What Google Algorithm Updates Means for SEO

Keeping track of all Google’s Algorithm updates can feel like visiting a zoo where they’re always moving the penguin exhibit. Even the most experienced SEO master can get a little lost. Here’s a roadmap to a few of the biggest updates in recent year – plus tips on how to adjust your route accordingly.

The Evolution of Google’s Search Algorithm

500-600 times google changes its search algorithm each year.

3 Major Updates

·         Panda/Farmer

·         Penguin

·         Hummingbird

Panda/Farmer

Panda/Farmer has debuted on Feb 23, 2011. Latest version called only “Panda”.

Scope of the Change

·         Targeted content farms and pages with high ad-to-content ratios.

·         Impacted up to 12% of search result.

·         Why the Name? Named after a google engineer who was key to update, Navneet Panda.

Penguin

Scope of the Change

·         Adjusted for spam factors, such as keyword stuffing.

·         About 3.1% of queries in English were affected.

·         Why the Name? Some speculate it’s named after the Batman super villain.

Hummingbirds

Scope of the Change

·         A ”brand new engine “though it still integrates pieces of old algorithms

·         Impacts 90% of search.

·         Why the Name? Because it’s “precise and fast”.

TIPS TO AVOID SERP EXILE

·         Avoid unnatural links, which are targeted by penguin 2.1 (Oct 4, 2013).

·         Clean up your link aggressively.

·         CLICK HERE Avoid exact match anchor links.

·         Follow Me Blog links without no-follow tag can imply you’re gaming links.

·         Clean up spammy directories even old ones.

The roll-out of Hummingbird doesn’t impact SEO substantially, according to Google and many on the ground. Search results still reward high-quality, original content, perhaps more than even before.

Why you must focus on google plus infographic

When it comes to SEO, a lot of people, even professional webmasters and optimizers, sometimes undermine the importance of how Google+ can work for them. The combination of Google Plus and SEO is often superseded by other social media marketing platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

But those who are in the know agree that Google+, irrespective of the low adoption rate when it comes to being an online marketing platform, matters to search engine optimization.

And here’s why:

1.       Obtain link authority: When you share a link on Google+, it passes link authority to that page. This is something that is unique to Google+ and does not happen when sharing links on any other social media channel. Google, in order to combat spam, has had a stringent “nofollow” policy for links in the text of a post but links that get shared on the Google+ page are exempt of this clause. Building link authority is a major aspect of optimization and using Google+ as a medium to do so makes it that little bit easier to achieve that goal.

2.       Road to better rankings: While Google hasn’t openly confirmed this but sharing posts and being active on your Google+ page does seem to have a correlation with better overall rankings. Speculation is rife that, if not actively at the moment but as Google Plus’ clout increases as a social networking platform, the algorithms from the pages will be integrated into search engines. In that sense, it is good practice for the future.

3.       Free Branding Features: Considering the amount of money you have to pay to get an ad featured on Google’s search result, the fact that knowledge graphs use brand logo, company information as well as the latest shared post from Google+, gives you the opportunity to have a readymade billboard. That too for free. The only thing you need to do is share relevant content regularly on your Google+ page.

4.       Quicker access to your content: One of the biggest advantages of sharing content on Google+ is the fact that it facilitates the quick discovery of what you have shared. For agencies, Google+ SEO should be part of all SEO packages because the search crawlers at Google actually use Google+ as the first point of reference when they are looking to discover new content. Within a very short time frame of sharing, the content comes under the radar of the bots. This quick-indexing process is vey worthy and helps site-owners beta competition effectively.

5.       Future: While Google+ is essentially still trying to gain a solid foothold in the online marketing, it won’t be long before the dent gets bigger. With constant improvement and constructive changes, Google is looking to go from strength to strength with this platform and given the future, it makes complete sense to join the bandwagon early and get a solid start as soon as possible. After that, it is just a matter of growing with the network.

While at the current given point, Google+ might not be priority when it comes to a marketing platform, it also is not correct to ignore it completely. The idea is be aware and consistently evolve to make the most of whatever opportunities it has on offer.

You first month on GOOGLE Plus

You first month on GOOGLE+

To Begin… Arriving in Google+ is like setting up your home in a new, exciting metropolis. The thing is…to get yourself known, you will to go out and meet the neighbors. They’ve been having a street party for quite a while now!

So, you could have the best health tips, give sound business advice, be the most brilliant author or even make the best cupcakes, but they don’t know you’ve arrived yet.

·         Your Profile

·         Profile/Page/Website

·         Find People to Whom You Relate

·         Your Profile

Set up your profile with a clear headshot and attractive image as the ‘cover photo’ if you want your image to be associated with your content in Google search.

·         Profile/Pages/Website

Link your website to your Google+ Profile and add some Google+ badges. Don’t rush to set up a page unless you’re a company. People tend to relate best to ‘profiles’ when they are new.

·         Find People to Whom You Relate

As Such, use a hashtag to search for people with similar interests (e.g. # Health # Science # SEO # Expert). Add those people into your circles.

Add in whole Circle

Search for hashtag and ‘circle’ e.g. ‘# Science Circle’ and add those – if people relate to your profile it is quite possible many people will add you back.

Engage

Then go and +1, comment and share those people’s content when you relate to it. But don’t just share, add you own commentary and views about the content in the box above. Tip: If you are adding in lots of circles then you can ‘hide who you have in circle’ as it may look a little unbalanced until more people add you back.

Join Communities

Check out communities you find interesting and focus on commenting instead of posting your own contents.

Watch Events and Make Comments

As well as seeing great content, these are often excellent social occasions and you can meet some new people in the meet some new people in the live comments.

Use Hangouts

Hangouts really help you to connect with people on Google+ and working in teams. If you are not using them then you are really missing out!

Thing to Avoid:

Just like a party, just be social – don’t run around handing out your business cards. As such, best not to ask people to share your content or beg people to add you to circles. Don’t check ‘notify by email’ and +mentioning every time are posting –  this will trend to get a ‘reaction’ from old hands on Google+ and many people get muted or blocked before they got going.

Site and tools you need to know:

·         Circlecount.com – Great for seeing stats on engagement, who has added you into circle and much more.

·         Circloscope.com – This help you do things such as ‘uncircleuncirclers’ i.e. people who don’t circle you back.

Google+ is a Friendly Place

As such, let people know you are ‘new here’ – people are friendly and will usually assist. From there you feel part of the global party that keep on getting better. 

Google and Memory

Chances are you had to look something up recently. So you Googled it. As simple as that may seem, some argue. Google is changing the way we think and remember. Why does this happen? How does it impact the brain? Find out:

Google has a number of tools to help you with your daily activities. How big are their roles in your life? Learn more:

1.       Google Services as extensions of knowledge

·         Organization tool

·         Search tool

·         Language tool

·         Analysis tool

·         Images tool

Organization tool

·         Google Calendar: – Never forget an appointment. This tool remember all of your events, so you don’t have to.

·         Google Docs: – This service keeps your notes, document and more at your fingertips. You’ll never have to worry where, or if, you saved something.

·         Google Reader: – Don’t stress trying to remember that site you love to visit. Subscribe to all of your favorite sites via RSS, and Reader delivers all of their news to you.

Search tools

·         Google search: – Everything you want to know is a click away. Just enter the world you want to search and thousands of sources of information will appear in less than a second. Knowledge has never been this accessible.

Language tool

·         Google Translator: – Google automatically translates not just words, but entire pages to your first language. You can also check word’s spelling and pronunciations.

Analysis tool

·         Google Analysis: – This tools help you analyze you site’s traffic so you can optimize your marketing and conversions, meaning you don’t have to do any of the legwork.

Images tool

·         Google images: – If you can’t remember a landmark or painting’s name, don’t worry. Take a photo with your smartphone and Google will help you figure out what you’re looking at.

·         Google maps: – With the mobile application, you no longer need to memorize addresses and directions.

2.       How is Google changing our memory?

·         Past without Google: – Without internet access, if we wanted to know about something, we had limited source options to research it, like the available books in the nearby library. We found ways to memorize what we needed to know by leveraging our visual memory, being genuinely interested in the information, creating associations and more. The next time the same information isn’t available. We’re more likely to remember it since we took the time to enhance the information in our mind.

·         Present with Google: – With the internet, everything is just a click away. When we don’t know something, we are primed to turn to the computer to rectify the situation. With search engine available all the time, we often don’t encode the information internally, because when we need it, we look it up in the internet. When the information is save externally, we usually don’t memorize it, but rather remember the place we can find it.

3.       The Consequences

We are becoming symbiotic with our computer tools. We relate to them like they’re close friends in whom we can rely. But is that a good or bad thing?

Accessibility to a huge transitory memory

Good Consequences

·         We’ve stored information in our computer based memories and they’ve become more accessible than ever before.

·         Our recall is flawed. Every time we recall memory we also remake it. Google acts like a fact-checker, helping us avoid many errors.

·         Accessible information doesn’t necessarily weaken memories. It can reinforce them and be a great source for innovation.

Dependence and superficial knowledge

Bad Consequences

·         These tools have replaced our need to memorize many details; and without these tools we may be lost.

·         Our new habits may interfere in the development of deep, conceptual knowledge.

·         The internet is filled with incorrect information, which may lead to being misinformed.

5+ Reason your Business should be on Google+

Images Courtesy to Social Clinch & digital information world 

No doubt, Google+ is the most important social network for both business and markets and as such is something you need to embrace now if you haven’t already done so.

·         Get Face-To-Face With Customers

·         Get Found Across Google

·         Make Social Accountable

·         Google Communities

·         Growing Steadily

GET FACE-TO-FACE WITH CUSTOMERS

Whenever your followers are, Google+ brings them together and helps you talk with them, via 10 way video calls in hangouts. You can stream and record conversations for playback later using Hangout on air.

GET FOUND ACROSS GOOGLE

When your customer search on google, the results to the right may include relevant post, photos, and videos from your Google+ page. Get found across Google, right when your customers are most interested.

MAKE SOCIAL ACCOUNTABLE

Social Media is all about number. Google+ offers in depth data +1, Conversion reporting, and more showing how Google+ contributors to your bottom line.

Google Communities

Google+ communities are places for people to get together and talk about the interests they share. You can join an existing community or create a new one.

Growing Steadily

1.116 Billion Total number of Accounts

540 Million monthly active users

The Ingredients to Tasty SEO

No one truly know what’s in the secret sauce that makes burgers taste so good; just like no one’s quite sure the exact recipe search engines use to determine the page rank of your website. But, use these key ingredients, and you’ll have a recipe for SEO success.

·         Content: – Like good produce, you gotta keep your content high content high quality and fresh. Providing new content on a frequent basis will keep search engines coming back for more.

·         Keywords: – Use keywords that pertain to your content and are relevant to what people are searching for related to your business.

·         Link: – Have a mixture of links: internal- that point to other page of your site; and external (backlink) – that point to your site from other reputable sites.

·         Meta Tags: – Meta tags are the description of your content that show in search results. A weak Meta tag is like a burger without ketchup!

·         Social Signal: – Having a presence, authority and sharing on social media has the power to generate new inbound links by improving brand awareness and overall visibility. The more reputable people talking about your content on social, the more search engines will serve it up.

·         Positive Reviews: – The number of positive review your business have on review site like yelp influence local search ranking. Encourage satisfied customers to give you a shout out.

·         Reputation: – Your reputation warps your good link, keywords, content, Meta tags and social signals up in a tasty blend of goodness. The number one factor in establishing a strong reputation is a reference by sites with strong reputations. The second is length of time your site has provided solid content.

TOP 7 Barriers to Landing Page Optimization

Barrier 1.   67% of respondents say landing page creation is arduous and time-consuming.

                TIP: Gather your tools. Sophisticated marketing technology exists today that puts landing page creation in the hands of the marketer.

Barrier 2.   IT and code-heavy practices impact landing page creation.

                TIP: Marketing need to be the controller of its own destiny-controlling from first click to post-conversion experience.

Barrier3.   46% of respondents say little to no testing because of internal infrastructure.

                TIP: As a marketing team, it’s critical to create a marketing testing infrastructure. Consider as a team testing orchestration, collaboration and productivity.

Barrier4.   35% of respondents say lack of actionable insights from testing.

                TIP: Understand what you are testing, the outcome desired, and the timing of the testing cycle.

Barrier 5.   33% of respondents say can’t easily segment, personalize or target.

                TIP: Targeted and relevant experiences convert more. It’s that simple. Find a way to create responsive content in your experiences through behavioral insights and dynamic elements.

Barrier 6.   26% of respondents say Inability to optimize for mobile efficiently.

                TIP: Mobile is a must and will quickly overtake PC use. As a marketing organization it’s important to include resources and technology for mobile optimization.

Barrier 7.   26% of respondents say Limited ability to create interactive content.

                TIP: Interactive content doesn’t have to be code-heavy and can be marketer-driven. Want to learn how? Check out ion.

Why you must focus on google plus infographic

When it comes to SEO, a lot of people, even professional webmasters and optimizers, sometimes undermine the importance of how Google+ can work for them. The combination of Google Plus and SEO is often superseded by other social media marketing platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

But those who are in the know agree that Google+, irrespective of the low adoption rate when it comes to being an online marketing platform, matters to search engine optimization.

And here’s why:

1.       Obtain link authority: When you share a link on Google+, it passes link authority to that page. This is something that is unique to Google+ and does not happen when sharing links on any other social media channel. Google, in order to combat spam, has had a stringent “no-follow” policy for links in the text of a post but links that get shared on the Google+ page are exempt of this clause. Building link authority is a major aspect of optimization and using Google+ as a medium to do so makes it that little bit easier to achieve that goal.

2.       Road to better rankings: While Google hasn’t openly confirmed this but sharing posts and being active on your Google+ page does seem to have a correlation with better overall rankings. Speculation is rife that, if not actively at the moment but as Google Plus’ clout increases as a social networking platform, the algorithms from the pages will be integrated into search engines. In that sense, it is good practice for the future.

3.       Free Branding Features: Considering the amount of money you have to pay to get an ad featured on Google’s search result, the fact that knowledge graphs use brand logo, company information as well as the latest shared post from Google+, gives you the opportunity to have a readymade billboard. That too for free. The only thing you need to do is share relevant content regularly on your Google+ page.

4.       Quicker access to your content: One of the biggest advantages of sharing content on Google+ is the fact that it facilitates the quick discovery of what you have shared. For agencies, Google+ SEO should be part of all SEO packages because the search crawlers at Google actually use Google+ as the first point of reference when they are looking to discover new content. Within a very short time frame of sharing, the content comes under the radar of the bots. This quick-indexing process is very worthy and helps site-owners beta competition effectively.

5.       Future: While Google+ is essentially still trying to gain a solid foothold in the online marketing, it won’t be long before the dent gets bigger. With constant improvement and constructive changes, Google is looking to go from strength to strength with this platform and given the future, it makes complete sense to join the bandwagon early and get a solid start as soon as possible. After that, it is just a matter of growing with the network.

While at the current given point, Google+ might not be priority when it comes to a marketing platform, it also is not correct to ignore it completely. The idea is be aware and consistently evolve to make the most of whatever opportunities it has on offer.

SEO CopyWriting : 10 Tips for Content that ranks in 2013

• Write for humans-Optimised for robots.

It’s 2013- Nobody want to read SEO content, not even the search engines! Everything points to the fact that Google prefers natural content to obvious SEO stuff. Moreover, there;s no point in great ranks if your content does not convert.

So focus on your flesh and bone target audience- but help the robots find your content.

• Forget about keyword density- once and for all

Keyword density is one of the most tenacious SEO myths out there.But there is nothing to indicate that Google favours a certain density over another. Its important to use relevant keywords in your copy, but use them naturally. Cramming keywords in where they don’t belong will mostly likely to more harm than good.

• Use related keywords,synonyms and grammatical variations.

Google and other search engines use latent semantic indexing (LSI) to match search result to the intentions of the person performing the search.Using synonyms, related keywords,and grammatical variations is an easy way to make your content more relevant-without stuffing the actual keyword into the copy.

• Use Google Tilde to find related keywords

If you add ~ before a keyword and perform a search, Google will show you a number of related keywords at the bottom of the page that Google finds relevant in relation to your query. Use these keywords to increase the relevance of your content.

• Write LONG, in-depth, quality content

The average web page ranking on the first page of Google has over 2,000 words. Moreover, evidence points of the fact that in-depth articles get more shares and links than short, Superficial ones. Aim for content that delves deep into the subject matter and provides real insight. But DON’T write lengthy content just to please engines– do it because you have knowledge and sight to share with audiences.

• Take advantage of the long tail

The problem with “big” , “fat” keywords is that they usually are super competitive and ranking for them demands a huge effort. In many cases there lots of related searches that are much easier to rank for e.g. “landing page” vs. “how long should a landing page be?” Long tail phases have a smaller search volume, however the traffic quality will be higher as the visitors are more motivated and likely to convert.

• Answer your prospects’ questions

If your prospects have questions about your product or services. they’ll probably type those same questions into Google. Provide your prospects with content that delivers credible answers, and they’ll visit your site. Provide them with better answers that you competitors, and they’ll buy from you. Additionally, answering questions is a great way to taking advantage of the long tail.

• Get your content noticed and shared

Sharing gets you links and traffic, and the more “shares” your contents gets, the more relevant and popular it will seem to Google. Do your part to get your content out there and shared via relevant forums, blogs, influencers, newsletters, and the usual suspects like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, etc, And don’t underestimate the incredible power of guest blogging!

• Get down with Google Plus

Google is going to play a bigger and bigger role in SEO. Moreover, the inevitable introduction of Author Rank means that Google will start connecting ranking factor to individual authors– not just the website hosting the author’s content.

Setup your G+ profile, add your authorship markup, Claim ownership of your content, build Author Rank, and play an active role on G+. By doing so, you can boost the authority of every piece you produce- regardless of where it gets posted.

• Title tags and snippets are still king

Your title tag is one of the first things Google looks at when categorizing the individual web pages. Moreover, the combination of title tag and “snippet” (meta description) is what your prospects are going to see in the SERPs. So including keywords- but make your titles and snippets sound natural and focus on motivating prospects to click.

IMAGES Courtesy: – contentverve.com

How Different Web Design Prototypes Affect SEO

Attractive and eye-catching designs are always appealing to customers, and today we can see thousands of attractive websites in the Google index. But when deciding on the design for our website, there are a number of different feature needs to consider beyond pure aesthetics, that time you need to consider whether that pretty site is going to be intuitive to navigate, and then you need to ensure it is going to work across a number of devices.

But make sure the site is going to work with search engines and will be easy for Google’s robots to index. Sometimes brassier designs can be great to look, but it can be chances to affect on site ranking, Is it good for it? There are lots of trendy and lovely web designs (layouts) cropping up across the web. But the question is, how to do these flashy designs are change site’s SEO?

Have a look at some of the most popular and newest web design styles as well as how consider how they use for SEO for our site.

Parallax Design

Parallax Design means build your whole website onto a single page, with outstanding and different, especially merge with a fun background which makes our site with a unique structure, and also menus that jump down to certain points on the page. And these designs are particularly effective for a company homepage or a content page.

But how it is works for SEO?

As like in Flash and AJAX, parallax design also has unique challenges for SEO. A single page website makes it hard to optimize the site for a wide variety of search terms, because all content on one page and all target keywords must be covered on one page rather than extend over many, leading to keyword intensives. After that, there are simply fewer pages to rank, which can also be a disadvantage. But, rather than this really depends on the nature of the site. If it is a contest page, then need to rank for one or two you key phrases anyway, so this style might still be a good match.

Infinite Scrolls

You definitely like that site which has all content on one page, as well as loading quickly and the use of on a daily basisof most frequently uses in Facebook, Twitter and Pintrest. With infinite scroll users having more expectation and content is added to the stream at regular intervals. This concept is sounds like good for browsing quickly through a blog, but is it giving highest benefits of SEO?

Smart web designers are using different types of framework like Backbone or Bootstrap for infinite scroll, that uses crawl able AJAX to allow you to stay all useful information on a single page and waiting Google’s approval. But using these framework pages loading time going fast and that is more important for a site.

HTML5

Now, HTML 5 becoming the web into perfect place that accepts rooted videos and animations that fast loading which are loved by users as well as search engine alike. Everyone knows that HTML5 is a good way to build sites, though, Elements such as the h1 tag, for instance, have slightly different interpretations in HTML5 as they do in HTML4, which will affect the way Google indexes them. The more time you spend learning, the better the end product will work. Attractive designs with perfect HTML coding gives site awesome look and there is no issue for SEO.

Infographics

Nowadays, infographics are vast use then normal content, these days, for attractive and informative designs. Normally, they are eye-catchy, appealing and also readers apparently like them. But keep in mind infographics are just an image and it cannot crawl by search engine spiders. Make sure infographics with at least some text, and use ALT-tags and other indicators to help Google’s understand.