Yet another Google Update!

Posted on by santiago

Google Doberman Online Marketing Auckland

Does your SEO company know about the Google changes?

Not so long ago in human years (internet years are like dog years) SEO or (Search Engine Marketing for the non geeks amongst us) was not as complicated as it is getting today.

You aimed for the top three for your particular keyword of choice and just let it rip. Usually more by good luck than good design you got the position you were looking for. Then all the traffic arrived and you brought yourself a new Porsche with all the money you made. Well sort off.

But that has all changed with the sheer volume of Google updates which the mighty G has been unleashing upon us.

What does this mean for your company? Well the good news is that instead of doing it yourself you can outsource it to us for $20,000. Just kidding. Well sort of.

Ring me for a free consultation.

Maybe just hoping like hell for that number one spot (and that attending Porsche) is not such a good strategy anymore (assuming it was a viable one in the first place).

Maybe it is time to take another look at what is happening today. Of course with the speed of change in today’s world this advice may only have a limited shelf life.

Below from the English blog Seoptimise.com is a list of some of the recent changes that have happened:

Ads and universal search push organic results below the fold
Paid shopping results show above organic results
There are sometimes more or fewer than 10 results
Infinite scroll allows users to peruse longer lists of results
Author avatars get displayed on the left of search snippet
Bulleted snippets made of list items stand out
Local results show up even without adding a location
For location-based SERPs, organic results almost disappear
Local SERPs may vary significantly
Huge full-page site links for brands monopolize branded queries
Brands tend to dominate their own SERPs
Sidebar menu attracts clicks and competes with the actual results
Social search annotations show up with favicon sized avatars
Google+ bar with red notification distracts while searching
+1 button clicks reorganise your search results significantly
Google +1 counts appear in search results for everybody
Public Google+ profile messages show up prominently in SERPs
Google remembers and adds recent search queries you performed
Your last visited pages get highlighted by Google.
Google adds your address from Google Profiles to public search results.
Mobile SERPs differ significantly from desktop SERPs
“Searches related to” draw away attention from first query
Google instant search results send people away to partial queries
Google instant previews can lower your CTR and affect conversion rate
Personalisation is taking over the average SERPs
Keyword matching domains can now barely be seen
Google may shorten your URL displayed, hiding “irrelevant parts”
5 years from now SERPs could be completely different
Google can highlight on-site videos in SERPs.

Bravo if you are still with us.

What can we take away from this smorgasbord of information and how can we digest it without a bad case of indigestion?

The following may help sum it up:

Websites may have to have more of a social nature and local SEO is the only SEO which will make a lot of sense for many companies.

If there is a lot of competition in your market or niche then you may have to start looking at using Google Adwords again.

You have to look at other types of media such as video in order to get your message across better.

Increased competition means you may have to increase your SEO budget. Talk to us about all your local SEO needs today!

Link Directories – Old School SEO fights back!

Posted on by santiago

Online Marketing Auckland Directory

Everybody thinks that link directories are dead – well those who do SEO anyway.
Many people have suffered from those horrible emails from India where somebody asks for $50 to be added to thousands of article directories. Do not do that as those directories are worthless
and will more likely than not hurt your SEO rankings.
As also Google’s algorithm has changed again and with new changes comes new strategies and new ways of looking at old things so maybe it is time to reconsider those directories.
You can use different web directories for different purposes such as varying the amount of links.

Web Directories
The oldest is DEMOZ which is almost completely impossible to get included in but you can try. Submit your website and except to wait months. However because it is so difficult to be accepted then Google values this link much more.
You can always pay to be included in some of the more famous and expensive directories such as Yahoo and Best of the Web. They will not accept every website in every category and for some websites it is too much however some bigger companies think it is necessary because it makes their site more authentic.
The following comments by Cyrus Shepard on his blog nicely sum this up

“When pursuing directory links, keep the following tips in mind:
Not every directory link is right for your site. Be selective and don’t go for every link out there.
Pace yourself. A good hint I got from Ian Lurie’s Fat Free Guide is the 2:1 rule: for every two directory links you build, make sure to build one genuinely natural link. This helps to keep your link profile looking “natural”.
Research. Understand where your link will be placed before you go after it. Check Google’s cache of the page to make sure they are indexing it. Large directories are often plagued by bad SEO, and not every link carries the weight it should.
Seek relevancy. Ask yourself if this link has the potential to send qualified traffic to your site. Even if it’s a small amount of traffic, it’s probably worth the effort.

I’d often rather have a hard-to-get link from a smaller niche site that an easy-to-get link from a larger well-known directory.”

Next up what some people like to call Social Directories although I would prefer to call them bookmarks or in old school words bookmarking.
Bookmarking your content in many of those social directories ( which have grown to absolutely staggering proportions) is a must these days. Google’s algorithm keeps track of FaceBook, Twitter, Google + plus notices Mr. Wong , Digg and others.
Social bookmarking sites allow you to have a number of URLs not just one at a time so that can create more links. Also of course as more people bookmark you you get more back links. Great idea!
Another type of directory is a local directory such as Hotfrog, Google maps or Yelp or any city or province directory.
These are very important for Google maps and Google local in general because some webmasters have pointed out that Google’s local search algorithms are different from the search algorithms.

Summing Up
As numerous webmasters have pointed out Google is looking for variety in your back links. That should include directories, articles, PR and social booking. The more you diversify your back links the more likely you are to protect your business and website for the future.
Here at www.onlinemarktingauckland .com we keep up to date with all the latest linking practices. Ring us today.

Is Twitter That Important For Your Local Marketing?

Posted on by santiago

This is a famous cupcake from Online- Marketing Auckland

Is Twitter That Important For Your Local Marketing?

I am not really of that opinion that Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are the be all and end all of local marketing or social media but I guess everybody is entitled to their own opinion which is why I find it so strange that so many blogs insists that a local business really NEEDS a twitter account.
Why? Because everyone else has one? You don’t want to feel left out? Is Twitter going to actually help you sell more mince pies? More DVD’s of Outrageous Fortune?
Well … maybe… let’s read and find out….

3 Ways Twitter May (or may Not) really affect your marketing!

Social Signals (whatever the hell that means!)

The two biggest search engines Google and that other one…er Bing … the little big search engine which nobody actually uses… are both saying social media signals will be built into their algorithms. Yeah … yawn….right?
What does this mean if you are actually out there in the real world trying to flog more mince pies to hungry truck drivers?
Well simply put if you want to sell more delicious cupcakes on your site or more pies and you want to be number one then you need people to twitter and re-tweet about your go darned cupcakes. Why? Because Mr. Google and Mr. Bing can now index that content and because lots of people are now “talking” about it ,it somehow now seems relevant to put you on page one.
So the more times somebody tweets:love the pies darhhhling the more important you become in the eyes of Google. Bloody funny place the Web isn’t it?
But Wait there’s more!
Author authority is another new piece of jargon which unfortunately I am going to throw at you (please feel free to forget about it at the end of this paragraph).
Author authority is a $250 word for saying it’s not what you know it’s who you know. If Auntie Janice from Takapuna tweets how much she loved your pies or cupcakes then this is not as important as Brad Pitt saying how much he love loved him.
Why? Because he is rich, famous and a lot of women who quite frankly should know better want to bonk him. This is of course hardly fair to your Auntie Janice but life is like that so deal with it. However there are ways around it. Find someone from Shortland Street, (Neighbours for our Aussie cousins or Coronation Street if you are from the UK) to re-tweet your tweet and hey presto –author authority is suddenly all yours. Take that Johnny Depp!!
Google also takes into account what the subjects are which you tweet about and also how often you do and with whom. Hmm I think I will stop there – that is more information than I needed to know.

Another Big Word They Taught me Which Means Bugger All –Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is going to be the subject of another long article just not today.
Remember how I told you that people want to be number one on Google to sell more rice pudding, cupcakes or whatever – well according to Mr. Bing that is not strictly true.
You want to rank well, get rich and go live on the Gold Coast like everybody else BUT you also want to brand your rice pudding or cream lamingtons so that people will find you more easily on the internet. For instance no one will type in “grossly overpriced toy made in China with child slave labour which does not do anything useful yet everybody has one” no of course not. That would be silly – no they type I Pad instead.
See –brand awareness.

How to Choose the Perfect Domain

Posted on by santiago

: Image via Wikipedia

Many people when they are choosing their domain, especially if it is their first time, simply choose it whether it is available as a TLD (top level domain i.e. .com, .org or .net) or if it is an aged domain i.e. one that has previously been registered- if it is available for a good price.

On deeper reflection and with an eye on the long term this properly is not the best way to stake out your own piece of virtual real estate which your domain most certainly is. Most companies spend a lot of time choosing the right physical location of their business and also choosing the right logo for their company yet seem to spend such little time choosing the right domain for them.

Many companies already have legacy domains usually the name of their business or an ego name which they made up because they considered it cute or funny. These names may not be doing your company any favours online. Remember your brand and also your “find-ability” online is affected by your domain name.

How to select the best domain name for you.

To start with from an SEO/SEM point of view it can make your customers lives much easier by making it easy for them to find you by including a keyword in your domain name. This will have the added effect of helping you appear higher in the search engines. Also it is important to bear in mind your location when choosing a TLD. Ideally if you are in the USA or where possible you should go for a .com, net or .org however if you are not in the USA then you can go for the TLD of your country such as .co.uk for the UK or .co.nz for New Zealand.

To choose your keyword then you can use Google’s excellent external keyword tool www.google/externalkeyword.com?

An example of this may be – your company may be called Joe’s Plumbing and you are based in Auckland and you find that the keyword “emergency plumber Auckland” gets the most searches so you register that as your new domain as .co.nz.

A word of advice – make sure that you use “exact match” not “phrase match” to get the most accurate results.

Next you can get a value of your domain at various sites such as www.sedo.com or www.valuate.com. For a fee they will write a report for you taking into account the amount of traffic you are likely to receive and the value of CPC keywords being used. This is purely optional but the results may surprise you.

Thirdly make sure you are not including any trademarked names in your domain name. They may get a lot of search traffic but that does not mean you can use them. You could be facing legal action in the form of a cease and desist letter at a later date.

Lastly try to avoid dots and dashes which can make it difficult for your customers to remember or spell your domain. An example would emergency- plumbers-sydney.com.au as opposed to emergencyplumberssydney.com.au. If you can keep the domain simple and easy to remember then it can help your future users a lot.

Summing Up

Although picking a domain name can be complicated and time consuming the final results are worth it from not only the point of easier and more effective SEO but also but also the emotional satisfaction of a having a high value domain name that may actually improve in value in coming years.

For more advice on choosing your domain and on all for all your SEO needs contact santiago@OnlineMarketingAuckland.com

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