Have You Spent Time With Google Insights?

With the world of organic search optimization having changed significantly and few really good keyword research tools for website placement on the Web, Google Insights has become a very important tool as you consider making changes on your website. Personally, I use the Google AdWords keyword tool hand in hand with the Google Insights tool. What the Google Insights tool helps me to understand is if a keyword phrase I am thinking of using for optimization on a website or for creating a new content page for a client is worth the expense and trouble.

Here’s an example, I have a client in California who wants to do a page on their website for climate controlled warehouse space. I used the AdWords keyword tool to find phrase variations that are popular for clicks in the United States. Then I used the Google Insights tool to review which of those phrases were important and in what locations since 2004. The information has helped the client access how much they want to push this service.

As it turns out climate control keyword phrases are not important to his local or state customers but for the East Coast and Southern markets it is. If he does not have clients in these eastern and southern areas, it may not be worth the time and trouble to do a new service on his website nor promote the service on AdWords. In fact based on the information, he may not move to a new warehouse with climate controlled space.

That’s how powerful Google Insights can be to a business which is developing a new strategy or service. If you want to check out the tool yourself, visit Google Insights now. I think you’ll find the tool useful and very interesting.

Google and Rel=Author

Watch the video here if you cannot see the embedded video.

In this video Matt Cutts talks about how Google will really emphasize content using the rel=author tag tied to a Google+ profile .

As Google is using the tie-in from website to Google+ personal profile to return a face image in results as well as to try to reward PageRank to authority authors, this is a video to not miss. Make sure you understand how to use rel=author as it will definitely impact your organic placement when used correctly.

Advertorials and Google

Matt Cutts, Google’s voice to my industry, has recently stated in a video that Google considers advertorials and sites that use them without a no follow tag to be in violation of Google’s quality guidelines. You can watch the full video here.

So what exactly is an advertorial and why should I steer clear of them for now?

Wikipedia says this about advertorials:

“Advertorials differ from traditional advertisements in that they are designed to look like the articles that appear in the publication. …The differences may be subtle, and disclaimers—such as the word “advertisement”—may or may not appear. Sometimes terms describing the advertorial such as a “special promotional feature” or “special advertising section” are used. The tone of the advertorials is usually closer to that of a press release than of an objective news story.”

In other words many advertorials are created to appear as if they were native articles belonging to a website or news site. They may not even be marked as a paid advertisement; but that is exactly what they are. A huge cottage industry has grown up around the creation and marketing as well as the placement of advertorials. Just recently sites which use advertorials and sell space have started to (in some cases) mark these well written articles as advertising. Some sites still flow PageRank to the promoted site providing SEO benefits.

Matt Cutts states plainly that these SEO based activities are clear violations of Google’s policies and in near future updates sites that use, promote, and place advertorials will be penalized in organic placement. For now, I highly recommend that using advertorials not be a part of your promotion programs.

Amazon Creates a Send to Kindle Button

I have a Kindle Fire and love it. Although I don’t typically read books on it, I may start reading articles I find on the Web now that Amazon has launched a new “Send to Kindle” button.

Send to Kindle Button
Send to Kindle Button

You can create your own button code from this special Amazon link to start allowing readers to send your own info to their Kindles. Although I haven’t seen many sites with this new button just yet, I am just starting to take a look and may very well tag my own blog with the code.The reason I like my Kindle Fire so much over other technology that I use is that it is small enough to fit in my purse, has a fabulous screen, is back-lit so I don’t need an accessory light and can read at night in bed while my husband is sleeping. However, I find I use it more for video and travel than article reading.

With the new ability to send articles from blogs and websites I like, I feel that I may be enticed to start reading the news on my Kindle Fire versus my smartphone.

The code looks fairly easy to implement and very straightforward to install, so check it out.