Tag: SEO

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Keyword Blackout in Google Analytics Makes It Hard to Know Your Traffic

Over six months ago, Google announced that for users signed into their Google account using https:// at Google.com Google, would no longer have their search terms or activity shown in Google Analytics. Matt Cutts at that time mentioned that this would not be a big impact for website analysis but would however provide secure searches for users.

Fast forward now about six months, and if you are like me, in Google Analytics I cannot see upwards of 54% of my website traffic’s search keywords. That’s no small number! So, what’s a website owner to do to understand what is happening on his or her website and to try to know what keywords are popular to your web presence.

Here are three things you can to to try to get more keyword data:

1. Make sure to link your Google Analytics account with your Google Webmaster control panel account and verify your access. When you do this, Google Analytics will show more keyword information under the Search Engine Optimization links from the left side bar. Although this is simply not as much data as before, it does give you additional insight into the traffic and keywords popular for your website.

2. In Google Analytics add query parameters to you can track activity on your own site search function. This article found at SiteProNews written by Nell Terry explains how to do just that; track searches in Analytics.

3. Advertise on Google AdWords for keyword and conversion keyword discovery. Using AdWords, and if you link your AdWords account to Google Analytics the data will flow into the section called traffic and then advertising and will give you more keyword insights.

Unfortunately with keyword blackout in Google Analytics, and the “not set” descriptor, even site owners find it hard to understand what keywords are driving search traffic. However, these tips will allow you to glean a little bit more knowledge into what is driving your own traffic so you can further evaluate activity and change accordingly.

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Getting Google to “Trust” Your Website

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

Getting placement on Google.com is affected by a number of new factors so getting Google to “trust” your website, when compared to other sites, is extremely important. This “trust” factor is also known as “web authority”. When Google considers your website an authority on a topic, it will place your site higher in the organic search results.

So, how to you get Google to “trust” your website and give it “authority”?

1. Make sure your are transparent about what you sell and your services. Explain what you do and provide informational content about your services or products in a way that does more than just “sell” your own services.

2. Make sure you have a privacy policy that covers tracking, technology, remarketing, what you do with information, and if you lend or sell information to a third part.

3. Get blogging on a regular basis to provide value to readers –  not just about your own services, but about your industry, why something is important, current news in your industry, and share your point of view. I like blogging three days a week as it keeps search engines coming back on a regular basis to find new content.

4. Start now building Google AuthorRank either through the rel=author tag or the rel=publisher tag pointing to Google+ properties. By doing this important step you legitimize your online voice tying your website, blog, off site articles all to your Google verified property. This is a very important step to Google’s “trust” factor.

5. Share off domain using social media. I personally like using Twitter, Google+, Google+ Communities, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Make sure the content you create there is share-able and information rich. Don’t use social sites just to parrot back sales and marketing content from your website. Work to engage and add value.

Although our own services aren’t a good match for every business, we may be a good match for your needs. I invite you to check our our services to see if we might be able to help you to start building “trust” with Google now.

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Authorship Versus AuthorRank on Google

Authorship versus AuthorRank
Authorship versus AuthorRank

Although these two terms seem similar in fact they are very different. Here’s what to know about each.Authorship
This is not new, but linking your name, website and personal Google+ page together to have your photo appear in search results next to your content is new. Authorship is the online brand that you are establishing to let others know on the Web when something has been created by you and solves much of the problem of letting others scrape your content and passing it off as their own. It’s a way that Google is able to determine that something you wrote is really yours.

By linking your website, articles, and personal Google+ page you verify for Google that content is truly yours.

AuthorRank
This is new. Google’s toyed around with this under different names AgentRank and AuthorRank. In a patent disclosure from Google over three years ago I first saw the use of Agent/Author Rank. I however thought at that time it would be done with a meta tag not the algorithm element that it appears to be. At that time the patent addressed questions such as who issued the content first and so was the owner.

Google has revealed just last week that AuthorRank is real. It is no longer a question mark, and does impact search results.

“Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.” Eric Schmidt Executive Chairman of Google

AuthorRank is more of a part of the algorithm that Google uses to rack and stack search results. It places importance on locations of content, social sharing, and authority of an author.

Both Authorship and AuthorRank are important new elements of web visibility and share-ability that will impact your organic placement now and in the future.

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Should You Be Using Certain Phrases in Your Anchor Text on Your Blog?

Confused about Google version of what web spam is?
Confused about Google version of what web spam is?

I had a blog client just recently send me a list of 5 phrases that he wanted used in his blog posts with all links regardless what they were to point to his home page. This blog post will educate you on why you may not want to use this “old” SEO tactic any more on your blog.Placing on Google has really changed in the last year. It used to be that keyword density and smart use of anchor text in blog posts really worked to boost your Google.com placement. However, now using these same tactics of building keyword density and repeating the same anchor text in blog posts over and over can be considered web spam by Google and can end up winning you not better organic placement but a Google smackdown!

I found this terrific article at the Internet Marketing Blog called “Google Web spam “Penguin” Over Optimization Penalty Hits” It is a good article and one that you should read for more information about what Google considers web spam.

Here are my specific recommendations to my clients on the topic of web spam.

  1. Don’t send your blog writer phrases to use any more. Let us know what is important, but it we use the same phrasing over and over again in your blog posts you will be nailed by Google.
  2. Let the blog writer mix up wording and phrasing so that content reads naturally.
  3. We won’t be working to build keyword density in a blog post as this may really come back to bite you.
  4. We still want great catchy titles in fact this is more important than ever for share-ability of your content.
  5. Allow the blog writer to point to the correct page on your website not just to your home page. Deep linking is good!

Remember the Google spider and algorithm is so smart… you don’t have to spoon feed content, phrasing, keywords, or links. Let content be natural to read, on topic – yes, but not redundant, create great content that is now shareable and authoritative.