Category: Google

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Guest Blogging for Links

What does Google (Matt Cutts) think about guest blogging and the links that are generated from doing it? This excellent video answers the question.

This is the bottom line. If you did not sweat in creating the guest blog post Google will typically not give you link juice for it. That’s the hard cold fact. Write a light weight blog post of about 250 words, post it on a variety of sites, and maybe even use article spinning software in an effort to create unique content for each site and you really will not be getting link benefits.

Create a well written, informative, insightful blog post for a site that supports your industry and yes Google does like this approach. It’s all about the time you take and the insight you provide. Do not do guest blogging just for links with minimal effort on your part Matt and Google pretty much say in this video that it is wasted effort.

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Google is Changing the Game

“Google has me in its grip. With every new day, I am subjected to some new persecution for which there seems to be no escape.”  Read her full article at SiteProNews

Do you feel like this? That website organic placement, placement on Google Places (now Google Local) is a moving target. You’ll want to read the story of Marilyn’s travel so you can feel her pain. But does it have to be so complicated?

Here’s my short list of things that you should do for your website to garner organic placement (that means unpaid placement) on Google.com. Don’t get spun up on things that won’t help or hurt you if you simply don’t have the time or know how.

  1. Make sure you are blogging with the blog posts archived and posted using your own domain name so that you build consistent interesting and fresh content.
  2. Do make sure that your website is linked to your personal Google+ account and that you do have a Google+ account for your business.
  3. Do verify your Google+ Local page so Google knows that you are the business owner.
  4. Do get on a plan to build great website content and write regular new informational pages for your website.
  5. Do implement rich snippets with your website reviews if you have the know how.

I don’t feel that making yourself crazy of what Google picks up and doesn’t pick up will help or hurt you. Do the best you can if you are updating your own website.

The real key to placement on Google.com is to have great content first and foremost that people will want to link to in a natural manner. Google is not going to drop your placement if you don’t have your website connected to Google+, but they will drop you if you have duplicate or poor content.

Stay focused on the things that make sense for your business and if you have the budget, hire an expert to help with the rest.

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Confidence Equals Sales

Sure you’ve seen sites like this on the web; ones that have no phone number, no address, and just a contact form, but they want you to buy! Do you? I don’t! Especially if I am comparison shopping. In fact, I’ll pay more to know that I am dealing with a legitimate firm, do you?

In my business, confidence equates sales. It is just simple, if you are not willing to share your phone number, email address, and location address on your own website, you communicate that you will be hard to reach if there is a problem. Not sharing these important items can become a big problem that does really impact sales.

In online sales, it is all about confidence. Are you who you say you are? If I have a problem will I get help? Will I be able to talk to a “real person”? These are the items that all website should have prominently placed to communicate legitimacy and thereby build confidence with potential customers.

  1. Phone Number
  2. Email Address
  3. Location Address – no P.O. Boxes – a real office location!
  4. Hours of Service – for phone contact
  5. Time Zone – for customer planning

Don’t  have these on your website because you think that you may be spammed? Think again! You do not communicate your willingness to trade with potential buyers by hiding your contact information. Take a look at your website and make sure that you aren’t communicating improperly your desire to serve and sell. You may just find that your sales significantly improve when you are confident enough to put your own information on your website.

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Google’s New AuthorRank Part II

Continued from Monday.

In February of this year there was more chatter in my industry about AuthorRank. Here is a great background article to review for a fuller picture.

“AuthorRank could be more disruptive than all of the Panda updates combined. ”  AJ Kohn

It appears that AuthorRank will factor into Google’s algorithm in regards to the importance of links and thus organic placement. The focus seems to be on PageRank, shares, traffic, and link numbers. These cues will all be evaluated and tied to one author. With Google already encouraging that you tie your content to your personal (not business) Google+ page this sure looks like a roll-out and big change in in the near future.

The thrust is that Google is actively and aggressively pursuing a link to content identification. To me this makes perfect sense and is in part just one piece of stopping spam and improving search quality in Google’s results.

There are two excellent articles I recommend that you read for further information on this important topic. The are as follows:

How to Prepare for AuthorRank and Get the Jump on Google

Author Rank

If you are currently not tying your content to your Google+ page I would highly recommend that you do so. If you syndicate content as I do on SiteProNews and Bing Ads Blog Community, make sure your site owners are already working to help you identify yourself as the author of content you share with them.