What’s Google Up To Now
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.
What’s Google Up To Now?
I was cruising through blogs posts in Google Reader today when I came across the post, Is Google ‘Forcing’ SMBs to Buy AdWords? by Greg Sterling. He is the author of the Screenwerk blog and writes about local SEO topics. What I found in the article made me stop everything to check this out myself. And now, I am sharing it with you.
It appears that Google may be pressuring local small businesses to purchase ads through AdWords Express. Check out this example I found while doing a search for Carpet Cleaning Tucson.
Google has included an ad along with this Places listing which it likes to do. But what if you are the business owner for Regal Carpet, would you want an add appearing next to your business listing? Would you be willing to pay to make that add go away? It appears that Google is placing a bet that you will pay up for the removal off this add.
I am using the example that Greg used here.
It appears that if you purchase an ad from Google your competitions ad will disappear.
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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Are You Ready To Crush The Competition? V 2.0
Welcome to the Niche SEO Internet Marketing Blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
The original post:
Are You Ready To Crush The Competition?
Today, I am going to take yet, another look at where we are at as an SEO service provider. What we have been able to accomplish in 18 months is nothing short of incredible. This website is ranked on the first page of Google nationally anywhere from 8-13 times for keyword searches that include the search engine optimization acronym SEO. When we began designing the new website we knew we had to use a content management system.
This website was originally designed as a static website but it could be regularly updated using a WSYIWYG editor. This was a nice feature but it wasn’t a blog and it lacked the advantages that a content management system offered.
We can’t overstate the value that a blog hosted on your website can have. And there is an even greater advantage for the website that is built using a CMS. If you haven’t figured it out yet, Google likes “fresh content.” A content management system allows you to add content at will. In most cases, this only requires the ability to type.
Most blogging software can easily be set up to automatically ping whatever site you want. A ping is a message that basically says “Yo’ I have added new content over here.” These sites then visit and record a snippet of your updated information and then make it available to others on their website. Technorati is a good example of such a site.
Millions of visitors flock to these sites that aggregate information from other websites. You simply type in your search query hit enter and bingo you have the latest that the blogosphere has to offer. These sites are designed to work best with content management systems.
This is a huge marketing advantage that a content management system has over a static website. Changes on a static website are often only done by the search engines when they crawl your website. The public at large will miss these changes. Having the ability to ping creates dozens of websites that are providing you a platform to promote your website. Many of these sites that aggregate this information are the busiest n the world. The advantage here goes to the blog or CMS site.
Many of you may be skeptical, so let me provide you with some interesting numbers. This website existed as a static site for the first year. We were able to acquire roughly 1,000 backlinks from relevant blogs and websites during that year. In April of 08 we transitioned to a WordPress website. Then in May we began the process of branding our website through our blog.
At this time we were doing well building a major presence in the local SEO market. We basically own the SERP’s for anything search engine optimization related in Tucson. It took a content management system to be able to become a national SEO player in the search rankings.
When the site became a WordPress website it had no national presence for SEO. The best that we could do was number 35 for local SEO. Four months of blogging has moved us onto the first and second pages for this search. So do I believe in the power of a blog, content management systems, and fresh content, you bet!
In just four months we have acquired more than 5500 backlinks (most of these are industry related.) We have been written about or mentioned in another 30 or so blogs. We have a game plan and we are working that plan. We have already posted 150 articles on the blog. We created some good linkbait and we promote our blog often.
These accomplishments could not have occurred using a static website. I truly believe if a website transitions to a CMS such as WordPress it will begin to crush the competition. You must be prepared to put in the time and effort and If you are motivated and willing to work a specific marketing plan and blog almost daily, then my friends anything is possible. There are no secrets to success, it merely requires desire, a plan properly executed, long hours, and the ability to work smart and not hard.
Update 05/17/2009 After one year as a blog this is what we have to report. Having a blog has allowed us to acquire an additional 8,000 links to our website. Now, we lost about 3,000 links because forums that we actively used went out of business or changed their link policy. Had these changes not occurred that number would be close to 11,000. This has vaulted our website from a regional SEO player to a national leader in SEO search results across multiple keyword phrases. We could not have accomplished this as a static website.
Update 06/15/2010: Moving from a static rarely changing website to a content management system is the best business decision that I have made for this business. Two years after adding a blog we have become a national leader in the SERP’s for many things beside just SEO.
We top the ranking for searches related to internet and website marketing as well as for link building services. The blog and website rank on the first page of the Google results for 178 keyword phrases. We have also experienced a 300% increase in website traffic. We have gotten so well noticed that our content is stolen on a regular basis and placed on other sites.
I think if you tell just about any business owner that you can increase website traffic 300% that they would pay attention. The problem with this success it that it takes a lot of additional effort. You need to actually add new content on a regular basis and then go out and promote yourself on other websites. It wasn’t just adding a CMS that made the difference. It was my willingness to put a big effort into my website and to promote it that made the big difference.
Eventually people will find you and your website and if you provide useful information your visitors will work for you when they start leaving comments. These comments have a huge impact on search rankings. An interesting thing often occurs. Good content begets comments and comment beget more comments.
This blogs has received literally thousands of comments over the past two years. I would sometimes write about my life partners needs for a liver transplant. Comments left on these posts were often very moving emotionally. In those really dark days when I thought Geri was not going to survive the blog became a wonderful outlet for me. Many of those posts were written while I was crying my heart out.
But I kept writing about her illness and eventually I could complete a post without crying. When I realized this I knew that I was working through my pain and that I would eventually be OK. So a blog can also have unexpected benefits.
Are you ready to crush the competition?
What say you?
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If your business is located in the communities of Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, Tempe, Sedona , Flagstaff, Arizona or beyond and you need Google Places SEO solutions please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 Now!
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Is Your Website Too Busy?
Welcome to the Google Places SEO blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
Is Your Website Too Busy?
This was originally posted in August of 2008.
A good sign that your website is to busy can be found by taking a good look at your Google analytic’s. If you see that your website has a high bounce rate then your website just might be to busy. Busy websites think that everything needs to be crammed into the home page or any page for the matter. They seem to not be able to comprehend the concept of KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid!
As an internet marketer and SEO provider I visit dozens of website a day. I am amazed by how many websites are so busy that I couldn’t find what I was looking for. These sites cram so much information that it makes using the website very difficult. Try visiting a major retailer and you will see what I mean.
These sites are often put together as if they were a newspaper and use a multi column approach. When I see these pages beginning to load I usually leave. Experience has shown me that these sites are so difficult to use that I seldom find what I am looking for.
Earlier this year we needed to find out where we go to vote for the primary election in our city. We had moved since the last election cycle and didn’t know where our polling place was located. My honey said she heard on the evening news that voting information was available on the TV channels website.
I am sure that it was there but I could not find it so I gave up and called the local Democratic headquarters for the information. That site was trying to do way too much and ended up not being useful.
This is where market research is very useful. Ask your friends, family, business associates, and strangers to visit your website. Ask them for an honest evaluation of their experience. Take the time to make up an evaluation form. Limit it to 5 or 6 open ended questions.
Be prepared to make changes and to except criticism. What you and your web designer consider a great feature may be driving away potential customers. The ultimate goal is to convert the visitor into a customer.
We build business websites with only one or two columns and with a minimum of distractions. Everything is simple, clean, and straight forward. We avoid the cute and creative by simply focusing on selling. We recommend that you do the same.
We no longer build websites.
What say you?
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If your business is located in the communities of Tucson, Yuma, Flagstaff, Tempe, Mesa , Chandler, New River, or Cave Creek, Arizona and beyond and you need Google Places SEO solutions please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 Now!
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Google Places Search Favoring Tucson SEO Locally
Welcome to the Google Places SEO blog at Tucson SEO Solutions.
Before I get into today’s post I want to recognize and welcome our visitors from Yuma and Gila Bend. I also wanted you to know that you are here because I have specifically targeted you and your businesses need to rank well in the Google Places search results.I hope that you find this information useful. And if you need Google Places SEO services that you will consider Tucson SEO Solutions.
Google Places Search Favoring Tucson SEO Locally
I only recently started to add images to my blog posts. I just never bothered to learn how to add photos. I preferred to just tell the story but this made for uninspiring posts. So I finally determined to learn how do to add images and I was surprised by how easy it was. It does add time to the blogging process but it makes for a better story. It allows people to see what I am referring too.
It also makes blogging a lot more productive. I am more likely to write about different topics when I can display images to support my topic. So I have become a bit of a zealot with sharing all of the new features with Google’s Places Search. With this in mind here is a screen shot from 11/27/2010. In this shot this site is ranking # 5 for the search Google Places SEO from a Tucson ip.
Today, 12/01/2010, I did the same search for Google Places SEO and discovered that the site was now showing up in the # 2 position from a Tucson area ip. Not only that we are the only Tucson company that Google included in its search results. This obviously provides us with a huge advantage over our local competitors.
This advantage is also appearing in the sites analytic’s which I was reviewing earlier today. I noticed that traffic is coming from several other cities in Arizona were people were searching for Google Places SEO. This is a product of ranking both #1 and # 2 in all major markets in Arizona. I have displayed this advantage in this video, 7 Reasons To Consider Tucson SEO Solutions For Google Places SEO.
Still I was very much surprised to see this # 2 ranking. And it got me thinking about you and how well that you are ranking since Places Search was rolled out. I would like to hear from you. Are you ranking better or worse these days?
Update 12/06/2010: I wanted to point out that that these screen shots where taken from out side an existing Google Account.
What say you?
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If your business is located in the communities of Tucson, Tempe, Mesa , Yuma, or Gila Bend, Arizona, or beyond and you need Google Places SEO solutions please call Tucson SEO at 520-505-6024 Now!
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Turning Spam Into Gold V 2.0
I have made it a sport of sorts out of spam. For every one good comments that I get here I also get another 19 that are useless spam. Except this spam can actually benefit the smart blog owner. Here is how it works. Search engine reward fresh content and it does have to be relevant content. And this is why I know that it is so.
When I started this blog back in 2008 I produced some very good Do Follow lists. This only produced lots of spam for my site and for those blogs mentioned in my lists. I really regret this, but it is what it is. I learned and I ended up removing the lists but not the posts. That was over a year ago, but just about all the posts associated with those lists are still ranking on the first page of Google. I have not actively marketed these lists in a very long time so I am not getting a bunch of links nor am I building links for these posts.
These posts have stayed high in the Google search rankings because greedy spammers still continue to spam the posts even though the lists have long been removed. What I am serving up are basically useless pages. I use these spammy comments that are at least 150 characters in length but I remove the link. The reality here is that I am spamming the spammers. They continue to visit and leave spam and I in turn use their comments and I continue rank well.
I know its silly, but that’s ok with me. I will eventually remove the lists when I get bored and I am not bored yet. I also use these posts to prove a point and that is that content is not the king of SEO.
Here is the original post Turning Spam Into Gold:
We are not talking about Hormel here. What I’m about to suggest will seem reasonable to many and some will see this as unethical, but here it goes. We, who market on the Internet or those who simply have an email account or two, deal with spam daily. It is a sad fact of life that our mail boxes and blog comments are filled with spam, those unwanted pieces of electronic drivel.
I am going to address the spam that arrives in my Akismet blog spam filter. Since we moderate our comments nothing slips through onto the pages of our blog without are approval. We are going to suggest a solution for turning this putrid junk into gold.
We have no real recommendations for those solicitations that are merely a bunch of links. You are on your own on this one. What we are addressing are the comments that arrive daily and that sometimes includes text right out of your blog. It often has the appearance of a trackback. The spammers hope that your spam filter will not pick this up and the comment slips into your blog. Maybe, just maybe, someone clicks onto that link and visits there site. Spammers after all play a numbers game.
Now, this is where you can turn this into gold, comment gold. You can edit the track back style comment or have a friend do it for you. We suggest changing the name and deleting the email and website address. Then change the comment to whatever you would think best adds to the on-going blog conversation. You have now created value, or gold, out of spam.
This was written as linkbait, and while some will see it as unethical, others will see it as Gold.
Here’s some other valuable resources:
Would you like to download the Scratch My Back Marketing anti spam plugin? Then go here.
Would you like to learn more about the Scratch My Back Marketing (not the plugin?) Then go here.
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Website Stats Reveal Hidden Gems – A Follow-Up
Every few days or so, I get around to checking where our website traffic is coming from and what pages are generating the most traffic. Shortly after we created our “Do Follow List” it became the most frequented page visited. It has stayed that way for three months and doesn’t look like it will be fading anytime soon.
The second most visited page is our blog. This makes a lot of sense, we post often and each new post is submitted to Technorati, Digg, Stumble, Reddit. We also ping a large number of sites and we also submit each post to Google’s Blog Search.
The third most visited web page is the home page. This traffic is generated by the search engines mostly. This is the group most likely in need of our services.
The #4 and #5 positions are taken up by more recent blog posts. One of those is for our “Do Follow Forum List.” It originally was part of a much larger list but was recently separated to create a series of smaller lists. These two pages have just moved up into the top 5 since I last reviewed my website stats.
I tell you this to point out that there is a lot of very useful information hidden within your statistics. I have determined that posts that create value for the visitors become the most visited pages. This seems like common sense I know, but these insights can be useful.
You can begin to see patterns both positive and negative. If you are one of those inclined to take a closer look at things you might find some real gems here. Let’s say a post generated 500 visits but only 5 comments. This might reveal that you are a great marketer but that your content is weak.
Follow-up - After this post I took another look at what searches people were using to find us and I was surprised by something that I had noticed. We had a new Keyword phrase as the most searched query. We have been targeting Phoenix SEO for sometime. There are many websites working to gain or maintain the first page for this search. So it has been difficult to gain a presence on Google’s first page.
We managed to crack the the #10 position for three days running. Even at the 10th spot we were able to generate a bunch of traffic. This blew me away and encouraged me that my efforts were worth it. I was very surprised by this gem. We will now work to polish it to perfection.
When you take the time to analyze your statistics you can find some very amazing pieces of information. For many of you, this is something that you already know, but for many website owners this is all new to them. So if this is new to you, then definitely it is time to add Google Analytics. Its a free Google tool.
We recommend that your stats be reviewed weekly!
So I ask when is the last time you looked at your website stats?
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg or Stumble it.
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