Author: Nancy McCord

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Google Cracks Down on Fictitious Google+ Local Reviews

I knew that eventually Google would address the growing problem of SEO firms selling services to create fictitious Google+ Local reviews, and finally they have. Here is a quote from Google:

“For business owners:

  • Be wary of an SEO or reputation management service that promises to generate reviews for your business. We’ve seen companies make up fake glowing testimonies — and we’ll take them down.
  • We don’t take down negative reviews for simply being negative for anyone, regardless of any other relationships with Google. Instead, we encourage you to utilize the owner response functionality to respond to the review and address the user’s concerns.
  • If a third party claims that they know how to remove reviews from Google, don’t believe them. Google does not work with any third party reputation management companies and we certainly don’t remove reviews unless they violate our guidelines.
  • Don’t set up a computer or tablet device in your place of business for customers to leave reviews on site. Consider sending a reminder e-mail so customers can review on their own time.
  • Remember, we don’t allow you to give customers free gifts or discounts for leaving reviews.” Read the full disclosure for business owners and SEO on this Google page.

Based on what I see, it appears that Google is not only scanning for fake reviews, but actively and aggressively targeting Local Pages that use them, but interesting enough appears to be tracking the IP address. Take a careful look at the section that says don’t put a tablet or computer in your place of business – that means IP tracking.

Additionally Google has turned to crowd sourcing to catch the offenders. If you know a competitor is doing this or suddenly has tons of reviews magically you can report them to Google for review.

“If you see a review that violates our policy guidelines, you can report the review to us by clicking on the gray flag icon next to the review in question. You’ll be taken to a form where you can tell us why you’re flagging that review. Please note that we won’t follow up with you individually, but we do review every piece of content that is flagged.”

This information is very important for website owners. I know of several who have been approached by firms selling these exact review services. They are stating that they set up individual Google email and Yahoo accounts just for your review creation, work to mask the IP address and then create a glowing supposedly untraceable review. Be wary of these types of services, is it worth being banned from Google+ Local pages to try to scam Google?

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Skype Is Coming Soon to Your Outloook.com Account

My office assistant works remotely and he and I manage our work together through a calendar in Outlook.com, Sky Drive, and Skype. I am excited that soon Microsoft will integrate Skype into Outlook.com making it easier for us to do business.

My son is my assistant and when he returned to college three hours north of us we needed a way to stay in touch with tasking and to effectively manage files we both work on. Plus we found out that his cell phone doesn’t work great up in the mountainous Frostburg area. In preparation for him leaving we tried all types of applications to stay in touch. We settled on the ease of use of Outlook.com and Skype.

For over a year Microsoft has promised to include Skype in its set of online tools. Right now Skype is available in Outlook.com in the UK and the recent announcement states that Skype will be available for USA users in summer 2013.  When it’s available you’ll need to download a browser plug-in, but one will be available for Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox.

To access the new feature you’ll simply click an new icon near a contact, in an instant message, or in an email. This new integration will make Outlook.com a terrific tool for business and personal use. I’ll let you know when I see this appear in my own account, but for now, just know it is coming and something to definitely consider checking out.

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Interesting Tidbits on Local Search Results on Google.com

Google has focused on delivering more location specific searches in their index partly because of the new focus on mobile, but also because this is what users want. As a result a new focus on search engine optimization to place on location specific keywords has bloomed into a major industry.

Here are a few tidbits that you may not have been aware of in regards to location specific placement on Google.com.

Introducing rel=publisher.
Local Placement in the 7-Pack

1. When you check the placement for your site, if you see a map next to your listing then Google is delivering location specific results which may be different than non-location specific results. The map is the key! But Google will only now show seven results in this local grouping. Not ten sites as it used to do so.

2. If when you do a search for your site and you are not in this 7-pack group, take a look at your website, about us page, and all your social media to review and assure that you are adding location specific keywords to help tag your site with the geographic information needed to place in this important grouping.

3. When Google has more than seven sites that it may want to show in the 7-pack, it will show results based in closest proximity to where it can identify that the end user is located. Additionally I have found that Google will “rack and stack” these listings based on the number of reviews. If your competitors are located nearby to you and they have more reviews that you, your listing may never show in the 7-pack.

4. You can’t place in the 7-pack if you are not geographically appropriate to the search query and end user. This is the biggest misunderstanding point for website owners. If you are located in Columbus, you cannot place in the 7-pack for Cincinnati – you do not have a local space and will never be able to get there. This is a big issue for national selling services. Google simply will not show your results in these location specific searches but rather local businesses.

For more in-depth information you will want to check out this great article at SiteProNews by Tina Courtney-Brown.

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Top Five SEO Areas to Focus On

I watched this video recently from Matt Cutts, from Google, on what are the top five SEO areas to concentrate your efforts on and wanted to give you a synopsis and additional insights from my own point of view. Matt’s video is excellent, so make sure to check it out as well.

1. Have a website, domain, be crawable, don’t hide or lock down important content.

Seems like a no-brainer here right? But you would be surprised at the number of people who still don’t have their own domain, are using free services for their website, or hide their best content behind a wall trying to get email addresses to read their best content. Don’t do that!

Build web authority and trust to place better on Google.com.
Build web authority and trust to place better on Google.com.

2. Include the right words on the page and especially in query type phrases.

You’d think that this would be common sense, but this is easily overlooked. I’ve seen sites include their important keywords in images (that are not readable by the Googlebot) or forget to include top phrases completely on the home page which is their most important page for Google.

3. Think not about link building but rather creating converting or compelling content.

This is a hard one for many people to grasp. Google wants to spider content that actually provides value to your readers not just a brochure of your services. Sites that invest in creating shareable content that is more than a listing of services will receive better rankings.

Now here’s an interesting note from the video, Matt says don’t just invest in search placement widen your reach consider other avenues including paid advertising, billboard, and other ways to get your message out to your audience. Broaden your marketing plan for a wider appeal.

4. Craft your Meta title and Meta description carefully.

These two source code tags are top real estate for websites. Special attention should be paid to create great tags that are more than a listing of keywords and that entice visitors to click in. The Meta description will appear as your snippet in Google.com. Make sure it works to entice readers to click in to your site.

5. Use all the free webmaster resources.

Google has some great and free tools to use to understand what is happening with your website. Make sure you are using the Google Webmaster Control Panel and Google Analytics to know what is happening on your website.