More on the Disavow Link Tool from Google

So you’ve used the Disavow Link Tool to re-mediate your website placement and remove spammy links that have nailed you in the SERPs, so how long do you have to wait to see improvement?

In this interesting article two heavy weights from my industry weigh in with Matt Cutts from Google stating:

“It can definitely take some time, and potentially months. There’s a time delay for data to be baked into the index. Then there can also be the time delay after that for data to be refreshed in various algorithms.”

You’ll want to read the full article and exchange between Danny Sullivan and Matt Cutts on this topic at SiteProNews.

The bottom-line is that anything to do with organic placement takes time. Give yourself six months easily to be doing everything right after you have corrected problems to see even a glimmer of results. But be careful about when you first see your site pop up in the results.

I have found once you start to move your site will typically fall in the results after the initial ranking. I like to test placement again four to six weeks out after the site has popped up to see where it will really fall in the index. Sometimes I will see a temporary high placement and then a drop to a regularly maintained level. Use the second ranking to evaluate if you have more work to do at that point.

New AdWords Features for 2013

You’ll want to watch this 30 minute of so video from Google AdWords that reveals what is in store for AdWords advertisers for 2013. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNyqfC0JXVE&feature=em-uploademail)

Here is a quick overview of what’s coming:

1. Product Listing Ads for mobile, Dynamic Contextual Ads for the Display Network, and even Dynamic Remarketing.

2. New Search Extensions are coming: customer support interfaces in the search engine results, email submission to add your name to a subscription list without leaving the Google.com search results page, enhanced call metrics, and social extensions.

3. This one is pretty big – remarketing is coming to the search results! Currently only available in the Display network, remarketing or “stalker ads” are coming to Google.com. This will be my most anticipated new addition for 2013.

Make sure to watch the full video so you can see where AdWords is headed for 2013 yourself.

Are Google+ Communities Better Than Google+ Business Pages?

Google+ Communities and what they mean for you.
Google+ Communities and what they mean for you.

Some interesting things just happened in the last few days, Google got very serious about Google+ and has started requiring Google users to enable Google+ integration. Now add to the mix Google’s new addition of Google+ Communities!I would definitely keep an eye on Communities, from my perspective. For some businesses, creating a Google+ Community for their business may allow more interaction with users than the typical Google+ Business page. For now, Google+ Communities look like a great option for merchants or brands with a strong following and not yet for the typical small to medium sized business owner. To see some examples take a look at this very interesting article on Google+ Communities from Website Magazine.

Google+ Communities are not like Facebook Groups, nor are they like a Google+ Business page. They are a hybrid and much more interactive than a Google+ Business page. First, you can invite people to join your +Community versus hoping someone will discover your Business page. Second, you can do video hangouts and others can post to your wall, share +1’s with other community members, post and hold events, and easily share content. Also typically, a Google+ Community page will have a moderator and a higher degree of interaction than would a typical Google+ Business page.

Think of your Google+ Business page like your business card or brochure and your Google+ Community like a free and wide ranging forum. The real power, from my point of view, comes into play with the ability of Communities to share +1 activity in the Google.com personalized search results. For those owning Communities that is a very, very powerful tool and may be the next big thrust for SEO and web visibility to be leveraged in 2013.

Can You Ever Wean Yourself Off From Google AdWords?

I had a business client just ask me the other day “when will my SEO kick in from my newly designed website so I can wean myself off Google AdWords?” First, we did not design the site just to clarify. Second, we had not been performing any type of web visibility services for this client. My first question to him was “where did the content come for all of your 2,000 store products?” To that he stated that he had copied and pasted the content into his own store shopping cart from his manufacturers’ information.

To dig deeper, he and I selected one page on his site and ran the product content through Copyscape Premium. This online tool showed us that 46 other websites had this same exact content or very, very close variations of it. Sadly, I told him that until his content was unique he would never be able to move his business off Google AdWords.

In today’s business climate on Google.com, unique content and a unique position in your marketplace is key to being a candidate for work to improve organic search placement. If your content on your store is not unique, there is absolutely no reason to pay a blog writer or an SEO firm to improve position without first correcting the issue that is the biggest obstacle to success – duplicate content.

It sounds so easy just write your own content for each product, but from experience I know that wordsmithing a page to have it pass as unique and using a tool like Copyscape Premium to verify its uniqueness is a time consuming process, but the rewards are huge. This particular client was spending $50,000 per year on AdWords to drive business to his website. An investment in quality unique content may be an investment in the future.

If you are in a similar situation, it’s time to take a hard look at your own website and KNOW where your content came from before you purchase any website visibility improvement services.