Wonder Wheel”.

Here, you can see other keyword options, to help narrow your search. Since you are in the industrial sector, click on “Industrial Conveyor Systems”.

Boom! Now you have six other keyword options to help optimize your search. We’ll go with “belt conveyors”.

Other Key Tools and Highlights:

Google Insights – diagnose keyword search trends & its popularity in geographical regions
Google Analytics – helps you understand what your customers are typing in to find your website, and which keywords you need to push to optimize, or if you need to start a PPC campaign
Make sure that your company‘s terminology is in line with your customer’s terminology—the keywords they search for should be the ones you’re optimizing for!
Keyword selection is your foundation for optimization. Keyword selection takes 2-3 weeks, in order for the account management team, analysts, and engineering teams to understand your keyword selection base.

Choosing the right keywords are the KEY to success—wow, that was cheesy…but you get the point. See you at the next webinar!

Tags: Google, Google analytics, Google insights, head match, Highlights, keyword selection, keywords, long-tail keywords, SEO, Webinar, wonder wheel
Posted in Google Updates, Search Engine Optimization, Webinar Highlights | No Comments »

Google at it Again…

May 11th, 2010 by Webmarketing123

Something that brought a smile to our faces today…second time we’ve seen this!

Google did it again.

google_bing

Who else has gotten this? Or thinks it’s as hilarious as we do?

Tags: Adwords, Bing, Captcha, Google
Posted in Google Updates | 1 Comment »

Spiders on Caffeine!

April 7th, 2010 by Janet Salsman

Remember health class, or drug prevention week? That was the first time I saw the webs of spiders on various mood-altering substances, distorted and holey compared to the classic orb design. In today’s webinar, New SEO Fundamentals in a Google Caffeine World, I learned, much as I suspected, that Google spiders were not included in the experimental data.

Google spiders thrive on Caffeine, much like the rest of us. The new Caffeine algorithm they use to index webpages works faster and more thoroughly. Imagine a denser web that attracts more flies and catches a greater percentage of them.

The caffeinated spiders want fresh content, and lots of it. They want to have the content grouped together with a logical flow, like a morning paper separated into sections for news, sports, and entertainment to go with their morning coffee. Of course, they’re checking their favorite blogs at the same time, not to mention keeping up with Twitter and Facebook. You can give them what they want by optimizing your pages to appeal to them with keyword-rich content and organized silos of information. You can catch their attention with new posts and tweets. They’ll reward you with higher placement in the rankings.

But, much like many folks after too many double espressos, the spiders can be a little jittery. If your pages take a long time to load, they don’t have the patience to wait. They’ll skip to something that they can see right now.

What to do? Pay attention to content and architecture on your site. Get involved with social media to get yourself placed in the real time listings on results pages and to engage others talking about your services or products. And, perhaps, pick up a cup of coffee.

Tags: Blogs, Google, Google Caffeine, Google spiders, Social Media, Webinar
Posted in Google Updates, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Webinar Highlights, Webmarketing123.com | No Comments »

Education Friday! …On a Tuesday

January 11th, 2010 by Webmarketing123

Thanks to our smart SEO Team (Antonio Espinoza & Mike Turner), we gathered on Tuesday to talk about the latest Google updates and how they will affect SEO early this year. Here are some great answers to the questions we had during the presentation and some basic information on each topic–enjoy!

Topics discussed:

Google Caffeine Update
Google’s Real Time Search
Google Personalized Search Results

Google Caffeine

- Google is slowly rolling out this new algorithm and is currently using in one datacenter with wider usage this year.

- This particular algorithm indexes significantly more pages than the previous algorithm. This is important because the more pages Google indexes, the more competition you are going up against, meaning the more important to optimize your site to ensure that Google can crawl as many pages of your site as possible.

Real Time Search

- For certain searches that have enough social media content (It’s not yet known how many conversations trigger this) Google has started to show real time conversations about your business/keywords, often times above the organic listings. This is key because if you are not monitoring the conversations about your business/keywords you are missing a major opportunity to engage your prospects.

For example:

Google personalized Search Results

- Google has been customizing search results for some time now for those who are logged into with their Gmail accounts. Now, regardless of if you are logged in or not, Google will be serving up customized search results.

Here are some Frequently asked questions and answers that you may get from your prospects/clients:

Question: You say I’m ranked #3, but my computer says I’m ranked #7. What’s going on?

Answer: Are you logged in to your Google account? If so, Google is remembering the links you click on and personalizing to what they think your preferences are. If you are logged in, log out and try your search again. Here is a screenshot that shows what it looks like when you are logged in:

Question: I’m logged out, and it still is showing a different ranking than what you told me.

Answer: Depending on what data center Google returns your results on, then there will be variations in search results. Our server is based in Arizona, so we get results based around that. If you’re in New York, your rankings are likely to be slightly different than ours.

Question: What if I’m logged out, and in the same data center as you, but still seeing different rankings?

Answer: Google has recently rolled out personalized results whether you are logged in or not. Based on your search history, Google wants to provide more of what you are looking for naturally.

Google says that it does not always personalize searches, and you’ll know when they do, because there will be a button to the bottom-right of the search button that says, “View Customizations.” As shown in the below screen shot:

To get the same results do the following: You can always choose to disable the customization by either clicking “Web History” or “View Customizations”, and choosing the “disable” option. After that, Google should not personalize your search results. Here is a screenshot of where the “Web History” button is located:

Final Question: I’m still worried about this Personalized Search. What is this going to do to my site?

Answer: Google is constantly tweaking their algorithms, and we have the unique perspective of monitoring hundreds of SEO campaigns so that we can test what works and what doesn’t. Before the release of the Personalized Search feature on December 4^th, Google was already personalizing searches, as long as you were logged in to your Google account.

From our experience, we’ve seen that when searchers are competitively shopping, they will most likely not convert on the first site they see. They will do research, and as long as you’re within the top ranks, you will be found, making it more of a necessity to optimize your site to show up as high as possible for keywords that mean leads and sales to your business!

-Webmarketing123’s SEO Team

Hope you all had a safe and happy new year! Welcome, 2010!

Tags: Google, Google Caffeine, Google Personalized Search Results, Google Real Time Search, Google Updates, Q&A, SEO
Posted in Google Updates, Search Engine Optimization, Webmarketing123.com | 13 Comments »

Back to the Basics: Long Tail Keywords vs. Short Tail Keywords

Google Instant–Will it Affect Your SEO?

Yahoogle? A New Alliance of Search Engines in Japan

Cookies or Chocolate Chip Cookies? Which Keyword is Optimal for SEO?

Google at it Again…

Education Friday! …On a Tuesday

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