Category: Google

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Using Google+ Posts for Improved Web Visibility

Get going with Google+ for your business.
Get going with Google+ for your business.

Here are just a few tricks to help with web visibility when it comes to using Google+. First, it is important to know that your posts will appear in the Google.com search index. Your first line will actually appear as the title in the search results, so make sure that you consider what you’ll write first and make it work to your advantage.I’ve found more often than naught that my personal profile posts will be in the search results more frequently than my business page posts. Remember also that there is no limit on the number of links that you can add to a post, but I recommend not going link crazy. You’ll want something readable yet memorable while still being sharable for your update.

I’ve found that the Google+ community is more visual than text oriented and so make sure to use images, links — as Google will auto add the image for you, and videos.

While you are thinking of how you can leverage Google+ to your advantage, don’t forget to optimize your About page. You can embed links into your profile information so make sure to point back to important pages for more information on your website.

Google does not allow automation or scheduling of any kind to personal profiles. They do however allow automation to business pages. This unique difference assures that the voice on your Google+ personal profile is real. This authenticity is one of the reasons that I personally like Google+ but find it problematic for client’s to embrace for their own business’ web visibility. For now we don’t offer Google+ status update writing to personal pages, but do provide services posting to business profiles.

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Matt Cutts States ECommerce As We Know It Is Dead

This video from Google’s Lead Web Spam Engineer, Matt Cutts, literally quashes ecommerce as we know it. Make sure you watch this video which states Google’s view of ecommerce sites and be prepared to give up trying to get organic placement for ecommerce enterprises that are reselling products.

Watching this video from Matt Cutts is incredibly concerning and illustrates a HUGE change from Google in regards to how stores can and will be placing and thus selling on Google.com.

Here’s the hard truth from the video:

1. If you are not selling your own unique products, but rather selling someone else’s products as an affiliate or reseller, you must have unique product content on your pages and invest in differentiating yourself from other competing sites as Google will no longer allow you organic placement on Google.com. Matt Cutts clearly states the harsh reality in this video – as an issue for Google in regards to search quality.

2. If you do set up a store borrowing product content from your manufacturer you should expect to only be able to bring in sales and traffic from an investment on Google AdWords. Paying for SEO services to assist your site in improving organic placement will be money wasted if you have not addressed the most important consideration for your site’s ranking which Cutts says is the issue of duplicate content.

3. Matt states that if you don’t have the time or where with all to create unique content for your products, that you should not be posting them and selling on the Web.

With nearly all ecommerce stores picking up cookie cutter content on products this is a very huge hit from Google in regards to how store can and should sell on the Web. Will this impact stores like Amazon and big box stores like Best Buy? Certainly, but the greater impact will be on small enterprises that have made a good living from selling on the Web and have just recently seen their organic placement drop from the Google Panda update.

As I watched the video, I grew increasingly concerned that these new revelations would have serious and long term impact in regards to how small business owners will sell and promote their products on the Web. I see this as a very strong shift to move businesses into paying to play on Google by forcing businesses to get visibility using Google AdWords. As I provide AdWords services this is not necessarily a bad thing for my business, but a very strong indicator and warning to the SEO industry that Google is changing their business model significantly.

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Google Tag Manager – Changing the Way You Add Code to Your Website

You may have missed this in the last several months and so I wanted to bring the Google Tag Manager to your attention. Tag Manager is a revolutionary way to add code to your own or clients’ websites. With so many improvements and changes happening at Google, for some websites and particularly larger sites implementing code to track activity or conversions can sometimes be problematic and time consuming. Tag Manager solves these problems.

With the Google Tag Manager you simply install, just after the <body> tag in your code, one snippet of JavaScript code. Once in place you will be able to control what code is shown (in this external script file) from within the Google Tag Manager control panel.

Want to add Google Analytics? No problem! Want to add AdWords conversion tracking to two pages on your website? No problem. You can do it all not from the website but rather from the Tag Manager control panel.

With advanced rules and controls you can select what code shows on what pages all from within one location. With new AdWords remarketing features planned for 2013 now’s the time to get Tag Manager code in place on your website and migrate your account IDs into a new interface. I think you’ll find management easier and implementation of future code a snap!

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Google’s Matt Cutts on Guest Blogging and Link Building Clarification

Google’s spam engineer Matt Cutts takes time in this video to clarify further how Google feels about guest blogging and answers if you use guest blog posts will your website be penalized for placement. This is an excellent video and well worth the minute or two to watch.

Here is the synopsis of the video in a nutshell.

1. If you allow just anyone without review to post to your blog or you accept blog posts that have been posted widely on the Web already, your own site’s reputation can be impugned by this tactic and placement may drop based on Google’s new filters.

2. If you are allowing articles that have been spun (meaning multiple versions created automatically with software changing the word order in an effort to provide seemingly “unique” content for each site you send to) to be used on your website or blog, you will most likely have your site penalized in Google for these activities.

3. Matt says point blank that if you are doing many guest blog posts or allowing many guest blog posts that may be of questionable syndication on your own website, that this is a “pretty good indicator of bad quality”. “If your website links to or receives links from sites like this, this can lower your own site’s reputation.” “Yes, Google is willing to take action against sites that are doing low quality or spammy guest blogging.”

My recommendation to you is that if you accept guest blog pieces, they should be written uniquely for your website. I would recommend you use a service like Copyscape Premium to test if a piece sent to you is unique. I would not post articles that appear in many locations on your own website. Better yet get your own blog writer. I invite you to review our blog writing service program.

If you do guest blog posts for others sites, I would be very selective of the sites you choose to write for and consider limiting your content to only one or two really high quality sites. Make the inbound links to your website be meaningful and not hurtful to your overall placement strategy.