Category: Google

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How Can You Get Your Website to Place on Google in the Post Panda and Penguin Era Part II

Continued from Monday Part II of III.

You can read the full article and interview that was done with Matt Cutts on SiteProNews. It is worth a careful read. The article’s author goes on to state that he likes mentioning a specific phrase only two times on a page and then sprinkles in synonyms in a natural way in his content and Cutts has agreed that he likes this approach.

The bottom line is that building keyword density and working in keywords to headers, images, and links is now passe and even considered spamming by Google. What used to work to get organic search placement simply no longer works.

Twitter and Google+ Are Important

Because Google+ is a Google tool and is being integrated into every Google property to not be actively be involved in Google+ and +1’s, which are part of Google’s new placement focus, is a missed opportunity.

Twitter links and activity are indexed and shown in Google’s search results unlike those of Facebook. If you have to choose a social network to be involved with in this new world, choose Twitter over Facebook!

Why is Google+ So Important?

Based on this new focus for Google, you need to start flowing through search and social activity into your Google+ and +1 bank. If you don’t have accounts, Google can’t tie the activity to you specifically.

Let’s talk About What Google+ and +1’s Are

Google+ is a social platform. It is not like Facebook but more like Facebook and Twitter combined. However, is it much more important than any of the social networks we know and use now.

You could consider Google+ like a voting and popularity network but one that has the ear of Google. Anything you do on Google+ will most certainly impact your website’s organic placement and Web Visibility in the future. Google has said as much in their releases. Google has additionally stated that it will be showing social results from your Google+ network in their Google.com personalized search results.

What this means is that for people and businesses that embrace Google+ early and start building their network now, there will be strong benefits for their updates and links. This activity will be shown in your own personal and expanded network’s search/social results.

+1’s are Google’s versions of votes. If you like a page, like an ad, like a blog post, like a Google+ comment, you vote it up using a +1. What is crucial to understand is that a +1 is tied to your Google+ activity. These +1 votes will impact your visibility and placement on Google in the new Google Search Plus Your World results.

Google Search Plus Your World Is the New Face of Google

In mid January, Google rolled out an important change to their search index. They named it Google Search Plus Your World. In my industry we call it Search Plus. Google stated that they will be using activity, updates, Google+ activity, and +1 activity in the search results that they deliver to your personally and to those in your Google+ network.

What is interesting is that even if you are logged out of your Google account, Google is still tracking your activity. Of additional importance is the announcement that the social related results that will be shown in the Google.com index are personally selected for you and WILL contain Google+ activity across your Google+ social network.

That means if you start building your network now, your information and website could be appearing in search results for a very broad network of readers and potential prospects. As this activity comes from your personal network, just like a word of mouth referral, links to you and your profile will most likely carry more authority and legitimacy in the eyes of potential clients. Everyone weights a reference by a friend about a business more than a written review found randomly on the Web. This will be the real impact of Google+ and +1’s in the very near future.

Read the last part on Friday.

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How Can You Get Your Website to Place on Google in the Post Panda and Penguin Era

Part I of III

This article is a special issue to address the topic of organic placement in the new world of Google. I’ll try to put it in simple terms what you can and should do to garner unpaid search placement.

Is the Panda update eating your placement up?

The world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as we know it is dying with Google pretty much hammering in the last nail in the coffin with their recent algorithm updates. That being said there are still some very smart things that you can do, and should do, to help your website retain, improve, and even garner organic search placement.Hard Work Gets You Organic Placement

There is no magic wand, no secret recipe, or for that matter special protocol you should follow or buy to have your website appear in the top unpaid search results on Google. In fact, do to much of optimization for placement and you’ll run right into Google’s “over optimization” filter and be dropped back as much as 50 to 100 pages in the search results.

So what is a website owner to do? First off, the bottom-line is you can’t scam or buy your way to top placement on Google.com. In this new world of post Panda and Penguin algorithm updates, it is readable natural content that Google wants; no keyword dense content, no heavy use of keyword phrases in the heading and subheading tags, and certainly no aggressive link building strategies.

Matt Cutts, the Google representative to my industry, says this about organic placement:

“Key phrases don’t have to be in their original form. We do a lot of synonym work so that we can find good pages that don’t happen to use the same words as the user typed.”

“People can overdo it [using meta tags and headings that are keyword dense] to the point that we consider it keyword stuffing, and it hurts. I would just make sure you do it in natural ways where regular people aren’t going to find it stiff or artificial. That tends to be what works best.”

“Never sacrifice the quality of your copy for the sake of the search engines. It’s just not necessary. The next time you write a new page of copy, test this approach to writing for the engines and see if you get as good (or better) results than before. I’m betting you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

You can read the full article and interview that was done with Matt Cutts on SiteProNews. It is worth a careful read. The article’s author goes on to state that he likes mentioning a specific phrase only two times on a page and then sprinkles in synonyms in a natural way in his content and Cutts has agreed that he likes this approach.

Check back on Wednesday for Part II.

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Google AdWords Introduces Shared Budgets for Campaigns

Just this past week Google announced a very big change in how they do budgets for your AdWords account. Introducing Shared Budgets for Google AdWords campaigns. You can read the full release on the Google blog.

Although this sounds great, I have already had experience with Shared Budgets already last week and want to let you know to be careful and choose carefully what you share.

With a Shared Budget, this is how it is supposed to work. You select which Campaigns (not ad groups) you want to share budgets between. If you have one campaign that does not spend its daily budget on a regular basis and one which does, you can choose to share budgets. Google says this:

“Using shared budgets allows automatic adjustments across campaigns, so you don’t have to constantly monitor and change individual campaign budgets throughout the day.”

It sounds good, that money not spent on the one weaker campaign, would flow over to fund the stronger campaign when needed. BUT, this is the reality of what I have already seen this last week on set up.

I set up Shared Budgets, what happened by noon one day is that the entire account budget was spent by a “hog” of a campaign effectively shutting down exposure for the full account. No metering out there, or leftovers given to the strong program, the stronger program overrode all settings of the weaker programs and took every single cent all $166.66 dollars, all of them!

The lesson learned is to be very careful what you share with AdWords Shared Budgets. Watch carefully after you set up the share both several times during the day and for statistical data. Make sure you are not funding a hog at the expense of the rest of the campaigns in your account.

By using Shared Budgets, you are effectively putting all shared campaigns in one campaign and the strong campaign now acting as an ad group in a single campaign will take the most cash at the expense of the others.

I think the idea is great, the but actual execution can create havoc with an account’s funding structure. Use Shared Budgets carefully and watchfully.

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Excluding Social Media From Your Marketing Plan Can Doom Placement

In one of my articles that was recently published on SiteProNews, the conversation thread is very enlightening in regards to the use of social media for organic placement. If you are serious about getting your website to place on Google.com, you’ve got to include the social mix. There is just no way around it. If Google thinks that social media (specifically Google+ and Twitter) are important, why in the world would you refuse to embrace them.

It does not matter if you don’t like Google+ – Google does!

It does not matter if you don’t “get” Twitter – Google includes tweets in their search index.

With the changes that Google has made to its algorithm, information it has disseminated on the Web about Google+, and its avid integration of Google+ and Google+ Locations in its index, you’d be a nut to think you can push against the monster that Google is on the Internet and get placement on their free platform by not participating in these venues. Absolutely nuts! But, that is just the push back my industry is giving. You’ll see when you read the comments from my article.

While you’re at it, read the comments on this one too about other who don’t get social media and want to rant about it.

As I look at each of the commenter’s notes and weigh what Google has clearly said and is doing with its algorithm, it is very clear to me that there will be winners and losers in this new world of post Panda and Penguin updates. The losers will be those that say I don’t like Google+, I don’t want to use is. The winners will be those that say, maybe I don’t like it, but Google thinks it is important and so for placement I think it is important.

Which avenue will you embrace? For me, I am learning all there is to know about Google+ and am actively working to leverage success there for my own business. How about you?