Posts tagged Google
The Keys to Freedom: When Will Google Remove My SEO Penalty?
Mar 18th
Google SEO penalties are more common than you might realise. They also happen to well-meaning website owners more often than you might realise! Google’s algorithms are designed to catch actions, not intentions, and so there are many honest webmasters out there currently serving time behind Google bars. It can be frustrating not knowing when your sentence will end, though – today we explore Matt Cutts of Google’s advice about how and when SEO penalties are removed. More >
5 Ways to Ensure Duplicate Content Doesn’t Dupe Your SEO
Mar 4th
You can’t dupe the duplicate content filter! However, you can have a fairly serious impact on your SEO by having too much duplicate content on your site, even if it is properly credited and legally allowed. There is ongoing confusion over the best way to deal with duplicate content on your site; here we check out the main methods.
SEO by Stealth – 3 Tips for Writing SEO Content That Sounds Natural
Nov 22nd
We often hear people say “Oh, I don’t want to ruin my website with SEO! That sort of content sounds horrible!”.
SEO doesn’t ruin websites … however, poorly conceived attempts at creating optimised copy can quite easily do so! Ever encountered a website like this?
If you’re looking for moustache trimmers and beard clippers, you’ve come to the right place. Our website is the best place to buy moustache trimmers and beard clippers. You won’t find better moustache trimmers and beard clippers or cheaper moustache trimmers and beard clippers anywhere else. We invite you to check out our great selection of moustache trimmers and beard clippers. More >
What does Google Instant mean to SEO and your Business?
Sep 22nd
Following the introduction of personalised search results at the turn of the year comes Google’s latest offering – Google Instant. If your business relies on your online presence then this affects you.
What is Google Instant?
For a while now Google has been serving up suggestions for results as you type through ‘Google Suggest’, helping you hit submit quicker to see the results. Google Instant is the next step on from this – delivering the results as you type. As you continue typing, the results displayed will also change accordingly.
The Way Your Customers Search Will Change
Google want to deliver the results to Users as quickly as possible so they continue to use the search engine. As users begin to spend less time formulating their query it is also more likely they will click on the first few results they see. Being on Page 1 and in the top SEO results will be more important than ever. More >
How Has the Internet Changed Our Lives? Pt 3
Apr 27th
This could very easily have been a 50-part series, rather than just 3! Today we look at some more of the ways the internet has changed our lives … for the same of a little bit of nostalgia, and a little bit of perspective on the importance of internet marketing!
- We can talk to people overseas for free. Skype and other VOIP programs are making global business and other contacts not only possible, but affordable.
- Services are available at any time of day. Here we don’t just mean the possibility of buying something at any time of day (only to have it delivered when it suits the post office). There are also services we can access 24/7 – online libraries, netbanking, etc. Service based business need to take note – internet marketing is not just for ecommerce!
- People have access to undesirable information they wouldn’t have had before. Information about explosives, drugs, and all sorts of illegal activities is now on the net .. and very hard to police without infringing free speech, or running into practical barriers.
- Youtube! There’s no other way to explain the mostly pointless, sometimes hilarious, occasionally very useful phenomenon that is Youtube.
Despite the negative aspects of the net, we know we could never do without it!
How Has the Internet Changed Our Lives? Part 2
Apr 22nd
Last time we began our look at how the internet has changed our everyday lives. Truthfully, it’s hard to imagine how the internet, Google, and therefore SEO haven’t had an impact on some aspect of life! We continue to nut out the specifics.
- Business is now often conducted with no physical customers. Ecommerce couldn’t have existed before the internet – now some of the biggest companies in the world don’t actually have a storefront that people can walk into.
- Businesses are often run with no physical employees. Okay, maybe not completely – but telecommuting and freelancing have seen an unprecedented explosion since the internet became commonplace in people’s homes.
- Copyright has become much easier to violate, unfortunately. The music and movie industries are suffering especially with the invention of peer-to-peer technology, after the first incarnation, Napster, was successfully shut down.
- People are now able to publish their own thoughts about something, and have it accessible to a multitude of people at the same time, via Blogger and WordPress’s free platforms.
It’s amazing – and we aren’t finished yet! Stay tuned.
Great Website Content – Google’s View, Visitors’ View
Apr 19th
Look at any search engine optimisation or web marketing guide, and they’ll all tell you that you need great content before you do anything else. So, what makes great content? Turns out there are two ways to make great content – Google’s way, and the visitor’s way. The two SEO tactics overlap more than you’d think, though.
Great content: Visitor’s view
Visitors like website content that is:
- Easy to read
- Easy to understand
- Short and succinct
- Bulleted (!)
- Regularly updated
- Focused on a single topic
- Explains benefits, not just features
- Focuses on THEIR interaction with the product, not the company’s
Your visitors will also appreciate content that includes your keywords – after all, they are usually what brought them to your site, and it’s nice to have that validation of knowing that the page is about what you expected.
However, visitors generally DISlike keyword stuffed content.
Great content: Google’s view
Google likes content to:
- Include keywords
- Not include too many keywords!
- Be regularly updated
- Be unique – not copied from another site
- Be fairly well-focused – one concept or product per page
You can see that both Google, and your visitors, dislike keyword stuffing. Both of them like to see fresh content (it tells them the site is current), and each likes the content to be fairly tightly focused. And the rest of the points are definitely not mutually exclusive!
Five MORE Reasons Your Site Might Have Been Google-Banned
Mar 12th
Despite all of your web marketing genius – you’ve carefully paced your link building activities, kept your keyword density to the minimum of the effective range and been checking for duplicate content every second day – Google still got the stick out and whacked your site. Why, oh why … oh WHY? Here are five more possible explanations.
1. Doorway pages
Google doesn’t like doorway pages. These pages are usually optimised to rank well for a particular keyword, but are ‘hidden’ from the navigation of the main site. Someone would usually enter a doorway page through a search engine result, but if they bookmarked your home page, wouldn’t be able to find it again. You see this often when companies service a sizeable physical area and want to optimise for several locations – “removalists Melbourne”, “removalists Coburg”, “removalists Northcote”, “removalists Brunswick”, for example. If you want to use doorway pages, make sure they’re accessible from the main navigation.
2. Redirect pages
You can redirect pages to other ones legitimately in Google, for example if you choose to change your domain name. However, the pages that come in groups of between 5 and 500, all targeting similar keyword phrases, and contain no content except links to other pages in the family, AND THEN redirect you to a different page when you click from search results, are a Google no-no.
3. Buying links
Google is keeping an index (funny, that) of all the sites that sell links to other sites, and is devaluing the links from those sites. You will end up paying for nothing – and probably getting slapped with a Google-fine, as well.
4. Linking to spam/bad neighborhoods
We’ve talked in a previous post about linking to spam and bad neighborhoods – Google doesn’t like it, and if you don’t keep on top of your checks you may find that previously reputable domains have expired and been bought out by spammers.
5. Code swapping
If you optimise a page for good rankings, and swap the content there once it is ranking well, Google will often penalise you when they crawl that page again.
Five Reasons Your Site Might Have Been Google-Banned
Mar 11th
Much like the God of the Old Testament, Google’s ways are mysterious. Also much like the old God, they are not always fair … sometimes they’ll smite a website that yea, verily, was practicing pure and innocent SEO 
. If you’ve been a victim of Google’s megalomaniac streak (or just their inability to actually check and assess every site that gets banned from the index, I suppose), here are the top five reasons why it might have happened.
1. Check Robots.txt
If you have an SEO company looking after your site, they have probably done this already. If you don’t have a consultant already, check this before calling anybody. It’s the website equivalent of calling the TV man to find out why your set won’t turn on, only to have him put the plug in the wall, charge you $100 and leave.
2. Duplicate content
It really sucks that Google penalizes both sites when duplicate content is discovered – because another site could steal your content without your knowledge quite easily. It like when your big brother hits you, and your Mum comes and puts you both in the corner. Big meanie! Regularly check that no other site is using your content. If you find they are, write to the owners and ask them to take it down … but change yours in the meantime.
3. Cloaking
If your pages are set up to deliver a different version to the search engine than to a real user, Google considers it cloaking and will permanently ban you. There are some legit reasons for cloaking – but if Google finds out, they won’t care about the reason. That big red, blue, green and yellow hammer will come down mercilessly.
4. Hidden text
Making your text the same colour as the background was previously thought to be a good way to get more keywords onto your page, without making your actual copy sound unnatural to visitors. Then the search engines figured out the trick, and the party ended.
5. Keyword stuffing
Even if visitors can see it, Google still doesn’t like keyword stuffing. You will certainly NEED to use keywords to help get your page in front of the people that want it – but Google is getting better at semantic interpretations, so you can use variations of your words quite safely, without hurting rankings too much.
DIY SEO: Listing in Google Local
Mar 8th
If you own a local business and are doing web marketing, but haven’t yet looked at your own listing in Google Local … go do it. Right now, before you read any further. Drill Sergeant Pepper says go go go!
Now that you know your starting point, we’re going to show you how to make that listing prettier, help make sure that those reviews that show up are mostly positive (without cheating), and generally draw more customers through your sliding door. Here’s how to edit your Google Local listing, and what it could do for your business.
1. Go to www.google.com.au/lbc and add a new business
Most of this information is fairly straightforward, however close to the bottom of the listing page (as it stands currently) you’ll have to enter a description and category for your business. These will be critical in driving traffic to your site through Google Local. Make sure your description contains a variety of your keywords (don’t use word order variations, or singular AND plural versions). Choose your category carefully as well – use this list, and search the page with Ctrl+F to find your keywords and their associated category.
The other field you should take note of is the business name – it is likely that Google uses this to help rank you and display your results as well. If your official business name is ‘Making the Cut’, and you are a hairdresser, we advise you to list your business name as ‘Making the Cut Hairdressing’ in Google Local to have the best chance of being found.
2. Enter information
Throughout the rest of the process, enter as much information as possible about your business. Tell people how they can pay, tell them when you are open, tell them everything. Add photos, add videos, add all the additional details you can think of. The internet is there for information, and while some businesses have a competitive aversion to telling others what they do, customers expect it … and appreciate it.
3. Reviews
Check out where your competitors are getting reviews from in Google Local, and put up a physical sign in your shop asking people that had a good experience to post a review of your shop on that site. You will inevitably get some bad reviews as well – don’t worry too much about them. If you have a good business, you will get mostly good reviews.
If you have problems getting listed in Google Local, Web Marketing Experts offers Google Maps Optimisation and SEO services with guaranteed results.