Coaching For Success
Google Rings The Changes Yet Again With +1
Apr 14th
If you want to succeed as an internet business owner, you’ve got to stay abreast with Google and the changes they’re constantly making to their search results.
We recently reported on what became known as Google’s Farmer Update, which basically put greater emphasis on quality, original content influencing search results. Well, Google keeps ringing the changes, the latest one being “+1″, which is all about where search and social meet.
Google’s Growing Love For Social
Google has already acknowledged the growing importance of social media by including Twitter updates in its search results, but now Google’s taking the importance of social in its results up another notch. In future you’ll see a button alongside search results which can be clicked to recommend a result to your social graph as defined in Google Profiles.
This acts as a citation and creates a backlink for SEO. When a user performs a search, results that received votes from within that user’s social graph will be profiled.
This Is Big, Really Big
While the implications of this latest change to Google’s search results aren’t yet fully known, what is certain is that you and your business need to be ready to take advantage of it, because, if it’s big for Google, it’s big for you.
If you don’t already have a Google profile, now’s the time to change that. Then you can check your connections in Google Dashboard’s “Social Circle and Content” – the more people you are connected to and that are connected to you, the more you can influence their results. It goes without saying that expanding your circle of influence should be a major priority.
If you have a subscriber list, check for gmail addresses and import them into your Google social graph.
Video is already a major factor in search results, but that may also be about to increase in importance so be sure your company’s channel is properly branded and set up for social connections through friends and subscribers.
There’s also a +1 button that can be added to web sites that will allow visitors to vote for a page and help improve the page’s search results.
Vote For Your Favourite Ads
The +1 vote button will also be added to Adwords ads, allowing users to recommend ads that appeal, causing them to display as recommendations to personal contacts.
For advertisers, this means making their ads as appealing as possible in order to garner as many recommendations as possible.
Don’t Forget The Other Social Networks
This is Google, after all, so this is something to act on, but it’s too early to tell how much effect votes will have on search engine results or even whether users will take the time to vote.
And while you and your internet business should take advantage of Google’s new initiative, don’t ignore the other social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, since they are very powerful vehicles in their own right. A balanced approach is advisable at all times.
Let a UK internet marketing consultant help you to make the most of Google +1 and the other social networks to boost your search result rankings.
Google’s New Check-Ins Add To LBS Mix
Mar 30th
You may already be promoting your internet business on such location-based services (LBS) as Foursquare, Yelp or Facebook Places, and are well aware of the benefit to your business of this type of service.
Now Google has announced that it’s adding check-in capability to Latitude, which is the social feature of Places, Google’s location-based service. This should alter the LBS horizon significantly, especially when you consider that, according to a study sponsored by Microsoft, Google Places was already the most widely used LBS, beating out Facebook Places. Google Check-In also has some additional features that are very popular with users: location check-out and ability to set notifications.
There Are Apps For That
In addition to its massive user base and global search dominance, Google also has the increasingly popular Android operating system as its mobile platform, through which it offers Google Places apps for both Android powered devices and the iPhone. These apps integrate Google’s other location-based services, including Google Navigation and Maps.
Combine all this with Google’s global expansion of its review and ratings service, HotPot, and Google now offers users the ability to share locations and review and rate local businesses on their mobile platform.
Let’s Make A Deal
Google obviously sees offering deals as a major new opportunity – recall the $6 billion offer to buy deals leader, Groupon – and is rumoured to be seriously looking into launching its own deal service, provisionally named Google Offers.
In the meantime, Offer Ads allows businesses to send coupons via SMS and e-mail to users to drive foot traffic to their physical locations.
A Winning Combination
With all these various services combined into a neat, tidy package, Google is positioning itself to be the business owner’s one-stop shop when it comes to mobile services.
Business owners already using Google Places to promote awareness of their products and services may well see this convergence of all these service offerings as an advertising perfect storm of social, mobile and local marketing.
Now that Google’s home page offers internet business owners check-ins, ratings and reviews and coupons, there’s no need for businesses to go scouring the internet to find the best option for one or other of these services when the world’s leading search engine offers them all under one roof, so to speak.
Using Google Places and related services can boost your business’s exposure both on- and off-line, so contact a UK internet business coach today for increased exposure tomorrow.
How Is Google Categorise Your Internet Business Website?
Mar 2nd
In the fast moving world of internet business marketing we all know why we need to be visible to prospective clients, you know what it is your offering them and how your product or service can help them, but have you ever stopped to wonder how search engines like Google view your site? How it is being categorised?
You know how you would look at your site and categorises it but what if search engines do not see it the way you are categorising it. Lets face it if you think your site is about one thing and search engines think it is about something else the end result is that you will not get traffic or the right type of traffic, you could be ranked incorrectly or not at all – sobering thought isn’t it but how many internet business owners really check to see how they are being categorised.
This potential issue is not difficult to sort out as using tools and certain search operators you can find out easily and fix any potential problems. For example if you use the search operator “similar” you can check how Google views your site. To do this simple go to Google search and type in related:www.domain.co.uk/~domain.co.uk Replace www.domain.co.uk with your own internet business domain name. Make sure there is no space after the colon. You will then get results pages, which will show other sites Google thinks are related to your site.
This is very useful to see how Google is looking at your site, if they are related (similar) then that is good your on the right track and the search engine understands what your site is all about, however if they are unrelated then you have issues you need to fix as soon as possible even if it is partially related i.e some of it is similar and the rest is not you still need to work on harmonising your site so search engines categorise your site properly.
Some simple tweaking to your Internet business site can allow for clarity and show Google without a doubt what the topic/category of your site really is. Search engines like Google determine what your site is about by looking at your content on the site and the search engine optimisation (SEO) you have used for the site along with the type of links coming into your site to categorise your site.
If you have lots of links coming into your site from totally unrelated external sites then this will not help with clarifying your position or reinforcing the ideas you have about your site and the category it falls into. If you are in this position then you need to look at your links again and ensure they come from related sites that compliment your own. Any anchor text you are using should be one of your keywords this will help your search engine optimisation (SEO) as well.
Ensuring that your Internet business website’s search engine optimisation (SEO) matches your content is important to ensuring that search engines categorise your site properly to effectively maximise your potential to generate useful traffic and gain potential customers.
Google Updates and How To Stay Ahead
Feb 11th
Last year Google changed the way they rated links and many Internet business people did not really pay enough attention to this and in the process of recent updates found that their rank was affected. The latest update also had many Internet business owners scratching their head as to why their rank had changed.
John Mueller at Google stated that “the new algorithms where looking for high quality, unique and compelling content”, not easy to do these days in the ever burgeoning online content race, however if you feel your site content is unique try to separate it and ensure title tags and metas on that page are good, that it is within the top layer structures of your site where it is easy to find and not on pages where you have auto generated content from other sites. By doing this it helps ensure your content Internet marketing efforts are well received for the next round of updates by Google.
Back to links however, the basic fact is not all links are created equal, so many links you maybe creating for your site may not only not being weighted the way you think they should be but also the value of the link can be affected despite the fact that the link maybe within your field, come from similar and reputable sites. So really what does this mean for the perplexed Internet marketer, simply this Google is weighting links based on how likely a “reasonable surfer” would be likely to click on that link. In essence Google is looking at two things:
• Link visibility (where links are placed and their appearance)
• Link relevance (how relevant is the site you link to or that is linking to you)
This change means essentially that a lot of practises people used to use for linking really do not
apply in the same way as before or are no longer as effective as they once where. So methods like: Bulk directory submission – This has been bad for ages but people for some unknown reason are still doing it, Bulk link exchange – Use this only if you want penalties or to be banned from search engines. Forum posting and blog commenting was once extremely effective but now it can help people but do not count on it for link juice, similarly Social bookmarking is still a helpful resource but not really useful for link juice anymore.
Instead use the following Internet marketing linking methods, Guest blogging – This is always a great way of getting exposure for your internet business and also of gaining high quality links to your site, Link baiting is also great, basically you put great content up on article sites etc and it acts as bait which people will choose to link to, this method will only work with excellent content that you can spin a few times for variation. Try using Social Media to attract links via Twitter, Facebook, Myspace etc.
If you use any of the above your internet marketing efforts will be more effective so to will be your efforts to either hold onto your PR (Page Rank) or improve it. Most of all you need to ensure that incoming links are from sites deemed by Google as having a good weighting or value, you need to ensure your internet business websites content is unique and easy to find so that in the next round of Google updates your business does better.
Google Enhances Local UK Search With Nearby Shops
Jan 27th
If you are a UK internet business owner and you also run a brick and mortar retail store, you should be extremely excited about the recent introduction of the feature known as Nearby Shops into the UK.
A Boost For Both Online Shoppers And Merchants
Not only will online merchants benefit from this new feature, thanks to the increased visibility afforded their businesses through Google‘s global and local reach, but online shoppers will also benefit from increased awareness of the shopping options available to them in their vicinity.
Shoppers searching for products online using Google Products will be shown a map displaying shops that are nearby that sell the item or items entered in the search criteria, along with shops selling similar items.
The way it works is by you, the merchant, syncing up your account in Google Places (if you don’t have one, then obviously setting this up first is a pre-requisite) with the products you have listed in your Merchant Centre Account (again, this also needs to be created if not already there) by linking the two with the same URL, resulting in your shop being listed in the Nearby Shops results for a particular product search.
Local Is Going Global
Providing consumers with local information and options is becoming increasingly important for many of the bigger internet companies. A prime example is the fact that eBay decided to take the plunge into the local arena, just before Google made its move into local, through its purchase of the local shopping site, Milo. EBay’s new tool is called GiftsNearby, which combines its product inventory tool with the Milo software tool to provide searchers with local results.
Competition For Local Supremacy Is Increasing Dramatically
Competition in the local sector is growing more fierce as consumers’ preference for local search and results increases and the competition is only expected to intensify in 2011.
To that end Google has made dramatic improvements to its tools with a view to refining its local search capability. The company acquired Blue Dot to add mobile product inventory to its Product Search tool, which it further enhanced with the addition of two new search tools, Popular Products, which lists products by search volume, and Aisles, which sorts products into sub-categories.
The online search, offline purchasing market is huge, and, if your internet business isn’t set up yet to take advantage of this burgeoning market, contact a UK internet business consultant who can assist you with your local search efforts.
