Google Addresses Permanently Closed Issue
August 27, 2011
Welcome to the Google Places SEO Citations blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
Welcome to my blog. The blog covers all things Google, Google Places, Google Places Citations and other related marketing issues. My hope is that you will find the blog useful while you are here. I also encourage you to leave a useful comment.
Google Addresses Permanently Closed Issue
This post is about Google Places doing something correct based on user input. This story started on Google plus. A well known Google Places writer, Mike Blumenthal, wrote about problems with Google Places. It was titled, 25 Things I Hate About Google Places. The thread got lots of attention and more importantly it got the attention of someone at Google.
One of the complaints was that businesses Places pages were be removed because they were closed but these businesses were open! Apparently, some people were selling services that would report businesses as closed. Yes, its sad but true. This actually happened to one of my old businesses. In this case, I had closed the listing over three years ago, but the listing was still showing up in the search results.
I was ok with this as the listing ranked # 3 in its category and I was still getting calls. So I was happy to see this this happen. But this was also happening to viable businesses. All it took was someone reporting that a business was closed and boom, it was removed with out any notice to the business owner.
This is what you might have seen if this happened to you. This screen shot is curtsey of Mike Blumenthal.
In my case, this did not stay active very long before it was removed. Here is a screen shot again from Mike that shows that the businesses is actually open.
I have no way of knowing if this happen as part of a paid service or not as it is only an example of the process. The fact that people would provide a closed service and that people would use such services is indeed sad.
The good news here is that Google stepped to the plate and it quickly addressed the issue, but only after a public outcry about this problem. If someone using the closed option now the listing owner will be notified by email. This still will be a problem for some who are not paying attention or who had someone else set up the account. At least, this shows that someone at Google is paying attention and this will provide hope for many who deal with Places pages on a daily basis.
Now, this is where this all gets really interesting. Places activists went about closing down Google’s own Places listing. Now, I’m sure that this is what really got the attention of Google and they fixed the problem. WOW!
What say you?
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Do you own a local small business in Tucson, Arizona or elsewhere and you need Google Places SEO or Places Citations services? Then please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 or email me Now!
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Panda Goes To 2.4
August 24, 2011
Welcome to the Google Places SEO Citations blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
This blog covers local SEO which is dominated by Google, Google Places and the need for citations. The blog also covers just about any thing related to Google search results and related topics. I hope that you might glean some useful resources while you are here.
Panda Goes To 2.4
If you have any interest in ranking well in the Google search results then you are likely aware of its new algorithm, Panda. It was first launched back in late February. It has been getting updated about every 30 to 45 days. Panda is now up to version 2.4. These updates and changes have caused many problems with a wide variety of sites as Google attempts to improve its quality scores.
Judging the quality of a site prior to Panda was extremely difficult for Google. But that has now changed. Google is now using information gathered from its phones, toolbar, and browser to determine the quality of a website. It is using things like bounce rates and time on site as measurements to determine quality.
This negatively impacted my site as it relates to 2 of my primary keyword phrases, Google Places SEO and Google Places Citations. That changed again with the launch of version 2.4. This time the impact was positive. The site has moved to the 5th position for Google Places SEO. It now ranks in the # 2 position for Google Places Citations. This translates to about a 15% increase in overall website traffic.
This change reversed a trend where visitors number had remained basically at the same levels since the first Panda update. At that time I experienced about a 10% decrease to traffic. I have also experienced more business leads and new business. Well, that’s my latest Panda story would you like to add yours?
What say you?
Google Places SEO Citations List Local SEO Services Google Places SEO Google Places Citations
If your business is located in the communities of Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, Tempe, Mesa , Chandler, Arizona or beyond and you need Google Places SEO Citations solutions please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Tucson SEO Solutions
814 N. Belvedere Ave.
Tucson, AZ 85711
520-505-6024
Bing Does SEO
August 23, 2011
Welcome to the Google Places SEO Citations blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
This blog covers local SEO which is dominated by Google, Google Places and the need for citations. The blog also covers just about any thing related to Google search results and related topics. I hope that you might glean some useful resources while you are here.
Bing Does SEO
I, like many others are very Google centric, when it comes to SEO. I almost never write about Bing. Then today, Search Engine Journal, wrote about Bing’s 18 things you need to know about SEO. So I checked out what Bing had to say about SEO and this is what I found.
Make sure your site is crawlable by using an XML sitemap, a robots.txt file, and well-structured on-site navigation.
Improve your site structure by using an HTML sitemap and linking to trusted sources both within your site and outside of it.
Create a solid content hierarchy by doing basic keyword research and avoiding placement of your content in rich media such as Silverlight and Flash.
Use a short meta title that has fewer than 65 characters and that’s unique to each page, and try to include the targeted keyword toward the beginning of that title.
Use a unique meta description tag.
Create quality content (following the guidelines Bing provided earlier).
When you build links, focus on keyword-relevant anchor tags that link back to quality content on your page.
Create an RSS feed.
Use schema.org markup.
Create a user interface that prioritizes the user experiences; the search perspective on things like page load time aren’t as important as how the user responds.
Encourage social sharing with the use of social buttons.
Don’t cloak your website.
Don’t use link farms.
Don’t engage in three-way linking
Don’t duplicate content.
Don’t use auto-following on the social front.
Don’t use thin content.
Don’t buy links.
This looks like 11 suggestions and 7 warnings. There are a few things that caught my attention. The use of specific mark-up and the use of social buttons. The later, the use of social buttons, seems to support the idea of Social SEO. We can no longer simply chose to ignore the social side of SEO.
There were a few things missing that also caught my attention. There was on mention of Alt or H tags.
What say you?
Google Places SEO Citations List Local SEO Services Google Places SEO Google Places Citations
If your business is located in the communities of Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, Tempe, Mesa , Chandler, Arizona or beyond and you need Google Places SEO Citations solutions please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Winning In Tough Economic Environments – Part 1 What Good is SEO?
August 23, 2011
Welcome to the Google Places SEO Citations blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
Click the link and leave a comment to win 30 useful Do Follow Backlinks. Use code Daffy Duck in comment and collect 3 Do Follow anchor text links for your efforts..
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This blog covers local SEO which is dominated by Google, Google Places and the need for citations. The blog also covers just about any thing related to Google search results and related topics. I hope that you might glean some useful resources while you are here.
Winning In Tough Economic Environments – Part 1 What Go Is SEO
This was originally posted back in early 2009.
That’s right we are an SEO provider and we are asking “What good is SEO?” By now, you might be wondering where this is going, right? Well, the whole question goes like this, what good is SEO if your website is not user friendly. The answer is simple; it doesn’t do you much good at all.
Let’s consider two websites as examples to illustrate the point here. The good example is Google. It is simple, clean, straight forward and easy to use. Our, not so good example is E-bay. Finding answers on this site can be a monumental undertaking. If you have ever used this site you know exactly what I am talking about. There isn’t much easy about E-Bay for most users it requires a large learning curve if you want to use the site for selling. If you are bidding the process is much easier.
So how does this relate to your own website? Well if your site is not user friendly it effects your profits and conversions. The first clue that you might have some problems can be found easily if you are using Google Analytics. This software will tell you where someone entered your website. It also records what pages are visited, where they leave the site, how they found you, and lots of other useful information.
The process of recording where a visitor lands and where they leave the site is known as bounce rate. If your visitor only visits one page and leaves this is considered a bounce. A high bounce rate can indicate that the user didn’t like your website, it was difficult to use, or they found what the needed on your home page and left. So it is critical that the bounce rate is as low as possible. (This is now a ranking factor with the new Panda updates.)
However, this is not often the case. You should be really concerned if your bounce rate is above 50%. There are two problems to be considered here. The first is perhaps the easiest to fix. Your content may not match your targeted keyword phrase very well. You may have targeted old blue widgets and your visitor may be only interested in new blue widgets. It is possible that they are finding your site by searching for simply blue widgets and your widgets are not what they want. So they leave. This is the easy fix.
Any good analytic’s program will record what site the visitor came from and what keyword phrase was used. Now, lets say that your SEO efforts produced the targeted traffic that you were seeking, but you still have a high bounce rate. Well, this is a sign that your website is causing a negative user experience.
This is the not so easy part to fix. You will need to determine if your website is suffering from any of the following and make changes accordingly.
- Not enough content to interest the visitor.
- Too much content that overloads the user or bores them.
- The user can’t find what they are looking for at first glance.
- There are two many distractions such as dancing icons or too many images.
- The site loads way too slow.
- They find things that don’t work such as broken links.
- They can’t easily locate your contact information.
- You don’t use a contact form.
- Your color schemes are not good and make reading difficult.
- Your site uses different colored links or strange fonts.
- You use any kind of attention getting devices like dancing images.
- You website has glaring grammatical errors.
- Your website lacked a features and benefits presentation with a call to action.
- Your page links lack a back button. (this happens even on large sites social sites)
- It is not intuitive in nature.
- Content was not what the visitor wanted.
You have control over 15 out of 16 of these items. There isn’t much you can do if the searcher used the wrong query for what they had hoped to find. This is quite a common occurrence. However, all of these other items can and should be addressed before you consider SEO or a link building program.
The hard part of this is being able to do an honest evaluation of your own website. Very few people can actually pull this off as they are to close to the site or they have emotional attachments. Perhaps, a friend or lover built the site and they are afraid to offend someone. I see this one a lot.
There is easy way to address this problem. You could hire a professional to provide you with a website audit or review. I charge $250.00 for our detailed website review for a website that has 25 or fewer pages. I have saved clients tens of thousands of dollars with our reviews. I believe that it doesn’t make sense to bring traffic to a broken website.
The point here is that SEO is only part of the solution for creating a successful website. You can drive visitors to your site and just as easily drive them away. That is why we will not provide SEO to a website until the underlying problems have been addressed. It just makes no sense to bring traffic to a broken website.
In these tough economic times you can not afford to turn anyone away from your website especially, if these defects can easily be addressed and fixed. In many cases you can implement these changes rather easily. However, sometimes your website will require a complete re-design.
Is your website broken? Do You know what your bounce rate is, or why people leave your website? Answer these question and you will begin to see increased profits.
What say you?
Google Places SEO Citations Blog
If your business is located in the communities of Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, Tempe, Mesa , Chandler, Arizona or beyond and you need Google Places SEO Citations solutions please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Link Exchanges Our Point Of View
August 15, 2011
Welcome to the Google Places SEO Citations blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
Click the link and leave a comment to win 30 useful Do Follow Backlinks. Use code Daffy Duck in comment and collect 3 Do Follow anchor text links for your efforts..
Click the link and leave a comment to win a Competitive SEO Review ($250.00.) Use code Mighty Mouse in comment.
This blog covers local SEO which is dominated by Google, Google Places and the need for citations. The blog also covers just about any thing related to Google search results and related topics. I hope that you might glean some useful resources while you are here.
Link Exchanges Our Point OF View
There is a lot written about link exchanges and we are going to add our voice into the blogosphere on this topic. I encounter questions about link exchanging at business mixers all the time. Usually, they ask this, “Is it OK to swap links with other businesses in town?”
What I tell them is that we never exchange links directly with any other website locally or otherwise. We note that we will link to another site that has sent us a trackback. We usually accomplish this on our blog. We usually create a post that thanks a small group of blogs at one time. If the blog is an exceptionally good blog we will write and promote that specific blog. This is the only time that we ever exchange links and this is why.
Exchanging links works best for generating traffic but is not very useful for acquiring higher search rankings, which in most cases is the intended reason for exchanging links. The only way that your site will benefit is if the website exchange partner is in the same industry and your link partner sends you a “do follow” link from a page that has a higher PR than yours.
So we would consider this a basic waste of time. Any link exchange program will need to be monitored to make sure it is working. Your link partner just might change that link to “no follow” status at anytime. Another option is that they simply remove the link without ever providing you a notice. You will never know unless you monitor the situation.
This all requires a lot of time to properly manage even using a link management program. You could very easily be gaining trusted links from other sources such as forums or blogs that are not likely to be removed. Better yet, you could use this time to generate content on your website that is worth linking to and then promote it.
Now, if you do business with a trusted company and you want to provide them a link as a thank you, by all means you should do this. It is also important to remember that link exchange used for ranking purposes is a violation of the Google TOS.
What say you?
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Google Places SEO Citations Blog Local SEO Services Google Places SEO Google Places Citations
If your business is located in the communities of Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, Tempe, Mesa , Chandler, Arizona or beyond and you need Google Places SEO Citations solutions please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
