Here is a continued look at Google Updates from 2011:

Earlier this year on January 28th, Google released its’ new Attribution Update.  If you’re not aware of this update, that’s okay.  Absolute Placement Today is here to help make all these complex technological terms simple enough for anyone to understand.

According to Matt Cutts, Google’s lead engineer, the main point of the update was to help reduce the spam levels in Google’s search results.  Sites that copied the content of other sites and sites with low levels of original content were specifically targeted.

These sites would either be ranked much lower or entirely eliminated from Google’s search results.  The update would affect about 2% of all searches.  However, you would probably only notice about a half percent change in the search results.

Before this update, Google was actually ranking copied content higher than its’ source.

Many SEO professionals were somewhat concerned about this update.  A part of many SEO strategies is article marketing.

“Article marketing” is when you either manually or automatically spread your articles across the internet.  The basic idea is that your website will gain links and free traffic.

Now that Google has decided to reduce the rankings of copied content, the question to ask is,“How did this end up affecting SEO?”

Google’s Focus on Quality is Sometimes Questionable

Well, first take a look at how Google could easily be tricked into ranking websites much higher than they should be.  The guys at SEO MOZ did their own study and found some interesting results.

First, they decided to study a pretty popular brand of merchandise, “nfl jerseys.”  Many of the results Google returned first included sites offering up to 75% off the original price.

At the time of the search, every result on the first page was fraudulent!  If you searched on other popular brands, you would get the same results.

By the process of elimination, SEO MOZ determined that the text in the back links was helping these sites to rank highly.  Not surprisingly, most of the links resulted from forum spam, blog spam, and hacked websites.

Owners of these fraudulent online shops would use special programs to post thousands of forum posts and blog comments.  On the surface, this doesn’t sound so bad.  But, since these posts and comments are generated by a computer program and not a person, they are often completely unrelated to the topic of discussion.

They’re called “spam “ because they rarely make any sense and are only present to get someone’s website a back link.

Keep in mind…Google’s Not Perfect!

What is interesting is how invested Google is in returning fresh and high-quality search results.  At the same time, Google still has difficulty in returning high-quality search results.

The Attribution Update acted as a step in the right direction.  But, it also only applied to content, not back links.

In terms of content, Google seemed to be returning higher-quality results.  But, in terms of quality websites, Google was still struggling at this time.

If you’re an SEO Service provider or if your site uses SEO services, you may or may not like this update.  In the end, it all really depends on your SEO strategy.

Stay tuned, and be prepared to learn more about future Google updates next week!

On October 18, 2011, Google released its’ query encryption update.  The new update protects organic searchers using SSL (Secure Sockets Layers).  Keen observers may have noticed that by default you are now sent to https://www.google.com instead of http://www.google.com.

Google noted on its’ support page that the primary motivation for this update is to protect the safety and security of its’ searchers.  In terms of concrete effects, this means that any websites searchers navigated to from Google can, in a certain percentage of cases, no longer see which keywords referred the person to that site.

If you take the time to examine your Google Analytics data to see which keywords are driving traffic to your site, you may see “not provided.”  This is the direct result of Google’s Query Encryption Update.

In some cases, the amount of data that is “not provided” is 10%, 20%, 30%, or even more.

Two authoritative organizations, Search Engine Watch and Conductor have each conducted their own small studies.  Conductor found that, on average, about 2% of results were affected in late October, with that number rising to nearly 18% by late November.

Conductor found those numbers to be 6.5% in late October, nearly 11% in mid-November, and 9% in late November.

With these fairly different results, it’s hard to determine what the overall trend really is.

So Why is Google Really Doing This?

Of course, few people buy the idea that Google is acting to protect the privacy and security of people performing organic searches.  Most searchers are more concerned with paid advertiser tracking of their data than organic tracking.

The first theory about Google’s real motivation behind this update is that it is doing so in order to squeeze out competition to its’ Google Adwords service.  Interestingly, while some keyword data is not available for people performing organic Google searches, all keyword data is available for one of Google’s moneymakers, Adwords.

How come the rule doesn’t apply when Google stands to profit?  This is a very fair question that Google is yet to answer.  What Google will say is that they are concerned about the privacy of their searchers, and only a small percentage of traffic will be affected.

Another proposed theory is that Google is doing this in order to appease the political elite in Washington.  No one can cite any current legislation or political moves that would force Google into such a move, but Washington does have a history of protecting the privacy of its’ citizens on the internet.

The whole SEO community is in an uproar over the update, as it makes the job of SEO professionals that much more imprecise and difficult to perform.  Most take it as another move by a powerful corporation to maintain power over the search engine results.

Whether you like it or not, there’s not too much that can be done about the whole situation.  As long as searchers prefer Google, nothing can be done to change what it decides the rules of the game should be.

So, PRE “FRESHNESS” good link building has always been a creative and critical ingredient to getting websites good placement in the major search engines like Google Bing and Yahoo.. And it still is. We all know that gaining good “strong” niche related links can often be a daunting task. Freshness has made it even more difficult, but with a little creativeness you will be just fine…

   Link building with Press Releases

    Problem:
Press Release links are dated, and if you find your press has a short shelf life, that’s because it is NEWS. News, unless it is continued and ongoing is OLD NEWS. And as the PRESS / News ages, the link from it too will age then go away “LEAVE THE INDEX OF GOOGLE” … In short, the link juice from the press will die with the press…

 Solution:
Diversify your link building. If you are getting links from articles and press alone, you are forced to write “every day”.. Going  forward, with Freshness as part of the algorithm, Social networking and blogging is a must. If you are a blogger, or service provider, you should consider the use of “FeedBurner”. Not only does FeedBurner, help with all your blog feeds, but is owned by Google….. With a 100 million dollar investment in 2007, it is likely a major player in the game of finding new and “FRESH” content on the web. Understand, Google has more than 500 adjustments to this years algo update. Fresh Links are NOT the only update….

Link building options:

Keep your content Fresh. Don’t get too comfortable with your search engine placement. Google has made a huge change in about 35% of all search terms. If your website has lost traction, its likely from a lack of either FRESH LINKS, you lost links from them being de-indexed, or your competition simply has fresher content. We are seeing websites “SOME GOOD and SOME GARBAGE now ranking for terms they clearly should not be ranking for.

Here are a couple tips to regain that placement

Compare your links here:  http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/
Look at the link volume today VS PRE “FRESHNESS” November 3, 2011. If you have a drop in links, you likely lost either article or PR link juice and need to get busy writing.

Blog Exchange And Guest Writing.

If you are not selling your business no one is right? Wrong…..  This will take some time, but is worth it…. Find a niche related site, make REAL NON SPAMMY contact with the site owner, and get to know each other. Then of course get to writing for each other……

Wanna see something real cool? Check this out!

DO YOU WANT A LINK FROM THIS BLOG? OK you got it!

THERE ARE RULES

• First, like us on Facebook,
• Comment it on twitter,
• Give real feedback in the comment field

    BAM! YOUR COMMENT IS APPROVED AND YOU GOT A LINK!

Want some one to just step in and take over for you? Well as expert SEO Service providers we can do that as well…

• Google Freshness and a little caffeine

By now we all know Google Is going nuts with its complete control of the web. Now, on November 3rd, Google rolls out the “FRESHNESS” update. This update as you know by now has affected about 35% of all search terms, more then twice that of Goggles Panda update of about 12% of search terms. These search terms are, for the most part “HEAD TERMS”, according to Rand here at “Whiteboard Friday”.

So what does the website owner do to make sure he/she is NOT getting left in the dust from the Google Freshness update?

First understand what the update is: The freshness update is looking for “Fresh updated unique content. “WARNING!!! If your website has duplicate content you better get to writing. Your website is a sitting duck if you have duplicate content.. The 11-3-11 Google Freshness update stems from the Google Caffeine update from 6/08/2010 05:00:00 PM on Googles Blog

Understand, that when you search Google, you ARE NOT, searching the live web, but rather the data Google has indexed, complied, and will receive the results in an order Google has decided based on many factors most relevant to your search “ in Googles’ opine.  Most SEO’s knew that with Panda came great change to the search industry, and many prepared for the changes and have settled in, till Freshness hit….

Historical Data, Freshness and Links
Up next, what the masses drool over: link based criteria. Yes, “freshness” isn’t always about the actual content. It can be used to valuate links, too!
Link velocity valuations include:

• When links appear or disappear.
• The rate at which links appear or disappear over time.
• How many links appear or disappear during a given time period.
• Whether there is trend toward appearance of new links versus disappearance of existing links to the document, etc.

Historical factors can also be used in weighting the links such as:

• The date of appearance/change of the link.
• The date of appearance/change of anchor text associated with the link.
• Date of appearance/change of the document containing the link.
• Trust of the document/site where the link resides.
• Freshness of the document.
• Document site authority.

• Now, let’s consider that the above link related factors are but a layer. This is (yet another) reason why people shouldn’t become too fixated with PageRank. There is far more in the world of link valuations. Don’t become myopic.
• On the “freshness” side of things, they note a page can become “stale” when the following occurs;
• The date at which one or more links to a document disappear.
• The number of links that disappear in a given window of time.
• Some other time-varying decrease in the number of links (or links/updates to the documents containing such links).

This type of valuation is certainly interesting because it most certainly would be a good way of establishing temporal virility of a page. Two important concepts are link velocity and link decay. Essentially the rate they are created and how quickly that dies off.
What is most important to stress is that historical elements aren’t just about “freshness.” Your SEO (and marketing) programs should always be aware of what we’ve looked at today as it crosses many lines from link building to content programs.
Consider:

• Visibility (and indexation)
• Attribution
• Content changes
• Behavioral / engagement
• Domain / registrar changes
• Changes in link focus
• Link velocity and decay

And we haven’t even touched on how they might use it for spam.Many of the noted methods may or may not be in use. Even if we don’t know the weighting of those that are, understanding them is essential to modern SEO Services. Marketing a website today, versus just a month ago has changed. If your an SEO, expect to do a lot more work in the social and PR. arena.  Will being more of a social butterfly fix your issues following the Google Freshness update?

NO.

Freshness in the eyes of the 11-3 update, includes, your link building, social reach, follows, tweets, re-tweets etc, and THEIR DATE OF ACTION….

In the words of RAND “SEO MOZ”, if your not content marketing YOUR CRAZY…

Kinda hard to follow the many updates if your not in the trench on a regular basis.. Here are a few links I found useful for the Google Freshness update:

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2125272/Google-Freshness-and-Temporal-Data

http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2123930/Pitching-to-Googles-Fresh-New-Algorithm-via-News-Blogs-Events-Google

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

Do yourself a favor… go there and bookmark their blog!

NOW do me a favor! like us and on Facebook, +1 us with your cool new google Plus, follow us on twitter and stay informed…..

Stay tuned more this evening..

Credit Parts to: the Above links sources.

So, I skipped a week in the blogging world to take a much needed break at the cabins in Oklahoma…..  I will follow up with a real good posting on this vacation in my next post.

Here I want to cover a real important subject in the efforts of SEO Services and the REQUIREMENT for CRO Services  “CONVERSION RATE OPTIMIZATION”.

First, and an obvious fact, You have to know that the terms you are targeting are terms that are actually searched for the service or product your website offers. An experienced SEO Services provider will show you the right terms to target. Remember, it DOES NOT MATTER HOW MANY SEARCH RESULTS THERE ARE……. Your looking for search volume, NOT the number of search results..

Here you will see 102,000,000 results for the search term “NATURAL PLACEMENT” , our website is #1 and has been for three years, but has NEVER brought us a single visitor or lead. “however, we are not even targeting this as a search term”

SEO services and CRO “Conversion Rate Optimization” starts with making sure you have placement for the right search terms.

On a side NOTE: CAUTION!!!! Those sites offering “results based” SEO  Services are well known for this “RIP OFF”…. Targeting terms and getting placement for the sake of getting placement, YUP, so they can then bill you….. they will “RECOMMEND, then CONTRACT terms that bring little or no search volume and charge 450.00 – 500.00 for a couple terms that will never bring you an actual return on your investment.. Then “recommend” additional terms that also get little or no search traffic for another few hundred bucks Just be careful……

Moving on…..

Obtaining placement for the correct search terms is tough enough, but knowing the right CALL TO ACTION is PRICELESS. Experienced SEO Services will show you the right terms to target and explain why.

That call to action starts on the “Search Engine Results Page”.   Here are some examples of results that work and don’t work:

THIS WORKS REAL WELL: it explains what you will find on the site, expresses the level of integrity, contact option and in fact you don’t even have to click the link to make contact.

“FIRST IMPRESSIONS COUNT”

There is a pattern search engines are looking for when delivering results to its end user. One of the many duties of
a good SEO is to use the correct search terms in the correct order and to start the CRO “CONVERSION RATE OPTIMIZATION” in the right place…

Here is a service provider who is not even claiming to do business in Dallas yet.. “See you next year in Dallas”

Stay Tuned! Next week we will share our experience at Foxruncabins.com in Oklahoma, and cover “Onsite CRO” Conversion Rate Optimization”

So, a potential client came to me the other day with what he called “A BRICK WALL” with his current SEO Firm… In short, He was told there was nothing more that could be done and that he needed to just keep paying to maintain his good placement..

Here I am going to cover his issue and the suggested solution…

First, his website has good “not great” placement for several GEO Targeted terms… It’s a rather new site, about 14 months old, and has few links that are relevant to his niche..

His SEO is running a large Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign and his ongoing SEO. I asked him several questions that really left him scratching his head….

1. With both a PPC and SEO campaign, DO you know where your calls are coming from?
   Answer: No
2. Is there a reporting of actual work being performed given on a monthly or weekly basis for the SEO SERVICES?
   Answer: No
3. Have you asked for such a reporting?
   Answer: No
4. What is your Cost Per call, NOT COST PER CLICK?
   Answer: I don’t know
5. Has the SEO service provider talked to you about non geo placement?
   Answer: “NO, I was told because I service a local area I had to use geo targeted terms.”

Ok, So I stopped him there, showed him what it looks like when someone searches non geo terms…. He was in shock to see that Google Places still showed up his local competition, and now because the search was NON geo, he was no where to be found..

Him seeing his competition for terms that were terms searched far more than the GEO terms, he is now ready to take down the wall..

If your SEO is NOT showing you actual reports of work performed that is trackable, and measurable, how can they justify their cost…..

Now, keeping trade secrets close to their chest is fine, and the tools in Google Analytics are more than enough to show progress in any seo campaign…

Just because an SEO said they researched this or analyzed that does NOT justify work performed…….

Your SEO Should always be pushing for the toughest terms and placement….

Ok, so in a previous post I said I would be “giving away some handouts” on launching a new website and marketing your business in:  “SEO Services and Website Conversions” .

Now Let’s Get Your Website Off The Sidelines And In the Game:

Let’s get right to it…..

“THE OLD SCHOOL WAY OF GETTING OFF THE SIDELINES JUST DO NOT WORK”

Here are ten tips on getting your website launched correctly:

1.  As all things SEO, it is CRITICAL, an experienced SEO is involved from the beginning. Given the Farmers/Panda updates, SEO has become more than just link building and code adjustments. SEO is now all things “WEBSITE TRAFFIC”…    Decide on theme “look and feel” … YOU HAVE TO STAND OUT from the competition. Your SEO TEAM will help you with this.

2.  Decide on a budget for the website launch “START TO FINISH”. “if you can not program a website yourself, make sure the company you partner with is at least accredited with their local BBB. This shows a few things… Time in the industry, history of ethical practices and accountable.

3.  Make sure that what ever site style and theme you go with you have actual access to the RAW HTML files of the website and you have the ability to adjust the code without added cost. This will ensure the ability for an expert SEO SERVICES provider to properly make the needed adjustments for search engine placement.

4.  AS A TEAM, you and your SEO need to conduct detailed keyword research. Both parties need to agree to the keywords, and understand why your targeting these terms.. TIP……Make sure you are NOT making the decision based on NUMBER OF COMPETITORS, but rather SEARCH VOLUME… For example, Google will show, 4,000,000 results for a search term, however, if it is a term that is NOT searched what good is that placement… Here is an example:  “NATURAL PLACEMENT” has more than 88 million results, BUT has NEVER brought my website a single lead, client or as far back as I can find, even a visitor and my website is #1 on Google… “Search results are NOT the same as Search volume”  TIP: YOU WANT VOLUME..

5.  As Your SEO SERVICES and Design are Launching, GET INVOLVED…. Ask your SEO for  a list of active directories you can start submitting to… Rand at SEOMOZ explains it well here on Whiteboard Friday.

6.  Make it CLEAR, to your SEO that you will expect DETAILED REPORTING of work performed.. “It’s understandable that they may not want to give away trade secretes” but to understand they are actually working on your project, it is reasonable to show reporting of work performed.. “MANY SEO” will simply adjust the code of your site, then create a link building campaign in a link building software, then bill you for work performed. This is NOT SEO… GET DETAILED REPORTS that are clear of the work performed…  Absolute offers REAL TIME REPORTS 24/7…… hint hint…

7.  Access ability, Both site visitors and the search engines must be able to index and crawl your website. have good UNIQUE and ORIGINAL content for all pages of your website. Understand and follow Googles Webmaster Guidelines.

8.  Start your social listings, ie, Facebook, twitter, linkedin etc, and make sure the accounts are set up with YOU as the administrator….. SAME AS YOUR GOOGLE WEBMASTER ACCOUNT…. IT IS YOUR WEBSITE YOU NEED TO OWN AND CONTROL IT.. It is perfectly ok to give access to your SEO, but IT’S in your name.

9.  Track results: Use a third party unbiased reporting tool for website traffic and ranking. Google Analytics is great, but you need to know what your competition is doing as well. SEMRUSH is both FREE and a great SEO TOOL.

10.  DO IT AGAIN…. SEO and website marketing is an ongoing, never ending venture. All aspects of website marketing must grow and improve on a regular basis. Ride your SEO LIKE A BULL…. It your business GROW IT! Keep in mind SEO is a MARATHON, NOT a SPRINT

If you think a 20.00 website will ever get you ANY results at all, GUESS AGAIN….. Get your refund request ready at the same time you make your payment……

Stay tuned…. Next up,  “Link Building” for a new website.

Here I want to cover some falsehoods of launching a small business website and SEO.

First, I want to get some things out of the way…..

If you’re a website owner, and are told “we can increase sales by simply increasing placement and traffic”, You are not being told the whole story…

If you are told that your small business just needs a website to sell on line, you are not being told the whole story..

These television commercials that are offering a website for $39.00 per month “and get found on line” are simply misleading, and you are not being told the whole story.

If you are told that all you need for website success is “this really awesome looking” website, yup, you guessed it, “you are not being told the whole story”.

So, here is the “Rest of the Story”, and a few tips to get yourself moving on line..

First, understand that just by building placement in the search engines, will NOT increase sales. In today’s Google world, a major injection to the algorithm is reader patterns. Get your readers to your site for the “correct Keyword terms”, and give them a reason to read on, contact or purchase.. Make it EASY for them to take the next step.

Next, if you’re told to just launch the site and “get ready” to make millions, this is simply nuts… It’s like a sail boat in the middle of the ocean with NO SAIL…. Your website must have a driving force, be it a sound seo services plan “always best” or if all you offer is a local service, then a local marketing and seo plan is more than enough.

If you’re one of those folks that just have to have “mailers” or flyers, STOP and think……WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU GET A MAILER OR FLYER…. Yup, me to, I toss it directly into the trash with the old phone book…..

If you’re feeling froggy, and want to jump at a website builder who has “thousands of templates” to choose from, understand there is nothing unique about the same website and same content built for millions of people… Search engines like Google want original and unique! In fact, it is these template sites that violate the terms of Google webmaster guidelines…. and CAN GET YOUR SITE INTO TROUBLE WITH GOOGLE….

Finally, why the heck own a beautiful website you paid a small fortune for that nobody can find…… “you don’t have to answer….. we know” YOU wouldn’t and shouldn’t..

If you are needing a website presence, it is CRITICAL, you have Up to date SEO SERVICES as the core of you’re development.

Stay Tuned, we are following up with a series on launching a website marketing project.

Did you know that over 50% of the people who get online and use social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, also read  blogs on a daily basis?  That’s a lot of people!  So, if you’re not utilizing a blog to promote your site’s services; you’re missing out on a lot.  Blogging not only keeps content fresh ( a Google brownie point ), it also keeps regular readers coming back for more.

Wondering How Blogs Help SEO Purposes?

There are several ways they help.  For one, they provide yet another place to put your keywords and links to tell the search engines what you’re all about.  If you’re blogging without taking advantage of the spaces where you can provide keyword rich data like the metatags, title, categories and headers; then you’re missing opportunities.  Blogging is a great way to reiterate over and over what your site is about and use your keyword phrase targets repeatedly in a ‘white hat‘ way.

Another way blogs help SEO efforts is they provide another piece for the link building puzzle.  There are several directories that are specifically designated to submitting blogs and RSS feeds.  This helps keep your content and links updated in a much bigger way.  The links in RSS Feeds are deep links that boost your relevance to the search engines and automatically update with your new content.

You can also capture the traffic for long tail keyword terms with blogging subjects more easily.  If you are trying to be #1 a term like credit repair, there are inevitably going to be some longer, less frequently searched, but still valuable variations of your keyword phrase.  Here’s your chance to include those in your optimization efforts.

Do You Struggle with New Subject Matter for Your Blog?

You might find yourself stalling on the creativity front when coming up with fodder for your blog.  Here’s the good news, the most important thing about a blog is consistency, not necessarily quantity.  So, even if you blog only once or twice a week; you’re still doing your site a favor.  The best thing about a blog is that you can write about, rant on, teach or just highlight pretty much whatever you want.  As you write more, the ability to tie in your subject matter with your product, service or target will get easier.  You can always call the pros at Absolute Placement Today to help out as well!

Still Need More Motivation to Blog?  Here it is:

BECAUSE PEOPLE READ STUFF

Speaking of blogs, now that you’re already here, please take a moment to explore our SEO Services blog.  If you see something you like, share it.  If you don’t, please email me with questions or requests at jen@absoluteplacementtoday.com.  I’d love to hear from you!