Tips and Tricks – Page 33

SEO, Google, and Your Business

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

Changes at Google

As you’ve probably heard, Google made some algorithm changes at the end of February. Called the “Farmer” update in the media, these changes are designed to help Google produce higher quality results for their customers.
In short, the Farmer update targeted “content farms” to make it harder for these sites to rank highly in search results. Content farms typically feature low-quality content, so having these sites highly ranked can degrade the overall quality of the search results returned by Google. For example, a directory site that’s looking to increase online traction might solicit, or “farm,” content from external sources that, ultimately, may not have much value to a human audience. This creates the potential for businesses’ old contact information and locations to remain in circulation, decreasing the content quality on the Internet. Logically, this is an issue that Google is inclined to work against.
In implementing the Farmer update, Google’s goal is to improve the results quality to increase searcher satisfaction and decrease frustration. Before the update, consumers were frustrated by the poor information they were receiving while business owners were also frustrated by their inability to eliminate that old address or phone number, no matter how much new information they tried to circulate.

Why This Matters for Business Owners

Perhaps you’re wondering why the Google algorithm change matters for your business. Well, just consider: if your company was gaining good traction from websites like MerchantCircle.com, HubPages.com, or Business.com—it won’t be anymore. These sites are all reported to have been hit hard by the Farmer update, so your business can no longer count on them to provide the same results as in the past!
This algorithm change highlights more than ever why every business, large or small, needs to stay on top of Google changes. As the major search engines tweak how they rank results, it can dramatically affect where your company shows up on search engine results pages (SERPs) and directly affect how much online business you can generate.
If you were using sites affected by the Farmer update, now’s the time to seek out new ways and new directories to capitalize on to maintain your company’s online presence. Not sure if sites you relied on have been hit? Check out this site for an analysis of which directories and sites were affected most. Or, if algorithm changes and the changing world of web marketing are too daunting, let our SEO professionals help. Feel free to call Prospect Genius with any questions you have about the Farmer update and what we can do to maintain your web presence and popularity.

Not Even the Big Guys Are Immune

When it comes to Google and effective online marketing, there’s more to be aware of than just the latest algorithm changes. You’ll want to remember that all businesses are required to follow Google’s guidelines—or else!
The Google team is getting better and better at cracking down on “black-hat” SEO: what it considers underhanded tactics or bad behavior. And when they find a company that’s breaking their rules, no one is immune. From multimillion dollar companies (who spend substantial sums on pay-per-click advertising with Google) to small mom-and-pop operations, Google punishes black-hat violators just the same.
The New York Times recently reported that JCPenney got caught red-handed using black-hat tactics. Google discovered JCPenney trying to trick them by adding links on various sites across the web. These links pointed back to JCPenney’s website, and while some of the pages they linked off of nominally related to Penney’s products, most had no correlation whatsoever. For example, “black dresses” and a link to JCPenney were tacked onto the bottom of a site called nuclear.engineeringaddict.com. Other links included “evening dresses” on a site called www.casino-focus.com , “cocktail dresses” on www.bulgariapropertyportal.com, and ”casual dresses” on www.elistofbanks.com.
This may have seemed smart, at least at first, since JCPenney outranked Samsonite’s site itself for searches like “Samsonite carry-on luggage.” But the black-hat strategies ultimately backfired, as they virtually always do. When Google uncovered the violation of their guidelines, JCPenney lost any traction they had gained and more. Matt Cutts, the head of the Google spam department, commented that “strong corrective action” was being taken against the retail giant.
This type of corrective action ranges from a -10 penalty (causing a webpage to move back 10 spots in search engine results rankings) to a -40, -70, or -100 penalty. Penalties can even include being blacklisted from Google completely. Google draws a very clear line between black- and white-hat tactics, and outlines them in detail for everyone to see here. Whether or not the JCPenney hierarchy intentionally used black hat SEO, or they were led astray by unscrupulous web marketers, this latest move was deliberate on someone’s part, and it was a pretty bad move overall.

Play by Google’s Rules

The simple truth is that following the rules pays off when it comes to trying to promote your website—and your business—on the web. It can feel overwhelming to stay on top of the rules when algorithm updates and changes like the “Farmer” update roll out, but it’s critical to ensure your online advertising and promotional campaigns abide by Google’s requirements or you may find yourself facing nasty penalties just like JCPenney.
However, you don’t have to go it alone. White-hat SEO pros like Prospect Genius scrupulously follow Google’s guidelines, and you can count on our professionals to never cross the line into black-hat tricks. Our expert Internet marketers work to leverage your site to get you the maximum online exposure without violating any of Google’s rules. That’s the clear-cut answer for long-term success online.
For more information on how our SEO program works within Google’s guidelines or to sign up for our lead generation campaign, feel free to give us a call at 1-800-689-1273 or visit our website.

He Said, She Said: Reputation Management and Your Business

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

The simple truth is that businesses live and die by their reputations. In years past, word of mouth was the primary vehicle for circulating a company’s reputation, good or bad. But with technology today, you have practically a zillion more ways to get the word out about your business. While the Internet makes it easier for you to spread the word about your business, it also has a downside: unhappy customers can put negative information about your company all over the web. As you can imagine, this can have a severe impact on your reputation. That’s why it’s so important to manage what info about your business shows up in the search engines!

Fight Back Against Reputation Killers Online

To find out what’s out there about your business, you’ve got to think like a consumer: Start by searching for your company name in search engines like Google, Yahoo!, or Bing and see what comes up. If you see hits from RipOffReport.com or customer complaint forums, your reputation may already be in some hot water!
However, it’s not the end of the world. A reactive campaign can help you recover your good reputation online. The first step is to correct any inaccurate information about your company that might be floating around online. Reports on Google Reviews or RipOffReport might be inaccurate or incomplete, and these outlets enable you to address those issues. The second step is to promote positive information about your company online. By launching new and positive info in media like articles, press releases, and more, you can share what your company is really about with the online community. And by putting all that new, positive information out there, you can push the negative media farther down in the search results. The ultimate result will be no more nasty comments from unhappy customers showing up on page one of the Google results.

Be Proactive

Even if nothing bad about your business comes up when you search, you may want to start a proactive reputation management campaign. Focusing on getting the word out about the positive aspects of your company, a proactive campaign can promote your business in a positive way—before any negative stuff gets a chance to circulate. When people search for your company online, all they’ll see is fabulous reviews, stellar articles, etc.

Reputation Management Services

If your company finds itself in need of either a reactive or proactive campaign, Prospect Genius is available to help. We offer both services for our customers as well as an ongoing monitoring option that keeps tabs on your online reputation and lets you know if any negativity about your company does crop up.

The Inside Scoop

Keeping track of what’s going on inside your business is just as important as monitoring your online information when it comes to managing your reputation. Whether you’d like to monitor who is authorizing coupons or ensure that the office staff is answering the phone in the prescribed way, call recording can help monitor your staff’s interactions with customers. By recording and listening to all the calls that come into your office, you can make certain your clients are getting only the best possible customer service. Even easier, why not get those call recordings transferred into a text version for fast, simple review.
Prospect Genius has partnered up with the telecommunications company Bluestone for various projects in the past, and their newest product offering will be to convert audio recordings into text. Initially developed for car dealerships to monitor their sales representatives, Bluestone’s product enables you to record phone conversations and then convert the recordings into text for your convenience. This innovative product will even highlight the keywords business owners are looking for, which can enable you to easily track the types of deals your sales reps are closing and the various promises that are made.
This call recording-to-text feature will be available from Bluestone in the second quarter of 2011. A valuable option for your business if you have staff that answers the phone and communicates with customers, this is a simple, straightforward way to control how your customers are treated. For additional information, contact Bluestone at 518-690-0391 or by e-mail at jeffrobinson@bluestonetel.com. There’s also more information available on their website, http://bluestonetel.com.

Online Advertising and the New Google

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

The New Google

In a past blog post, we looked the different parts of Google: maps, organics, and sponsored (pay per click). But since then, Google has changed its look—and its game. Now, when you search for a local company or service, the results display as a combination of the maps and organics, with a small map off to the right side that covers the sponsored results as you scroll down.
Here’s a short-and-sweet look at how things have changed: the new search results page is on the left, the old is on the right. You can see the sponsored results highlighted in yellow, the maps listings in pink, and the organic search results in green.

Advertising in the New Google

Now that Google has reorganized its search results, it may be time to freshen up your advertising strategies a bit. The SEO specialists at Prospect Genius have hypothesized—and observed to be true—that having both an optimized organic search result and an optimized map search result is advantageous. Moreover, having the two tied together (i.e. including your optimized website in your optimized maps listing) is even better. This way your site will show up prominently in Google whether a prospective customer is searching in Google Places or just in Google itself.

Keyword Stuffing: Fast Track to the Back

To put it simply, keyword stuffing your company’s name or location is the leading way to get yourself rejected from Google Places or Google Maps. And that’s a serious problem, because with Google’s new blend of the maps and organic results, a rejected listing could set back your organic placement as well. Remember, as we discussed in the previous post, Google’s spam department can inflict wholesale penalties across the board, no matter which area of Google they find that you’ve committed bad behavior in. Don’t forget, these “penalties” are more than just a slap on the wrist: punishment can even include completely banning your website from Google!
For example, this type of keyword stuffing can get you in major trouble with Google: say your company is called “Bob’s Services,” but you list your business on Google Places as “Bob’s Appliance HVAC Plumbing Heating Cooling and AC Services of Houston Plano Ft Worth and Sugarland.” This strategy is almost guaranteed to backfire. It certainly won’t fool Google and will definitely keep your listing from being activated.
Why? Because Google compares what you entered in your listing with the info it has in its database about Bob’s Services, essentially trying to verify what the real information about the company is. When the information in all of the other online directories lists the business as “Bob’s Services,” Google will see that the keyword stuffed name entered on Google Places is just that, bogus. And when it uncovers a spammer (keyword stuffer or other rule-breaker), Google flags the listing for manual review, by an actual person. The end result is generally a major penalty for your website, including consequences that can extend to both your paid ads and organic results, not just maps listings!
Think you’re safe just because you’ve never listed your business anywhere else on the web? Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. The simple truth is that the Internet is one giant recycling center. Information on websites is routinely harvested (plagiarized) by automated programs and used on other sites. So even if you haven’t personally included your company in an Internet directory or anywhere else on the web, your info—including business address, name, and phone—is probably still out there somewhere. Additionally, a company you hired to promote your business may have created listings that you don’t know about. For example, your local yellow pages directory may have posted your information on its website as well as printed it in hard copy.
According to Google’s Guidelines, all of your business information must match (especially your business name and address) everywhere it appears on the web. This will gain you the best placement for your services once they are well optimized and help ensure that your listings won’t be rejected.

Be Proactive When Possible and Reactive When Necessary

Unsurprisingly, the best way to ensure you receive no penalties or rejections from Google is to do it right the first time! Of course, that isn’t always possible. Google’s guidelines do change and it’s easy to be unaware of some of the rules when you’re getting set up with Google. Or, if you made the mistake of working with an unscrupulous online advertiser, they may have engaged in underhanded practices on your behalf. Unfortunately, it’s not unusual for these companies to take verboten shortcuts in the hopes that booming results the first month will get you to stay with their company in hopes of continued success…
However, the good news is that Prospect Genius offers Google listing optimization services to help your company maximize your Internet marketing success. Our professionals are experts at fixing prior bad behaviors, and we can help you clean up your listings for the best results. We’ll make certain they’re working for you, not against you!
To speak with a Prospect Genius team member about any of our programs (including maps and organics optimization), pick up the phone and give us a ring at (800) 689-1273 or visit our website (prospectgenius.com) to learn more.

The Mysteries of Online Advertising Explained

Last Updated: February 15, 2024

PPC or SEO: Which Is Best?

When it comes to advertising online, most small businesses realize they need to have a strong Internet presence. But with all of the different options—and acronyms—out there, it can be hard to determine which tactics will work best for your specific needs. Let us help clear up some of that alphabet soup confusion for you…

PPC = Pay Per Click

Unsurprisingly, this type of Internet advertising involves paid ads. These small ads appear on the top and/or side of the search engine results pages and contain a link to your website. That way, people can see the ad and then visit your site simply by clicking on the ad. Although a variety of factors can affect which place (1 through 10) your ad will occupy on the results page, it boils down to two main issues:

How much are you willing to spend on each click? The more you pay per click, the higher your ad can be placed. If one of your competitors wants to pay more, they’re typically going to rank higher than you do.
How closely does the topic of your website match the topic of the search? If, for example, your site is about plumbing services, but the search was for “wedding rings,” your website is not particularly relevant to the search performed. The more relevant your site is to the search, the lower the price per click…That makes relevancy extremely important for PPC campaigns.

SEO = Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization involves maximizing the relevance of your site content to the searches being performed. The good news is that you don’t have to pay for your placement like you do with PPC: That means all the traffic is FREE. But there is a catch. There are practically infinite factors controlling which sites are chosen for positions 1 through 10 in the middle of the search results page, and their order is all based on how much Google believes that your site is what the searcher is looking for. Because of this inherent complexity, most small business owners find the game of SEO to be even more overwhelming than PPC. It also takes considerable time and resources to optimize your site properly. In fact, simply optimizing your site often isn’t enough.

Nerd Alert! Here’s the Scoop…

SEO has two main parts:

On-page optimization: This involves optimizing the content of your own site. Let’s not get into the gory details, but the basics include properly constructing the structure of the site, its navigational links, and its text.
Off-page optimization: This involves maximizing how your site interacts with other websites.

Here’s where the nerdy part comes in: Google regards links to your site like votes. If person A links to person B’s website, person A must think that person B’s site is of some value. Creating that link functions like a vote, and according to Google more votes equal more value.
That’s the basics, but the reality of the situation is somewhat more complicated. Off-page optimization is all about increasing the number of quality links pointing to your site. The tricky part is that not all links count, and not all links are of the same value. Off-page optimization involves figuring out which links will help boost your website’s results ranking in the best way!

That’s Nice, But Which One Do I Pick?

Choosing between PPC and SEO depends a lot on your goals but also on your budget. Let’s look at it like opening a store in the real world: Do you want to quickly set up a kiosk in the mall to capitalize on holiday shoppers, or do you want a storefront that you can build value in over time?
Like the kiosk, PPC is the clear choice if you’re looking for immediate results. You can set it up, turn it on, and get traffic the next day. There are already shoppers in the mall (and on the web), so you just have to rent some space to get to them. The downside is that the kiosks tend to have high rent because they’re prime real estate. The same is true for PPC. The rates are high, and increasing all the time because more and more companies are using PPC and consequently bidding up the prices.
Opting to construct a storefront is more like SEO. You can leverage a storefront for years to come—you have control over your own space and your business will become more recognized and trusted as the years go by, just like with SEO. Although there are costs involved with building a store (or website) and getting people to visit it (online traffic), the long-term cost is far less than with PPC. It also becomes harder and harder to knock you out of your spot the longer you’re in business.

What This Means for Your Business

In an ideal world, you would have an unlimited budget for online advertising—and if you did, we would recommend that you do both SEO and PPC! This would ensure you get the best of both worlds. As the SEO ramps up, you can cut back on the PPC campaign: That way you get immediate results but also long-term stability.
However, most small businesses are operating on a limited Internet marketing budget. If that’s the case, we generally recommend SEO. That’s because SEO can be looked as more of an investment than an expense. The simple truth is that it is a more cost-effective strategy. Of course, it all depends on your goals, but most of our clients find they’re happy they went with our program over a PPC campaign. That’s generally because the cost is lower and the overall value just can’t be beaten by PPC.

Dip Your Toe in the Water

If you’re ready to try out a little of this SEO thing but don’t want to jump all the way in, Prospect Genius has a great way for you to sample it. Our Ad Blast program can promote your website in all sorts of local places online. We use this strategy for our Lead Generation customers, but we now offer it as a stand-alone service. For a low, one-time fee, we’ll generate a whole pile of links pointing back to your site. We leverage directories, newspapers, classified ads, online magazines, and a bunch of other site types to make your business more visible to people the web.
This program is especially effective if you have a seasonal special or sale that you want to advertise online. Give us a call (800-689-1273) if you’d like to learn more about how SEO, our Ad Blast campaign, and the PG team can help your business!
Prospect Genius has other services that can complement the Ad Blast program as well. For details, visit our website.

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