Top Google rankings fast is the goal of most search engine optimization (SEO) projects. Particularly if a new article is about a hot news item, it is advantageous if it appears as quickly as possible in Google searches.
Top Google Rankings Fast
Category Archives: Search
Higher SEO Rankings With LMNHP
The LMNHP approach is now being applied in all four SMM blogs and the keyword query SEO rankings are being monitored. Higher rankings are being seen and are maintained even after individual posts are no longer on the blog ‘front page.
As an additional test, blog posts on somewhat competitive topics are being issued to see how well the posts can outshine their competition. As an example, Google Maps is finally showing the Golden Ears Bridge in British Columbia, which is extremely tardy performance. A post was written on The Other Bloke’s Blog entitled Golden Ears Bridge BC now on Google Maps.
At the time of the launch, a search for ‘Golden Ears Bridge BC’ showed the following results:
This includes some real heavyweight opposition. Wikipedia seems to have a special Google relationship, Translink the owner of the Golden Ears Bridge has a PR7 website and Google has a PR10 website.
Some 36 hours after the post had been launched, here is what was appearing in the SERPs.
Thus we see that relatively quickly only the Wikipedia item is topping the new post item. The blog has two entries with the first shown as the domain URL but with the Title and the snippet reflecting the new individual blog post.
Now a new post has been added to the blog and is now the new ‘front page’. Again a relatively competitive topic is being covered: Online Business Coaches. It will be interesting to see how this post does against its own competition. At the same time we will observe how the post on the Golden Ears Bridge maintains its rankings in the SERPs once it is off the ‘front page’.
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Google Nearby Stock Information
As the Wall Street Journal tells us, for two years, Milo has tried to Put Store Stock Online. That’s not the dog, but the company, Milo.com, named after him.
When you’re on the go, it is a whole lot easier if the Internet can tell you whether the stuff you are looking for is available at stores nearby. Milo.com, in Palo Alto, CA., has been setting up a database for two years that knows what products are in stores near you and whether they’re in stock.
It’s an obvious need so it’s not surprising that the universal provider of all information has now decided to tackle this tough problem.
Google launched its service with inventory data from just five retail outlets — Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, and West Elm (the last three of which are all owned by Williams-Sonoma). They’ll undoubtedly expand that list, and are taking volunteers from businesses that want to join in the program.
Milo has signed up 49 retail chains, covering 48,000 stores and 2 million products. Beyond brands like Best Buy and Sears, which have open systems that let any outside programmers tap into their inventory database, they’ve managed to sign up some big names, including Target, Nordstrom, Macy’s and J.C. Penny.
As Google explains, all you need to do is look for the blue dots.
If you’re searching for a product that is sold by participating retailers, you can just look for the blue dots in the search results to see if it’s available in a local store. If you see a blue dot, you can tap on the adjacent “In stock nearby” link, and you’ll be taken to the seller’s page where you’ll see whether the item is “In Stock” or has “Limited Availability” near you. You’ll also see how far away the stores are from you — as long as you’ve enabled My Location or manually specified your location.
It works with any iPhone, Palm WebOS phone, or any Android-powered device in the US. Search with Google.com in your mobile browser, tap on the “more” link, and then select “Shopping.” Or you can check the “Shopping results” section in Universal Search results when you search on Google.com.
Google is now looking for retailers who would like to participate in the program. Provided your Local Business Center data is up to date, and your Product Search data is in great shape, then you can ask to be considered.
The real question is whether Google can provide good information like this when data quality really is not easily scaleable. Perhaps it’s better handled by a vertical portal like Milo.com. After all even Google must focus its efforts if it is to do a good job for all its stakeholders.
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- Google’s Blue Dot Marks the Availability Spot (marketingpilgrim.com)
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Langley BC Pizza Search With Google
For those on the go, Google continues to add interesting innovations to its search facilities. As Google announced you can now refine your searches by location.
Location has become an important part of the way we search. If you’re a foodie looking for restaurant details, food blogs or the closest farmer’s market, location can be vital to helping you find the right information. We have now added the ability to refine your searches with the “Nearby” tool in the Search Options panel. One of the really helpful things about this tool is that it works geographically — not just with keywords — so you don’t have to worry about adding “Minneapolis” to your query and missing web pages that only say “St. Paul” or “Twin Cities.” Check it out by doing a search, clicking on “show options” and selecting “Nearby.”
Naturally this also works when you do a search on your mobile device. If your local restaurant has also decided to add an advertisement using AdWords then you can now even click on their phone number in their mobile ad. It would seem to be a win win situation.
Calling the business is now easier thanks to a feature that allows advertisers to add a clickable local phone number to their mobile ads. If you’re using an iPhone, Android, or other smartphone, you just click the number to call the business.
The results of this process can be really staggering. Below you will see a Nearby search for pizza here in Langley BC. As might be expected, there are quite a number of pizza restaurants, many of which do not even have websites. It was particularly pleasing to see a mention of a pizzeria in Fort Langley.
Perhaps the only surprising thing to remark here is that still Google has not included the new Golden Ears Bridge, now in operation for nine months. Perhaps it is a question of priorities. After all, Translink, the agency for the Golden Ears Bridge has no need to spend money on Google advertisements.
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SEO Clients Deserve NoFollow Discounts
SEO clients may well be aware of the furor that has been going on in the SEO world. Danny Sullivan described why SEO experts were so incensed in signaling that Google Loses “Backwards Compatibility” On Paid Link Blocking & PageRank Sculpting. It is all concerned with the NoFollow tag that can be applied as part of the code for hyperlinks from web pages.
If you want to understand the implications of the changes then an article, PageRank Calculation – Null Hypothesis, will provide a lead-in to the ongoing discussion.
What does all this mean for SEO clients who have paid their consultants fees for Search Engine Optimization. The aimClear Search Marketing Blog has a good account of what they are telling their clients in a post, NoFollow noWorries: An SEO Linking Update.
Though this 180 degree about-face in what Google had been preaching (literally) to webmasters was poorly handled from a public relations perspective, presumably it was made because the tag was overused, abused and had the potential to skew Google’s rankings. No worries. We actually think the change will bring some positive changes to the SEO process, though as always there are tradeoffs.
Of course this has all been going on in a time of recession where companies are trying to make sure they get the maximum bang for whatever bucks they still have in their budgets. Companies paying SEO consultants who have implemented PageRank Sculpting programs are now told that such programs were ineffective. This only came to light when Google decided to spill the beans since it looked as though SEO experts had not spotted that the Google advice was no longer effective.
It is all rather messy but the bottom line is that clients have spent money that produced zero returns. What recourse do they have? Who should they be talking to?
Unfortunately the biggest culprit, Google, will provide the defense that they are providing a free search service. Too much information given away would mean that webmasters could perhaps manipulate the search results so that less relevant web pages nevertheless would appear high in the keyword query listing of results. If any information is given out, then webmasters should do their own checking to be sure that the information works for them. This is somewhat facile reasoning since it is very difficult to do Split A/B testing on anything other than simple changes to web pages.
If Google is off the hook, this leaves only the SEO consultants to listen to the SEO clients. Here again the discussion is difficult. Reputable SEO consultants use their best skills and knowledge to provide maximum search engine visibility to their client’s web pages but without any guarantees on performance. In this case, they were following information put out by Google and which was never withdrawn or modified until very recently. They put in the effort. Google rendered their efforts for naught. It would appear that the SEO consultants are off the hook too.
If companies were doing their own SEO, then they would have paid the salaries and again would have seen no results from the PageRank sculpting. Using SEO consultants or doing SEO in-house would have had comparable effects. Perhaps this is just grin-and-bear-it time. Search engine marketing is on average very powerful, but its mechanisms are sometimes difficult to discern. The NoFollow confusion has just added to those ongoing difficulties.
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Hyperlocal Information
Google has announced that it will offer local search results for many items where it guesses you may want a local supplier. It clearly is responding to a real need, particularly when you are on the go. Although there will be many hurdles, the rewards of this approach are very obvious. Even though, Google May Not Always Find Local Restaurants In Canada at this time, the solution using IP location will work for most people.
Even local when you’re on the go, may not be close enough. For some time there has been strongly growing interest in hyperlocal information. It is interesting to see further confirmation of this in a New York Times item this morning (tip of the hat to Greg Sterling) entitled ‘Hyperlocal’ Web Sites Deliver News Without Newspapers.
A number of Web start-up companies are creating so-called hyperlocal news sites that let people zoom in on what is happening closest to them, often without involving traditional journalists. The sites, like EveryBlock, Outside.in, Placeblogger and Patch, collect links to articles and blogs and often supplement them with data from local governments and other sources. They might let a visitor know about an arrest a block away, the sale of a home down the street and reviews of nearby restaurants.
This type of application will undoubtedly see explosive growth. The location of the searcher could be determined by an IP Address Lookup. That presumably is how the Twitter Advanced Search can show you activity within say 15 miles of your location. If it works, that can certainly allow you to home in on that hyperlocal information. Unfortunately Google Local Search seems to be having problems with that, particularly in the UK.
Since it is to the advantage of any searcher or service provider to ensure their geographical location is clearly identified, they might be expected to keep some reliable identifier of their position. In 2007, we floated the idea of a very simple HTML file, luri.html, that any location would maintain giving its coordinates. LURI stands for Location Uniform Resource Identifier. Since it includes the postal code (or the Zip code in the USA), this allows quite precise determination of position.
That could also be used for mobile devices although if you expect to move over great distances, then GPS positioning is probably a wiser choice.
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Getting Links With Twitter Hashtags
We have suggested elsewhere that Google should adopt a Weakest Link approach in its search algorithms. There are far too many people spending far too much time amassing more and more links to their websites. They do this with the mistaken understanding that this may help their websites be more visible when people do Google keyword searches. If only Google would rely only on links with more authority, this time wasting and irritating activity could cease. Unfortunately it has not happened yet.
The only links worth having are links that do command some authority. That is true now and will continue to be true however the keyword search algorithms may change. Darren Rowse of Problogger as usual provides some excellent advice in his post on 11 Ways to Increase Your Chances of Being Linked to By a Blogger. Here are his 11 items of advice:
- Write something worth linking to
- Suggest a Link to a post not your site
- Develop a Relationship
- Demonstrate Knowledge of the Blog and Blogger
- Research
- Add Value
- Stay on topic
- Be selective in what you promote
- Reciprocate
- Build on the Experience
- Be Link Worthy
Most of these are almost self explanatory. However his article is a good one if any of them are unclear to you.
Another way of trying to get on a blogger’s radar screen is to follow them on Twitter. Most bloggers do tweet their Twitter followers to let them know when they have written a new blog post. If you happen to spot such a tweet, then by retweeting their blog post tweet, you may well find they will start following you and the relationship begins. I think this is sufficiently valuable, that it might usefully have been included in Darren Rowse’s list, if he had wished to extend it to 12 ways.
Of course only your followers see your tweets. Only if the blogger does a Twitter search, will s/he see what you have retweeted. To increase the chances it may be seen, you could always try using a hashtag. If for example, your post is about TGIF then in your retweet add the #tgif hashtag. Others who find that of interest may spot it and retweet it and perhaps word will get back to the original blogger.
If you have found hashtags useful in making connections and gaining links, why not add your experience in the comments here. Non-spamming comments are welcome and do get a link in consequence, which should be worth having.
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Death, Taxes And Google
It was Ben Franklin who said “but in the world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.“ I was somewhat surprised at a recent article by Adam Penenberg in Fast Company that covered Google Bombing and the IRS. He found that someone had cleverly arranged by manipulating search results that Google searches for IRS forms ended up on websites that could create serious online damage. Google is everywhere now.
I did some Google searches on some very popular topics and the results may surprise you. The following shows the number of web pages on each of these very basic words. (M stands for million here.)
- 1,700 M for Google
- 1,420 M for Yahoo
- 747 M for air
- 660 M for water
- 611 M for sex
- 404 M for fire
- 395 M for death
- 238 M for search engine
- 230 M for seo
- 134 M for taxes
Death and taxes may be certain but it is quite clear that some other topics are much more on our minds. Indeed there is much more written on seo (search engine optimization) than there is on taxes. It is perhaps indicative of how ‘top of the mind’ Google is and why there should be such a demand for search engine optimization services. Even if you go for quite local services such as MA seo or CT seo, you will find quite a slew of web pages on these topics.
Since people seem to use Google now-a-days rather than following some URL they may have, perhaps it is time for the IRS to be using some seo services to guard against these Google bombers. After all, if you cannot trust the IRS, who can you trust?
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Reputation Management and Social Media
When Does Reputation Management Become Unethical? That is an interesting question posed by Jeff Quipp of Search Engine People.
There is obviously a great deal of power in being able to hide certain search results from the majority of searchers. With this power however, comes great responsibility. This responsibility becomes even more important if one considers that there are currently no guidelines to help guide us through the murky waters of morality.
It is certainly true that by careful SEO (Search Engine Optimization) one can push negative references down the Google search page, or with sufficient other online properties perhaps even off the top 10 page. however you cannot make them disappear. Now with the rise of social media, it is even harder to still all those dissident voices.
The words of Katie Delahaye Paine as recorded by Liana ‘Li’ Evans reflect current reality.
Trying to manage your reputation in a social media environment of today, is just plain silly (and futile), you just can’t.
Both PR Coverage and Social Media (it’s better when they are working together) have a big effect on how companies are perceived and in the end a big effect on what they are doing. The key though, is to measure both what is working and what is not working. Companies also need to understand that people are talking online, they are saying and doing things with brands, products & services, whether you are active in the conversation or not.
The first imperative of course is to try to make sure that the actions of your company are blameless, as far as you can achieve that. With such a policy you no longer need to hide but can become active in the conversations. You probably need a blog and may well decide to be active on Twitter.
One example among many is the CPA advertising network, ClickBooth. Early in the year, there were a number of negative comments from disgruntled affiliates that could be found through search. Now there is a ClickBooth blog and you can also follow ClickBooth through Twitter. The two approaches provide the best possible channels for dialoguing with any who may be dissatisfied. Now that is the way to do reputation management.
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Frequent-Flier Miles With Live Search
Sizzle alone won’t sell the steak.
It is hardly a sign of a successful product when they have to rely on gimmicks to get it into the prospect’s hands .. or rather under their mouse. That is one reaction you might have to the Live Search invitation to Sign in to the SearchPerks! Program.
Apparently Microsoft is going to pay you to use its search engine. Until the end of the year, youll get points every time you use Microsofts Live.com service. With enough points, you can buy free music downloads, gadgets, even frequent-flier miles. (The offer is limited to the first 1 million people who sign up. .. and it only works with Internet Explorer for Windows.) (Tip of the hat to Pay Per Click Offer)
In some ways it is a further extension of their Live Search Club where you can win points by playing games. It may be that they are leveraging out what has already proved to be a successful strategy. However I am from St. Louis on this one.
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