Tag: Web Visibility

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Google is Trying Out Social Networking Integration on Search

I just checked this out yesterday and as I was doing testing on this new Google.com tool I said to myself, “now, this is really cool”. What I am speaking about is Google’s integration of your own social media networks into your personal search results.  To get involved in the project sign into Google.com and then enter this URL: http://www.google.com/experimental/index.html select the first experiment at the top of the page called Google Social Search.

Once enrolled you will see a new feature at the top left of every Google.com page. The feature says Web and then a show options + mark. Open the + and you will now see a new left navigation bar that stretches down the page.  From here you can search in Google.com sectors such as images, video, news, blogs, updates, books, forums, and even social.

The take away from this new experimental project is that when you yourself are personally involved in social media like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other platforms, the information you post is now searchable by others in your expanded social network all tied together in one neat interface using Google’s Social Search.

This is a real boon for web exposure and the creation of web authority for business owners and serious entrepreneurs. With some saying that social media is too time consuming to pursue, I say think again look at this new Google experiment which will most likely be the “face” of search to come and rethink your position on social media and social networking sites.

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Do Spin Off Websites Help You Organically

I have tested this concept myself for a full year. My main website is here www.McCordWeb.com. I created a spin off site just on the topic of custom web design and our templated Quick Launch web design services here www.McCordWebDesign.com.

For a year I monitored placement and trying out several search engine optimization techniques.  What I have found is that my spin off site has never really quite gotten the placement that I thought it would even though it was very focused and on topic. I was careful to not have duplicate content for the site so as to rule out that issue as a factor for organic placement.

Here’s a real world search example:

on www.Google.com search for custom web design Maryland. My main website is #1 out of 304,000. My spin off site is #80 out of 100 results. Although this is an incredibly small sample, when client’s come to me to say let’s do a two page spin off site – like a doorway page, I simply will not do it. It is far better to develop and work on making your main website the best it can be than to fragment your message and try to scam the organic results. Clearly my own test proves that a spin off site, no matter how optimized will not beat your original main well-developed website.

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Google’s Instant Search Results

This past week Google announced that its search results would be instantaneous. Meaning specifically that indexing the web every week or every month just had to go! They have to spider the web continuously to provide up the second results.

Sounds like Google is feeling the pinch with the popularity of Twitter news sharing and Facebook interaction to me. With instant news being found out on Twitter and shared, who has to go to Google News anymore. Remember when Michael Jackson died? I found out on Twitter before any of the news networks had picked up the story. That really must have made ole Google feel out of the loop.

In the past weeks Google has signed non-exclusive agreements with Twitter and Facebook to use their instantaneous news to update their own index hoping that it can woo back immediate news and information junkies from Twitter Search and Facebook updates. Although this doesn’t sound like a problem, Google must be scared with the increasing popularity of Facebook and migration of regular email users to solely Facebook mail users as this will hurt them in their pocketbook for sponsored advertising.

For Twitter users this new Google thrust is a boon. Your tweets may very well be the hot property and viral message that now gets incredibly huge exposure and bonus staying power by being included into the Google index.

Based on this information if you are not on Twitter, you’d really better be considering getting started. This mash-up of Twitter, Facebook, and Google is bound to be a huge boon for website and businesses who dare to really take advantage of it.

If you need help with implementing Twitter check out our Twitter services to help you get started.

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Build It and They Will Come – Well Maybe

Many small business owners ask me “Do I have good website traffic?” “How does my site compare with others?” “How can I get my website to generate more business for me?”.

The reality is that a website with under 10 pages of content that promotes a service or consultant will typically receive anywhere from 10 to 30 unique visits a day. Based on what I have seen, this is about what you can expect in regards to traffic. So how do you get more and how do you get your website to start generating leads?

For small websites, this is my advice:

1. Get blogging now! A site your size, to become competitive, needs to grow, and needs to have a regular content addition program. Blogging is absolutely the easiest way to do this. If you don’t want to blog yourself, you can hire us to blog for you, we are experts at it.

2. Don’t waste your time and money right now on website optimization. Unless you are in a niche market or provide a desired but unique item or service that does not have much web competition, your website can simply not compete and place at that size organically on the search engines. That doesn’t mean that you should not be doing other things for organic placement, but I do not recommend hiring us or another firm for search engine optimization at this point in your growth.

3. Get going with Google AdWords. You can drive qualified targeted traffic to your website and really get good results with AdWords. I recommend a minimum budget of $500 for clicks for the first 30 days. Get a good account manager to set up your account so you hit the ground running. You will most likely also have to invest in account management fees and should most likely plan on purchasing time to create targeted website-matching landing pages for your ad groups for the very best results. We do this too, so make sure to check out our Google AdWords services before you ask anyone else to help you. We’ll take good care of you and be good stewards of your click budget.

4. Start getting links to build organic position and traffic over time with feature articles and white papers. Using article directory syndication sites, you can post a well written article with a link in your author bio back to your website. The more people who choose to pick up your article for their own use from the syndication site, the more links you’ll get back to your website helping your search engine placement. Make sure your articles appeal to a very wide range and do not just speak about your product. What you are really looking for is wide syndication and the link back to you so focus on business, real estate or health issues and articles for the widest distribution. We can write articles for you if you desire. You should review some that we have written recently as examples of how to appeal to a broad audience even if you are not going to use our services.

5. Do a press release once a month and generate links and traffic with your news spin. Another way to build buzz, but particularly how to build more traffic and more one way inbound links is by writing press releases and using PRWeb as your distribution vehicle. You’ll get great exposure and excellent staying power as sites pick up your news and links. I recommend the Search Engine Optimization level. Distribution at this level is $200 (plus you’ll pay about $175 for us to write your press release), but the exposure is excellent and much better than the cheapest level.

Even if you decide to do these items yourself or decide to hire another firm to do them for you, know that these five tips do work to help build your website, create your unique web authority, and help to improve your organic search placement.  The key to remember when it comes to a website is, just because you build it, does not mean that they will come to visit it. You need to be proactive and aggressive to build your authority and web visibility position to put your website to work for you as a lead generating machine.