Tag: Google

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Site Placement 101

Have you experienced the Google smackdown and lost your organic placement? Have you dropped from the first page of results to the second or worse yet to so far back you cannot even find your own site?

If this is your case, what can you do – anything?

Crying about your placement on Google.com.
Crying about your placement on Google.com.

Here is my short list of things to look at and review to see if you can fix your problem.

1. If your website is mainly duplicated content like user generated content (reviews, event postings), or products and descriptions that many other sites share with you – you will most likely not be able to re mediate your problem. Sorry, hard cold fact via Matt Cutts the lead Google Web Spam engineer. If your content is like others Google no longer considers showing your site organically a value proposition for them UNLESS you create some other type of value for users than just spewing out what others already have on their sites or have already said.

2. If your site does not have duplicate content, there is hope to re mediate a drop through careful content review and update, on-domain blogging, code optimization, and a strategic plan to build value and information with the reader in mind first and foremost.

The changes that Google has made to their search engine in the last year have had very strong and sweeping impacts in regards to how a business sets up and manages their online presence. Getting organic placement is now that much harder to earn and keep, but it all remains about the value you offer to readers and in the greater scheme of things the value you provide to others trying to understand your industry.

So often I hear “my site has dropped, I want to be on page one, others are there why not me?” There are so many factors at play now in regards to organic placement that doing one thing, two things, or even three things just don’t work. Don’t ever lose sight of this fact – this is Google’s FREE search engine with results displayed their way and to their criteria, but most of all, Google is in the business to sell advertising not supply FREE search results for website owners.

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Penguin 2.0 Were You Affected

Last month Google rolled out a pretty big update to its Penguin anti-spam algorithm update, but this is the last time you’ll see Penguin with a number.

Google named its now infamous update Penguin.
Google named its now infamous update Penguin.

First, Google has stated that it will no longer roll out separate Penguin and Panda updates, it will simply rollout out improvements MONTHLY with their regular updates. That means that although you won’t hear when an update is coming anymore, Google considers these important relevancy factors and has included them in their regular tweaks. This also means that the big shakedown is over. We’ll be seeing tweaks not smackdowns.

So, how did your site fair? The bad news is that if your site took a drop, the chance to remediate from the drop is pretty slim. Others in my industry have stated figures like under 2% of all sites affected will be able to recover from the drop in placement from Panda and Penguin updates.

So, what have been the benefits of all these changes? Well, Google feels that relevancy has improved, others report that they are seeing more localized results, and I am seeing more worried website owners being forced into Google AdWords promotion in order to get site exposure.

Take a moment to share your thoughts in the comments below on how your site has been impacted by these important algorithm changes by Google. For more information here’s a great article to read for more insight.

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Ready to Connect on Google+ Here’s How

I consider activity on Google+ important for business owners. The real SEO and search benefits are however not achieved by updating your Google+ Business page, but rather your Google+ personal page.

So, how can you connect with others to start building your Google+ empire and improved rankings for your company website in the organic listings?

  1. Start by making sure the content you write is on target, on topic, and engaging.
  2. I use my Google+ page for business and not personal use. Consider doing the same for now.
  3. Work to actively add users to circles and respond when someone adds you to one of their circles.
  4. Click +1 and leave comments on posts you find interesting. You’ve simply got to spend some time.
  5. Consider starting a hangout. Well I am still thinking about that one, but have participated in several others and they can be fun. I have just not initiated one.

I personally find that for placement Google+ will be very important. As Google does not allow any automated or scheduled updates to be passed to your Google+ page, you will find the community of business people,legitimate, real and engaging.

Personally, I use Facebook for personal interaction on my locked down private page and Google+ as my face on social networks for business.

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Guest Blogging for Links

What does Google (Matt Cutts) think about guest blogging and the links that are generated from doing it? This excellent video answers the question. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IMxC3wQZOyc

This is the bottom line. If you did not sweat in creating the guest blog post Google will typically not give you link juice for it. That’s the hard cold fact. Write a light weight blog post of about 250 words, post it on a variety of sites, and maybe even use article spinning software in an effort to create unique content for each site and you really will not be getting link benefits.

Create a well written, informative, insightful blog post for a site that supports your industry and yes Google does like this approach. It’s all about the time you take and the insight you provide. Do not do guest blogging just for links with minimal effort on your part Matt and Google pretty much say in this video that it is wasted effort.