'Net Features : wm-search

Could Google+ Play a Role in the Upcoming Penguin Update?

Michael Garrity — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:05:00 GMT

On Friday morning, Matt Cutts, the person in charge of Google’s webspam team, announced via Twitter that the search engine would be rolling out the next generation, version 2.0, of its Penguin update (originally released in April of last year).

This update will likely have considerable ramifications on the way that Google sorts and ranks pages on its search engine results pages (SERPs), as these types of overhauls entail altering the search algorithm, as opposed to just an index refresh.

Penguin 2.0

The first Penguin update focused on black hat SEO and links/link quality, as part of the company’s apparent desire to keep "spammy" sites stuffed with low-quality links from reaching the upper echelons of the SERPs (or even the first couple of pages, for that matter). It’s been tweaked a few times since then, with the first refresh (Penguin 1.1, if you will) simply cleaning up and implementing the algorithm update in the way it indexes pages, and the second refresh adding the Disavow Links Tool, which puts the onus of identifying and removing bad links on the webmasters.

But this new update promises to be much more significant and should resonate more with all websites and webmasters. In a video released yesterday (see the bottom of this post), Cutts said that the upcoming Penguin update, which is expected in “a few weeks,” will likely go deeper and have more of an impact than Penguin 1.0, but didn’t really elaborate beyond that. He also explains that Google is looking to give special ranking "boosts" to sites that are authorities in a specific industry, community or space, meaning it will return those sites above loess authoritiative sites in related queries. He doesn't define how they will determine that authority, however.

Naturally, this has led many Web pros to wonder just what this new update will entail, and how it may affect their own performance in the SERPs. For now, all we can do is speculate.

What about Google+?

One likely scenario involves Google’s silently growing social network, Google+, which passed Twitter in Dec. 2012 to become the second largest online social network in terms of active monthly users (according to a Global Web Index study). Whereas Google started out by aggressively (over) marketing G+ when it first went live, the company has slowly backed off in favor of quietly integrating the social network with its myriad other products.

It wouldn’t be at all surprising, then, to see Google trying to incorporate G+ more intricately into its search engine, as well. And since the original Penguin was largely about links and link quality, one might expect Penguin 2.0 to put a special emphasis on links appearing on the social network. That is, content that gets linked to on or from Google+ will be weighted more heavily, or at least with more credibility, than if it were just a link on a random website or blog.

In other words, Google could end up viewing links that also appear somewhere on Google+ as being of a generally higher quality than others, so it may end up giving them a boost in the SERPs. And if that’s the case, it wouldn’t be surprising if Google Search also paid attention to the activity around links on Google+ (e.g. shares, +1s, etc.) in order to better determine just how “quality” they may actually be.

Should this end up being the case, it would mean that brands and content publishers, especially, will want to become more active on Google+, sharing links on the social network in order to give them more authority or credibility in the SERPs, especially if they expect these links to appear on other websites or blogs.

Of course, this is all just speculation, and Google is being, and will continue to be, quiet on the subject until the release of the new update, as it always is. I’m just saying, it would be an interesting way for the company to quietly nudge people toward using Google+ more often, although the downside would be the creation of an increasingly insular, exclusive “Google Universe” that may alienate Web professionals and users even more than it already has.

5 Reasons Your Search Traffic is Declining

Michael Garrity — Tue, 07 May 2013 18:27:00 GMT

Maybe it’s been happening over the past few weeks, or even months. Slowly, but surely, you’ve been watching your traffic numbers decline, despite not having changed much of anything about the way you publish content or optimize your website for the search engines.

Naturally, you’ll want to know exactly what’s going on and what’s causing this continual dip in traffic. For some problems, you may be able to look at your analytics platform to determine what content is seeing its traffic numbers decrease, which could help you clearly identify where you’re struggling.

However, in most cases, you’ll have to perform some kind of search result audit for your various keywords that will show you where you’re currently ranking on Google and its competitors for your most important keywords. Ultimately, this could reveal one (or more) issues that are holding you down in the SERPs and, thus, negatively affecting your traffic numbers.

But before you begin investigating, it might be helpful to know what you should be on the lookout for. So, here are the five most likely reasons that you’ve been seeing your website traffic decrease:

New Competition
(Too) many website owners and SEO professionals tend to a take an “it’s all about me” approach to their work, and when they start to have an issue like declining traffic, their initial instinct is to wonder what it is THEY are doing wrong and what THEY have to do to fix it. However, few immediately consider the possibility of a new website (or sites) that have moved into their niche and are luring away some of their traffic by offering comparable products or content. This is one of the reasons why conducting regular industry assessments and search audits is imperative.

Content is Out of Date
Every good content creator strives to make something evergreen that will last forever, so that visitors will consistently come to his or her website to read it. However, over time, the majority of content will become dated, and its value will begin to depreciate at a regular pace. One way to tell if your content isn’t as enticing to searchers as it used to be is to monitor that page’s analytics, and if something that used to get a consistently high influx of visitors now gets less and less, it’s likely that the content on the page is decreasing in value to most readers. A method for correcting this issue could be to produce a new, updated version of that content, and then to link to the new page on the old one.

Shifts in Algorithm Values
This is another instance where your decreasing traffic isn’t actually your fault. Occasionally, Google and the other search engines will alter their algorithms to give more weight to certain types of content for specific search terms. When that happens, images, videos, wiki pages or other content that is slightly different from standard Web pages may be given prominence over your site, which can have an effect on how much traffic you get from that search engine. If you notice that Google seems to favor certain types of content for one of your keywords or targeted search terms, maybe that means you should consider making a video or infographic the next time you consider writing a blog post about a that topic.

Caught Red Handed Being a Black Hat
And other times, SEOs are knowingly or unknowingly participating in nefarious “black hat” SEO tactics in order to move their sites higher up in the SERPs. Once Google and the others bust you – and they almost always will – they’ll penalize your site and send you way down in the rankings, and that will obviously affect your traffic. If you genuinely weren’t intending to be shady and just made a mistake, it’s important that you find out what your exact offense was and correct it as soon as possible, so that you can start trying to garner some good will with the search engines and make your way back up in the rankings.

They’re Just Not That into Your Content
However, the unfortunate truth is that much of the time, consumers just aren’t going to be that interested in the content that you’re publishing, meaning it’s not engaging or valuable enough to hold their attention and keep them coming back for more. And without engaging content, your traffic numbers are going to suffer. To rectify this problem, you should be aware of the top sites and blogs in your niche or industry, and take note of what they’re regularly publishing content about (in order to understand emerging trends) and what their readers are saying in comments sections and on social media sites to see what they’re asking for, so that you have a better idea of what content will be engaging and valuable to the visitors you want to attract.

3 Tips to Get Started on Mobile SEO

Michael Garrity — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:30:00 GMT

Optimizing your site for mobile search engines should certainly move to the top of your to-do list, if it hasn’t already. After all, it’s an easy and enticing activity for on-the-go consumers who may have a question about a product or service they're looking for, or need to find specific information about a business.

However, trying to meet mobile users where they’re searching is a bit trickier than your average run-of-the-mill desktop search engine optimization. Mobile searches take into account a number of different criteria to determine a site’s ranking, which can include overall site performance, usability, download speed and screen rendering, among other things. But the extra work is worth it, because not only are mobile users searching more and more, but they’re also buying more frequently from their devices.

When it comes to preparing your business for mobile search, there are a number of ways that you can differentiate your SEO practices to be ready for tech-savvy, mobile-ready consumers that can help you vastly improve your business’s performance on the mobile Web.

Design for All Devices

A website that is appropriately optimized for mobile devices of all shapes, sizes and operating systems will have a much better chance of ranking higher in the mobile SERPs, particularly when compared to a site that has just been reformatted to fit a smaller screen. This is because transcoding a pre-existing Web page strips it of some key content and leads to incomplete pages and, thus, decreased usability. All of this is detrimental to a high page ranking.

Plus, the type of mobile device that a user is searching on also plays a role in determining site ranking, as different mobile browsers render pages in different ways that can affect usability. As a result, brands with device agnostic mobile strategies that work with a number of different mobile operating systems will consistently rank higher for the vast majority of mobile users.

Localize

If you already have some sort of local presence online, you should definitely be nurturing that as part of your mobile SEO initiatives, because often, many mobile searchers are actually looking for specific information about local businesses. In fact, according to a Google survey, 76 percent of mobile consumers use their devices to search for a business’s location or operating hours.

In other words, part of having good mobile SEO is also having good local search optimization in place, especially if you’re just a local business or a retailer with various brick-and-mortar locations. For a quick guide on how to get started, check out our 3 Key Steps to Optimize for Local Search.

Be Ready for Email

Approximately 41 percent of all emails that marketers send out are opened on mobile devices, which means that companies should be incorporating multiple incoming links into their digital newsletters that will send recipients to their websites. These links will offer a fully integrated experience that gives brands a chance to establish a more connected presence across the mobile Web. But more importantly, these traffic driving tools, along with social media, allow consumers to find and click on links instantly.

All of that traffic, especially via outside links, is going to look good for your mobile website and can play a big role in helping to improve your mobile SEO efforts. However, links that aren’t tested or maintained will obviously end up leading to a loss of traffic from redirects to your mobile site, so make sure you put working links in your email newsletters, in order to fully reap the benefits of all of that traffic.

It make take some time and testing to get it right, but readjusting your SEO practices and reimagining your website to consider mobile search engines may be the next step to helping your brand conquer the mobile Web.

Big List of Link Building No-Nos

Michael Garrity — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 19:30:00 GMT

Link building is one of the most basic methods that Web professionals use to grow their businesses online. It’s a pretty great system because there are so many different ways to build links on the Internet, but it’s also really difficult because there are so many ways to build links, meaning there are a lot of ways to screw it up.

So, while getting links is an essential task for website owners, they should also make sure that they’re doing it the right way. Otherwise, their brand can be seriously (and in drastic cases, even irreparably) damaged. But with so many options for link building, how do you know what to do and what not to do? That’s easy! Just check out this Website Magazine guide to link building no-nos.

Irrelevant or Duplicate Content
If you’re trying to garner links from websites, the first thing you should do is make sure you’re worth linking to! That means producing original and valuable content that is going to have some relevance to the people visiting the pages you want links from. Also, avoid running duplicate content (either content previously published on your site, or that you’ve written and published elsewhere) and writing guest blog posts for irrelevant sites. This will make your site feel authoritative and be more attractive to high-quality links.

Don’t Spam or Leave Irrelevant Comments
Look, nobody on the Web likes a spammer, so don’t be that guy (or gal). It’s fair game for you to want to visit websites or forums that are relevant to your audience or niche and spread the word about your great site in hopes of building a few links, but that doesn’t mean you should just drop in context-less comments or replies that don’t really help progress any discussions or provide value to other readers, all in hopes that they’ll pay attention to you. Instead, take part in ongoing discussions to build your presence as an authority, and only add references or links to your site when it will add value to other visitors. And if you’re on a forum, you can even include a link to your site in your signature.

Be Social – Not Pushy
Social media marketing is basically a necessity on the Web these days; you’re just not going to get anywhere without it. However, just having a profile on Facebook, Twitter, etc. is not enough – you also have to be social and engage with your fans/followers and other big names in your niche. Be friendly and open, and under no circumstances should you simply and blatantly engage in self-promotion, or spam the walls (and news feeds) of your fans with promotional links.

Don’t Buy Crappy Links
The ultimate goal for people looking to build links is to find those that are high-quality and relevant to your site, so not only is it a waste for you to try to buy links from low-quality sources, it’ll also get you in trouble with Google, which keeps a cautious eye on low quality link sites that engage in a nefarious practice called “link farming.” When it comes to getting quality links, your site and content should be all you need. And while you’re at it, don’t bother with “trading” links with low quality sites just to have them. You’re better than that…

Slow Down on Submitting to Directories
Directories, either paid or free, are great because they can seem like they're these big fields where links grow just for you, but don’t be tempted to just submit your site to a bunch of directories the week it goes live. Remember, good links come naturally and are built up over time. Plus, search engines can totally tell when you’ve just acquired a lot of links by going directory crazy, and that’s going to do more harm than good for your site in the immediate future.

Don’t Over-Link to Your Own Site
If you’re a hard-working content marketer, chances are you’re producing articles and blog posts pretty regularly, including for other websites or blogs that you don’t run. Naturally, you may want to drop a link to your site once, maybe twice, in said article, if there’s a natural and not-totally-obvious way to do it (most authors save this for their bio section attached to the article). Be careful not to “over-link” to your site in these articles, though. Remember, you’re supposed to be offering relevant and valuable information to your readers, not promoting your website, so never drop in more than one link to your site. Besides, Google is open about the fact that it only reads the first link anyway, so more than one link is not only annoying, but also useless.

Link to Various Pages on Your Site
One of the biggest mistakes that people make when linking to their websites is to link only to their home pages. This is a bad idea, because (A) it makes users have to dig to find certain information, so just link to the pages you want them to see, and (B) it gives your site a bad deep link ratio and negatively affects how well your deeper “child” pages will rank on the search engines. But also, if your site has a canonical issue that gives you a “/index.html” URL in addition to your domain URL, make sure that when you DO link to your home page, it doesn’t send users to this index page (or any other home page extensions).

Change Up the Anchor Text
When you’re targeting a specific term that you want associated with your website, you may think it’s a good idea to use the same anchor text in your links over and over again. It’s not. In fact, this kind of narrow targeting will actually hurt you on the search engines. Instead, try to vary the anchor text you use to include OTHER relevant or related terms, or terms specific to the page you’re linking to. This will help your site rank for more terms, obviously. Plus, it would be helpful to include your company or website name in a percentage of your links, as well.

SEO Mechanics - Anchor Text

Michael Garrity — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:25:00 GMT

The Internet has done a lot to make it easier to spread and digest information at a faster pace than ever before, but the really great thing that Web content is able to do is insert supplementary information right into the text on a page in the form of a hyperlink. However, what many up-and-coming Web pros don’t realize is that these hyperlinks, when paired with the right anchor text, can actually play a significant role in improving their SEO efforts, as well.

Quite simply, “anchor text” is just the clickable text in a hyperlink; that is, those specific characters and/or words that a hyperlink displays in the text portions of a Web page that link out to other locations or documents on the Web. When it comes to the coding on a page, anchor text looks like this:

<a href=http://www.exampleurl.com>Anchor Text</a>

But you may be wondering just what kind of a role this actually plays in search engine optimization. Well, as it turns out, search engines tend to use anchor text to figure out the subject matter of the linked-to Web page or document. This means that they get a chance to learn what a page is all about, so if they see that a number of websites link to the page using terms related to its content, Google, Bing and others will note that the page seems relevant to those keywords, and it will begin to rank the page higher, even if those terms never appear in the actual text. Like at all.

See, since search engines tend to heavily weigh inbound links, it is important that they have as much information as possible about the page’s being linked to. In other words, it kind of tells Google or Bing or whoever not only which Web pages the linking site is vouching for, but also why has selected them.

Seems pretty simple, right? The problem is that that many people don’t use anchor text correctly, and that makes it difficult for search engines to glean information about the content of the Web page or document being linked to. This more or less cancels out the SEO benefits of using anchor text in the first place.

The Right Anchor Text Says A Lot
For the most part, the biggest problem that people seem to have with anchor text is that they tend to put links inside text that reads something like, “Click Here,” “Next,” “Read More” or something of that ilk. Of course, by now it should be clear that these sorts of link “descriptions” are inadvisable, as they don’t provide any information about the actual contents of the linked-to page, which makes them virtually useless for search engines and, thus, doesn’t improve the page’s standing in the SERPs.

Instead, anchor text should include targeted or branded keywords often as possible, or at least some sort of descriptive information about the page being linked to. That way, crawlers will be able to quickly find the keywords in their directories.

Just remember that people tend to link to content using anchor text that is made up of either the linked-to website’s domain name or the title of the page in question, so by naming your page with particular keywords, you’ll be able to ensure that *most* of the links you get should include anchor text with those terms that you want to rank for.

Anchor text is a very powerful tool when it comes to SEO and ranking higher on the search engines, but all of its power comes from being descriptive and helpful, not only to the search engines, but readers, as well. It’s important to not force anchor text awkwardly into a Web page; instead, find a way to make it natural and readable, even if that means just including the page title.

Direct Request Link Building from Zero

Michael Garrity — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:15:00 GMT

Everybody has to start somewhere, and when you’re trying to build credibility and bring people to your website basically from scratch, there are myriad opportunities available to build links around the Web that will make users and search engines, alike, take notice.

Here at Website Magazine, we’ve provided a step-by-step guide to link prospecting for when you’re starting with close-to-nothing (e.g. time, money and resources). However, when all is said and done, the whole reason why we prospect for links is to find those websites that we want to build close relationships with that will be beneficial for both parties.

So, although there are some more “hands-off” techniques for acquiring links on the Web, such as submitting your site to a directory or a local business listing site like Google Places, the best way to go about building quality links is still to seek out quality, authoritative websites or blogs in and around your niche. You should forge a relationship with them through direct requests, or by providing them with contributed content.

Let’s look at a few of the best ways to build links and, more importantly, relationships with other websites, especially when you don’t yet have the credibility or resources to get your content published in “high-profile environments” that will naturally garner some links. When you’re starting from zero, how can you go about getting good links?

Just Ask

Just like in real life, the best way to approach someone is to be open and honest. Direct requests for links are not only the most obvious way to go about introducing your site and its content to others. And going directly to a website owner to request a link beats asking a group of strangers on a message board, because you have no way of controlling who will respond to you and how worthwhile their website’s will be for your link building efforts.

There are a couple of ways that you can go about getting in touch with a website owner or webmaster, including through social media (although this isn’t recommended) or a website’s contact form, but probably the most effective method will be to simply send a direct request email. However, remember that you’re trying to build relationships here, so if you’re going to send a direct request email, do so in a way that shows that you’re familiar with the website and its work, and explain how you could benefit them, as well.

Start by looking to see if the website(s) you’re interested in link to some of your competitors or not to determine if they’re even willing to link out (some may even have a specific email address listed on their sites for people interested in link building). Then, make sure that your link request appears to be relevant and beneficial to both you and the linker.

Keep Them Updated

One way to prove that linking to your website will also be beneficial to the linker is to provide them with some valuable information or content right off the bat. Perhaps you could initiate your relationship by supplying the other website with a news release about something your company or website is doing, or something happening within the niche that you both operate in. Anything they can use to improve or add content to their websites could be considered “beneficial." It’s all about having your thumb on the pulse of your industry and proving your worth to the desired linker. Services like PRWeb allow users to create and distribute press releases for little-to-no cost.

Again, this can be done through social media or other outlets, but the most direct and effective method is email, and it probably will be for the foreseeable future.

Give Away Content

If you want to get links from a blog, or a website that features a blog, there is no better way to show off your value and provide something beneficial to the prospected linker than by writing up a guest blog post and sending it to them. If they publish it, not only will this automatically give you one link from their website (since they’ll likely link to your website somewhere in the post), but it will also help you establish a relationship with them that is mutually beneficial from the outset, and that will greatly improve your chances of getting links from them in the future.

The main thing to remember is that good link building is about more than just acquiring citations from other websites that are kind of related to your niche or industry; it’s actually about forging lasting and valuable relationships with others. By just taking some initiative and offering something valuable to other websites, you’ll eventually be able to do that, and improve your site’s credibility in the process, even if you’re starting from zero.

Get In Front of Google PLAs

Amberly Dressler — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:59:00 GMT

Google Product Listing Ads (PLAs) continue to generate nearly 1.5 times the click-through rate (CTR) of regular text ads and convert 23 percent better according to Kenshoo's 2012 Global Online Retail Holiday Shopping Report.

And according to Jefferies Equity Research, Kenshoo is the top PLA provider at 10 percent of total PLAs deployed, twice the number of the second-highest company. As such, Kenshoo announced updated functionality for Kenshoo Enterprise and Kenshoo Editor, including enhanced support for Google AdWords, Google Product Listings Ads, as well as the Yahoo! Bing Network.

Kenshoo Enterprise now features increased support for PLAs with enhanced reporting capabilities and Google Merchant Center integration.

“Kenshoo helped retailers get out in front of Google PLAs with the industry’s first custom PLA bid algorithms and, as Google Shopping moves to a paid model in markets across Europe and Asia, our clients can fully capture the opportunity,” said William Martin-Gill, general manager, Kenshoo Search. “With our agile release cycle, Kenshoo continues to keep clients ahead of the competition with more enhancements to improve performance from PLAs, search and digital marketing across the board.”

Additionally, Kenshoo clients can also leverage Kenshoo Editor to activate Kenshoo Enterprise’s new functionality. Kenshoo Editor is a cross-channel desktop editor that enables bulk campaign management in a “copy and paste” environment, reducing time spent on complex tasks.

“Kenshoo Editor is really convenient for making bulk changes across multiple channels and ensuring proper tracking,” said Casee Konick, paid search manager at Home Away, an online marketplace for vacation rentals.