If your SEO rankings are plummeting, one of the most effective local internet marketing techniques to help bring it back around is to take a NAP:
Ultimately, we’re talking about local citation building. Citation building can have a powerful effect on your SERP positioning for keywords and searches returned using local data and terms. However, it’s not as easy as simply requesting inclusion in Google Places and getting a couple of links from sites like the online Yellow Pages. The following are 4 simple steps for taking a NAP, AKA; building effective and long-lasting local citations.
I wonder what algorithm update Google used to determine the users intent for this search result? Oh wait, they have not searched yet, I wonder if this provides a great user experience?
It’s easy to publish a blog post, a tweet or a status update. Sometimes too easy. As a business owner (and bloggers are business owners, too) you have a responsibility to publish facts. Readers don’t come for fiction, or to be taken on a breezy diversion of gossip and rumors. They come to your blog and follow your social media profiles to learn something from you.
You can seriously damage your brand by doling out misinformation as if it’s accurate, so take your time to get it right. Be certain you’re publishing facts.
To Kill Your Credibility Fast:
1. Jump on a Non-Scoop Scoop
Ever heard of a Twitter death hoax? This all-too-common viral “scoop” works for a number of social psychological reasons, none of them useful in getting to the truth. A quick Google search reveals insight about them from highly reputable sources, including the TheNewYorkTimes.
Facebook scams work the same way. I spent no time at all cross-referencing independent sources about apps that claim to let you see who viewed your profile. I debunked them in no time here, here, and thisone even references Facebook’s own Terms of Use.
Did you hear about the false CNN and Fox News reports that the Supreme Court struck down the individual health insurance mandate? It was such bad reporting about such a big event that the mistake got almost as much attention as the real news! However, you aren’t a news organization. No one will talk about you for making a mistake. They just won’t pay attention to you anymore.
2. Reiterate Common “Knowledge” that isn’t True
Whatever your area of expertise, you probably hear about all sorts of myths that masquerade as facts. Living in the world of internet marketing, I witness countless assumptions about the Google algorithm being spun into “knowledge” all the time. This spring, as the Penguin update rolled out, SEO bloggers made up stories about what the Over Optimization Penalty means.
I don’t think they were trying to deliver false information, but they did. All they needed to do was read Google’sownblogpost on the subject. Often, the actual truth is less interesting than the general consensus about what’s true.
It’s pretty much common knowledge: Web developers hate SEO experts. In all fairness, however, the feeling is mutual. But there are some good reasons for this culture clash.
“Same Thing” Sickness
One thing that SEO’s hate about web developers has to do with the way they execute or fail to carry out a very specific request.
A case in point: An SEO requests a developer to create a 301 redirect between pages. The developer does a meta-redirect or a 302 redirect citing that it’s the “same thing”.
From the developer’s perspective, it’s the same thing for the user, but from an SEO standpoint, it affects the search engine rankings.
The Death of Optimization
Developer skills and SEO techniques go hand in hand, so when if a developer fails to do their job, then it doesn’t matter what the SEO team does. Even with a copy of Google’s secret algorithm in hand, the site won’t rank if the site won’t work.
A case in point: A client implements some redesign elements. Suddenly, traffic drops by 30%.
The problem: Many of the pages don’t load like they should and the ones that do load show 500 server errors. The developer failed to spot the errors during the development process.
The result: 3 weeks of seriously diminished traffic.
The “I Know SEO” Syndrome
This is a contagious disease that developers get that can quickly spread to other developers. If you have ever heard a developer say something like I’m pretty good at SEO, it can usually be translated into I’ve read a little about SEO and therefore I pretty much know more than you do.
But wait a minute, SEO’s. You aren’t immune, either. There is a related syndrome called “I can code”.
A case in point: An SEO expert successfully builds a Word Press site and suddenly deems themselves a web developer.
The Real Problem
At the root of the culture clash between coders and SEO’s are their driving philosophies. Business classes that teach search engine optimization focus on uniqueness. After all, differentiating yourself from the competition is a good thing. On the other hand, computer science classes center on making everything the same. Each discipline takes a different approach to reaching the same result: stability and efficiency.
Shopping around the web these days has become a frustrating affair. Not only is Google serving up obscure blogs on the first page, some of the largest players like Target seem to have forgotten that an excellent shopping experience is what turned them into a household name.
For example, try shopping for bath towels on Target.com. Type in “Fieldcrest towels,” in Google Search and Target comes up first place in the organic listing. Notice too that Target has paid for a PPC ad for “Fieldcrest towels.”
However, once you get to the website, good luck outfitting your bathroom. The towel is supposed to be available in a choice of colors: white/black stripe, white/grey, white/brown, white/green and white/taupe stripes. Yet, only the black stripe photo is displayed for all of the examples. Moreover, the two white/black stripe towels that are pictured are different. One has two stripes and one has four. So not only is the customer unable to see the color so that they can match it to their sea foam rug, they also haven’t a clue as to what design they are buying.
As the Internet focuses on Social Media, photographs become increasingly important. Facebook, Twitter and Google+ posts share better with great photographs. Unlike video or text, photographs are immediate, beautiful and engaging. Unfortunately there are ownership issues surrounding photographs on social media that every photographer, marketing manager or business should be aware of.
The issues related to copyrights are clearly listed in the Terms of Service agreements on every social media site. Buried in these lengthy, complex agreements are terms that are designed to protect the social media site. Each agreement is a little different and they are updated and changed periodically.
On most Social Media sites when materials with intellectual property rights like photographs are posted the poster is granting a non-exclusive sub-license of the photograph to the social media site. The sub-license is free and it allows other users of the site and the social media site itself to turn around and then use or license the photo for free or for profit. The photographer (or owner of the exclusive license) retains ownership of the photograph but only in a non-excusive capacity once it is posted.
Why do these sub-licenses matter?
From a professional photographer’s perspective by posting a photo on a social media site they are basically removing the ability to ever sell the exclusive right to the photograph down the road. Should the photographer’s work ever become valuable both the social media site and any other entity that has acquired the photograph through the site can use it as they see fit for profit without owing royalties to the photographer. In the case of Google+ this license if forever, called an “irrevocable” license.
Here is the TOS for Google+
“By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.
You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.
You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.”
Google+’s user agreement is the most extensive of all the social media sites in that it is irrevocable. The forever nature of the license means that under no circumstances can the poster of the photographer ever recover exclusive rights to the photograph.
Like any other art form, web design is completely subjective. A web site might look like a thing of beauty to one person, and a complete mess to another person. There is, after all, no accounting for taste, and everyone’s tastes are different. However, there’s more to a web site’s design than merely its appearance. A web site design can have an enormous impact on conversions and even the most subtle design decisions can have a big effect. For example, a user might be more inclined to click on a green “Buy Now!” button more so than a red one. Finding a good balance between a site that looks good and a site that performs well in terms of conversions can be a real challenge.
How then can something as subjective as web design be analyzed in an objective manner to find the most effective design? One widely technique is A/B testing. In a nut shell, A/B testing sets up two or more control groups: Group A will see one version of the site, while Group B will see another version. This way various design elements can be tested and compared.
But is A/B testing really the best way to determine the most effective web design? Perhaps not. This excellent blog post by Steve Hanov suggests another method for finding the best design. Best of all its fully automated. Set it, forget it, and the page will “learn” which elements result in the most conversions.
In his post, Steve outlines the epsilon-greedy algorithm, also known as the multi-arm banded problem. Given a set of variations for a particular page element, the algorithm can make an ‘educated’ decision on which element to show based on its past performance. The best performing page elements are displayed the most frequently.
The algorithm records of the number of times a particular page element was displayed, and the number of times the element resulted in a conversion. However, the algorithm will also adapt to change. If a page element’s conversions begin to decrease, the algorithm will start to adapt and display different variations. The best part of this is that you can set up different variations of page elements one time, and let the computer do the work of figuring out which variations are the most successful. Pretty neat stuff!
Armed with this knowledge, I set out to try a few experiments with it, the result of which is Robo_AB_Tester, a small PHP class library I created which implements the epsilon-greedy algorithm. You can give it a try here.
Robo_AB_Tester tries to abstract away as many implementation details as possible and create a simple interface that is, hopefully, easy to integrate into a PHP based website. Once it is set up, it will:
For more details, see the demo page.
As I began to post a recent article from a blog on one of our SEO Moves Facebook pages, a little message popped up informing me of a new way to promote my business online. After clicking to “Learn More” I have found that Facebook has just released a new option to “Promote your Post” for all business pages that have more than 400 likes. They also came out with a handy guide explaining how to use this new functionality titled “Promote Your Page Posts“. Here is a screenshot of what the initial promote option looked like for me:
Based on the information provided in the guide for using this feature, the higher you set your budget, Facebook will automatically attempt to determine the number of users that would be reached by your promotion. Once you start the promotion, you are able to pause it, adjust it, and resume it at your will. You can also target the promotion to users by location or language. This will cause the post to only show promoted for users that are from the set location or language and can be helpful for a regional company that would like to promote a sale or special offer in only one particular area. The entire process is described in the guide as:
News reports like this one from globalpost and businessinsider have been popping up over the last couple days reporting that Google Chrome has become the worlds most used web browser as reported by StatCounter. Immediately when I heard this I thought that there was no way this could be true so I went to check my own Google Analytics Data…
Google Analytics Browser Data on Car Rentals over the past 30 days:
Google Analytics Browser Data on Housewares for the last 30 days:
As you can see, chrome is not even close to catching up to internet explorer in any of these verticals. To make sure I wasn’t going crazy I ran some reports on Travel in Germany, The Middle East and Spain.
Last night while browsing Facebook’s iPhone app, a little message popped in at the top of my News Feed informing me of a new Facebook iPhone app devoted to managing the pages you are an admin on all from one place.
While the number of smartphone users continue to grow daily and as social media interaction is developing into a major factor in the credibility of “great content” in Google’s eyes; I decided to head over to App Store and give it a try.
