May 2014 | The Web Authority

May 29, 2014May 25, 2014

The End of Manipulating Google Places

Very quietly Google has changed Google Places to remove the ability to manipulate a listing for organic performance. This action has very quietly slipped under the radar, but the changes are big for businesses.

First, this last month, Google sent out notices to all Google+ Local businesses that duplicate listings of the same business would not be allowed. Google immediately disable access to all Google+ Local pages (also known as Google Maps pages and Google Places accounts) to email addresses that did not carry the business domain or were not recognized by Google as clearly being the account owner by email, or having the business phone number or carrying the registered address. This effectively locked out all third party account managers and update services.

Google then advised all account access users that the main account owner – not even the originator of the account, would have to allow access to any users from the parent account. Additionally that any approved users would then have to manage the account for two full weeks before transfer of the account could be done.

By making the linking and transfer process so complicated Google has effectively locked our all parties except the one account owner. Of additional important note is that Google has been removing one by one the items a business owner could actually change on their account.

Over time, Google has removed the ability to add keywords and to craft a message that helped the business place locally. Google even removed the ability for a monthly promotion as well as comments from the page owner.

With this most recent update Google has now forced all Places pages now into the format of a true Google+ page. No longer is the look and feel different of a Places page from a postable Google+ Business page but identical and one that you can now post to with a third party app like HootSuite.

These huge changes to who can own and update the page, what the page looks like, and how you interact with the local page have now made Google+ Local pages unable to really be optimized for organic placement. This bad for businesses, but great for Google. Google gets more people forced into Google+ and now nets out manipulation of local results.

May 27, 2014May 25, 2014

Five Tips on Creating Negative Keyword Lists for AdWords

Giving you a hand on negative keyword lists.

Keywords, they are the pivot point for the success of all AdWords programs. Have keywords that are too broad in your account and you’ll be looking at poor quality scores and higher costs. Have keywords that are too narrow and you’ll be looking at very low impressions and very low conversion numbers.

So, how do you achieve the balance you need to make an AdWords program truly successful? By combining broad match, phrase match and negative keywords you can drive traffic while staying targeted.

Here are my five tips on creating top performing negative keyword lists for AdWords.

1. Think like a customer. By putting on your thinking hat as you create your initial keyword list you will actually identify keywords that will not bring you the traffic you need. Got something that is top quality? Good negative keywords will be cheap, free, and discount.

2. Review your search query report. Look for keywords that are popping up in the report that have actually triggered your ad. For example you are selling enterprise document generating software, are you seeing terms like letter generator, tattoo letters; if so your ads may be showing to people who are looking for a letter (symbol) generator not a correspondence generating platform. Good keywords to use to filter out this traffic would be generator (focus on generating instead in your keyword list) and online.

3. Consider using match types for your keyword list. Remember however if you use phrase match negative keywords, you will need to enter in plurals. To enter in phrase match keywords, use the same syntax by quoting the phrase.

4. Look for the smallest number of keywords that still make your negative phrase workable. Instead of a negative keyword phrase like “luxury Hawaiian vacations”, maybe luxury all alone is a better match or the broad match variation of “luxury vacation” and “luxury vacations”.

5. Use the shared library. By adding your negative keywords to the shared library, all your campaigns and ad groups in your AdWords account will share the negative list. This action makes it easy to update your global keyword list. Just make sure if you add a new campaign to the account that you link that campaign to the shared list.

If you need help with your AdWords program, I invite you to find out more about the services my firm provides for AdWords set up and account management.

May 22, 2014May 18, 2014

Twitter’s New Cover Shot Aims to Improve Page Time

My Updated Twitter Profile.

If you have not upgraded your Twitter profile page yet, on May 28th you are getting the new look regardless according to Twitter.

So, what’s to like about the new profile?

1. Wow, it is much more interesting to view and moves Twitter from mainly being accessed through third party tools to now a venue of interest. With such visual appeal, I appear to be spending my time here over Facebook!

2. I love the new cover look and the new layout is much more stimulating visually.

3. I like the sidebar showing photos and video thumbnails on the left as well as the top level navigation sorting my updates tweets, replies, cool thumbnails of follower sites, and following sites.

4. I like the option to pin tweets, star favorites (the new way to say thank you for retweeting or mentioning you in a tweet).

5. But for me, mainly it is the navigation and new look of my account that actually makes me want to click into Twitter and not just post through HootSuite. That says a lot right there!

Twitter wants to become a venue just like Facebook where users login to interact, spend more time connecting and viewing updates, and not just send content there through third party apps. If Twitter can get you on the page, they can more effectively serve ads and build revenue.

The layout is slick, clean, uncluttered, and very eye appealing.

You can check out my Twitter site to get a feeling for what’s coming for you on the 28th by visiting me here: https://twitter.com/mccordweb.

May 20, 2014May 18, 2014

New Title Tag Length for Google Search

Illustration of new title tag length on Google.

If you are a Google watcher like me, you’ve seen changes come and go on Google. Here is a new one that I am seeing now in the search results and it has to do with the length of the title tag.

“I am seeing title tags of 49 to 58 characters but typically with a pixel width on the Google page of search results ranging from 486 to 506 pixels wide. It is time to shorten your title tag from 80 characters down to 50 to 55.” – Nancy McCord, President of McCord Web Services

After reading this article at SiteProNews, I started really checking out the title tags. Previously we had been recommending a 80 character title tag but had typically exceeded that as Google would truncate the title tag to there needs, but in some cases would show the full title. Bing would show more than the 80 characters as well. Now however, Google seems to prefer about the 50 character length at this point in time and is justifying the title in formatting to fill the smaller space. The font of the title is larger but with fewer characters.

Bing is showing a variety of title tags and without the justification that Google appears to be using in formatting. Bing is also showing the title tag with a bigger font.

My recommendation at this time is that if you have not reviewed your title tags in over a year, I would recommend a review and possible revision. I will be revising mine to a 50 character length with a clear description of the page written in marketing-type language (meaning to entice a click in to my site).