Last week I had a client’s Google Places Page go missing – disappeared entirely. For a client who runs a bed & breakfast, a museum and a tour business, all location-based businesses that depend to some degree on maps (Google Maps) – this was heart-stopping. 

Google replied: “Thanks for contacting us regarding your Places problem. We’ve recently experienced technical issues with Places and you may have experienced your verified listing no longer appearing on Maps. We’ve put the fix in place and listings should be appearing appropriately now.”

Aside from the fact that Google secrecy prevents any explanation whatsoever as to why Google Place in particular, has so many problems that cause so much anxiety, we are left to make assumptions. (and IMHO this is the only way to divine a possible solutions to these very nebulous issues and suggest ways to avoid losing your place in the digital world. Some say SEO is bullshit, but tell that to the business owner who gets wiped out for no apparent reason.) OK, back to it…

This “outage” is curious and gives me some insight into Google and their Places imperatives. This client runs all three businesses from the same address. They also have registered their three places listings using the same login, same webmaster account, same analytics. Other clients of mine who do not have similar Google accounts setup this way didn’t suffer any outage.

This seems to confirm to me something I have long believed, derived from a long list of other anxious Google Places anomalies over the years; that Google penalizes the PERCEIVED spammer (scammer) even if the business(s) are 100% legitimate. To avoid this penalty I think its safe(er) to setup all Google accounts individually. What I mean by individually is that even if you have two very legitimate business based at the same address, you should treat their SEO as if they were two 100% separate entities – as if YOU are schizophrenic - as if YOU are two different people. Why?

Thinking like a search engine (or thinking like someone who builds search engines) its too hard to map the vague relationships that naturally happen in business. So rules are written by people (developers), but acted upon by machines. Machines never notice an anomaly in the developers thinking. Its doesn’t stop an say to the developer, “Hey if you do this, you could wipe out a bunch of legitimate businesses.”

Take a holding company that owns subsidiaries as an example. That is too complex for a search engine to handle. Why is that important?

Search engines and their developers (SEs) have some conflicting priorities; SEs are trying to map businesses in the real world, while also contain spammers and scammers. The SEs business is advertising your business. Thus the need to serve customers and not the scammers. In so doing, when the developer pushes the limits of their algorithm, to filter out the scammers in the real world listings, Google Places go missing. If its only one or two innocent injuries as a result of a “tweak”, its not a problem – let them  figure it out. But if its a few hundred thousand, the developers look at where they tweaked the algorithm, what effects it had that got so many people panicked (yelling blood murder in the forums); and the change is rolled back. And if its a million affected business, a rare apology (that reveals something about Google) may be issued.

Bottomline: know how to communicate with search engines. The language changes all the time. Call if you need some SEO Help

SELeads

The Top Ten Douchiest Job Titles at Ask The Manager says it all.

4. Guru – The word is Sanskrit, and if you did not know that, then you’re not a fucking Guru. Moreover, this type of douchebag title is one of the “self-anointed” kinds. This means that no one ever called you a Guru (unless their tongue was firmly planted in their cheek) – you gave yourself this title; and for that, you are a douchebag of the highest order. In fact, you might just be the Guru of Douchieness.

Are you really still paying for Yellow Pages? (Newspaper ads, Magazine ads)

Almost all consumers SEARCH for what they intend to buy. (97%)

Are you spending hard-earned $ targeting that 3%? How is that working out?

YouTube gets 300 million visitors a month. Do you have a video of/for your business on Youtube? What if you could reach 2% of those people? (You can) And that is only one way to reach your audience via Internet Marketing.

• Need to launch a new company or product?
• Need to attract potential buyers to your website?
• Need an Internet Marketing Plan?

Contact me directly if youd like some help with your Internet Marketing

SELeads

 
Here is both a lesson for those of you seeking an SEO Professional (clients and potential clients) and a good laugh for SEOs.

One day I stumbled upon SEOCertification.org thinking, “hmmm, maybe I should get one of these slick Certified images that will convince visitors to my site that I know what Im doing?”. I had seen this SEO certification image before. I see lots of them actually, and I have none. Maybe that is a problem?

SEO Certified Professional

So I search for SEO Certification and right there in #2 spot was SEOBullshit. I have to admit, Im a big fan of SEOBullshit, so I just had to read… I echo this post because I couldn’t say it any better. (If you are a fellow SEO, please visit SEOBullshit and pay your respects. Its a good read too.)

“We SEO professionals see bullshit every single day so admittedly the most surprising thing to me is that I’m capable of still being surprised at all with the sheer level of stupidity run rampant in our industry.”

And sure enough, what I (we) see everyday is exactly some “SEO professional” doing something outrageously stupid like this:

“they didn’t even apply one of the most basic SEO fundamentals: Canonicalization”

Observe:
http://seocertification.org
http://www.seocertification.org
http://www.seocertification.org/index.php
http://seocertification.org/index.php

What is so special about this – two years later and its still not been fixed. I don’t think I’m going to rush over and pay them to certify me.

“Crap. I must be doing something wrong. Here I was under the impression it took years to hone your skills in this industry but apparently the geniuses at seocertification.org managed to compress all that information down into a digestible 3 day study guide.”

Thanks for another good one SEOBullshit. Point very well made.

Meta Description for CTR

The Meta Tags are yesterday’s news in SEO. No one writes about them anymore. Therein lies the opportunity. Its not just enough to have a Meta Description and forget about it, its how you use it that makes the difference – in visitors!

Assuming you achieve a position in the SERP you need to convert that position into a click. The secret ingredient is:

Your Meta Description Tag

• It needs a Call-to-Action

• made up of 150 characters packed with good keywords

Few websites are optimized to include a well designed Meta Description tag. Forget click-distribution if you don’t have something for the users eyes to focus on. Using a well-crafted Meta Description will get you ahead of 98% of your competition. I’ve seen increases in traffic (CTR) of 30% using a good call-to-action in the Meta Description. Read more about CTR and Click Distribution and Conversion

Contact me if you’d like a FREE audit of your CTR and Conversion Rates

SELeads

This question comes up often. Matt Cutts has answered the question in one of his Google Webmaster videos. The answer is, as usual, logical; if you are not doing anything out of the ordinary, you’re safe.
If you’d like a FREE audit of your Website
SELeads

From Inside Search : The Official Google Search Blog

Search results, like warm cookies right out of the oven or cool refreshing fruit on a hot summer’s day, are best when they’re fresh. Even if you don’t specify it in your search, you probably want search results that are relevant and recent.

So now you know that a neglected website will loose search rank. This is important because Google seldom reveals how they evaluate websites for search rank. There are many similar SEO techniques that are similarly difficult to prove except by carefully documenting changes and measuring results. I wrote an article about blogging for top search rank if you are the DIY-SEO type. Otherwise…

Need some Search Engine Optimized Fresh Content to improve your search rank? Contact me directly if you’d like a FREE audit of your Website Search Rank

SELeads

What to consider when choosing a website vendor

There are many things of course. But you can segment this into two basic areas; ethics and ability. I’m going to stay in my corner and talk only about SEO vendors. (Usually a bad sign when a website designer or marketing firm also offers SEO – but we will sling that mud in another post)

Ability to do quality SEO is subjective. What is good SEO? That’s about all we SEOs write about, argue about, until we a blue-in-the-face. Only peer-review will settle this one. So lets leave that for another gazillion posts and some bits listed here.

On the other hand, ethics can be ascertained if you know the right questions to ask.

Will website developers, website designers, SEO firms, Internet marketing firms work in the interest of the clients? Sadly, not always.

So how do you know that the SEO firm you are considering is going to act in your interest in every way?

I.) Do they setup search engine accounts (Google Webmaster, Google Places, Google Analytics, Google Adwords, Microsoft Adcenter, Bing Local Business Listings) in the name of the client or under an agency umbrella account? The right answer is obvious; the accounts should be setup in the name of the client. I don’t have a statistic for how often this is done “incorrectly”, but this is a common problem. I see this more often than you would think.

Perhaps the problem is becoming more visible as Google is now merges the various accounts (webmaster/places/analytics/adwords) a website owner needs to get good search rank. I see this when clients come to me for help with Google Places listings, and the problem is often the convoluted ownership issues that result from vendors setting up Google accounts under their agency name or worse, claiming ownership of the website after the fact. Imagine your gardener claiming they must own your house in order to mow your lawn! Really?

Ethics 1) easy to discover and 2) its a clear signal to stay away. This is clearly not in the interest of helping the client in the long-run. Its usually about trapping the client so they can’t quit the relationship, but we’ll assume its just a bad habit. Even then…

A firm that sets up search engine accounts under the agency name; 1) maybe a bad habit that took hold when first starting to offer Adwords services. Yes, that makes sense. Yes it is easier to continue to do it that way. But its also lazy not to get with the times. 2) they intends to keep all the work they do with your money. When you stop paying, you don’t own anything. Either way, lazy or ill-intentions, you choose.

NOTE: Login and passwords should be delivered to the client as soon as the accounts are setup. Watch out for tricks though, because you can be deceived easily if you don’t know how access to the accounts work. You may be given access to VIEW an account, but you may not OWN the account (login)!

II.) Ability: One way to determine SEO ability is whether you get to meet the one person responsible for your SEO? (excluding marketing people who are brilliant at Googlewhacking – designing reports with long-tail keywords at the top of SERPs)

How long in the SEO business and with the firm? SEO is a craft. It cannot be outsourced to another country (I’ve tried). It cannot really be done by “a team” because we know that those teams are made up of new-hires who are given some basic training, not paid too much, and leave when they have acquired the necessary skills to offer those services directly for better wages. (well I think everyone knows thats the way it works out)

Look at SEO perhaps like dentistry. Quality SEO requires experience, skill, focus, patience. The person doing quality work is a craftsman and that is what you want if you have to pay for it. SEO cannot be done on an assembly line. How would you like your dentist to setup an assembly line-type office? (some dentist do) And that just shouts “quality”, doesn’t it?

III.) I’m keeping this page called “In Whose Interest” up to date as new bullets come to mind.

SELeads

• Free SEO

  I actually do offer free SEO, but lets face it. If you search for it and find a SEO who offers FREE SEO, it means they are advertising a free service, what are you expecting? SEO is hard work. No SEO has a magic wand that they can wave and presto, you have online visitors. Doesn’t exist, won’t happen.

• Cheap SEO

  This is even worse. I wouldn’t mention to anybody if I provided cheap SEO. If you were/are a craftsman, would you say you do cheap work? What is that cheap work anyway? Poor-mans SEO? Or crappy SEO? More likely fraudulent SEO.

• Guaranteed SEO

  How much money do you have to spend? I can guarantee results if your budget is unlimited. I can guarantee results if you are the only provider in your market and you have a product people actually search for. If you search for “Guaranteed SEO” there is no way that the SEO professional that pops up in your search results can guarantee anything until they know; 1) your target market, 2) your budget, 3) your product or service.

• Affordable SEO

  Yeah, that just about self-describes everyone in every service business. Affordable is relative isn’t it. I should have thought to name my business www.affordable-seo.com

• Low Cost SEO Services

  Lovely. I want to advertise my business as “the low-cost SEO provider” just to get these visitors and talk to them. I would ask, “What exactly did you want to pay for your SEO services?”, and they would respond something like, “$50″. (see above: free seo)

All these search terms are actually used – in the thousands per month. Just saying…

A beautiful piece of work. One of those things that makes me wish I had the time and talent to create something so meaningful.

“Search engine optimization may seem like alchemy to the uninitiated. But there is a science to it. Search engines reward pages with the right combination of ranking factors, or “signals.” SEO is about ensuring your content generates the right type of signals. Our chart below summarizes the major factors to focus on for search engine ranking success.”