Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOmoz, explains what Google personalization is in regards to search results, what you need to be aware of and the impact of social and SEO on personalization. Pay close attention to the following topics discussed by Rand:
Little more than a year ago, small businesses could argue that they didn’t need Google Plus (Google+). The social networking site just didn’t have the users and activity of Facebook, so it wasn’t worth the effort. Things have changed since then. If you doubt that, just consider these 4 reasons all small businesses need Google Plus.
Image via Flickr by Telendro
Google is the only company that currently has the ability to integrate hundreds of features into one social network.
You know the frustration of finding a restaurant on Facebook, but having no way to get directions from your house to the restaurant without first copying the address and going to another website (probably Google Maps)?
That doesn’t exist with Google Plus because Google Maps is right there for you to use.
In a world where customers would rather find a new business than go through the steps of finding your location, it makes sense to have a presence on Google Plus.
A small business that has offices in several cities faces a difficult problem: how do you coordinate activities between groups without spending a lot of money on travel?
Google Plus has the solution with Google Hangouts. Google Hangouts makes it easy for you to host brainstorming sessions and video conferences without wasting money. You don’t have to pay for plane tickets, hotel rooms, or per diem expenses. As long as you have a webcam, you’re good to go.
As of June 2012, Gmail had about 425 million users. Google could have easily forced all of those users into becoming Google Plus users. Although the company definitely gave Gmail account users plenty of opportunities to join, but the company never forced its devotees to do so.
Why does this matter? Because it shows that Google Plus isn’t interested in grabbing a huge chunk of the social media world as quickly as possible. It’s quite comfortable sitting back, building its applications, and letting people come to it.
Google Plus is just getting started. It makes sense for small businesses to get in now before the service experiences a big explosion. It’s coming. The question is whether you will get on before or after.
Google Plus might not have as many users as Facebook, but the people who have joined know what they’re doing.
More than any company, Google determines which websites succeed and fail. When’s the last time you used Yahoo! to search the Web? Joining Google Plus could, very soon, play a part in how your page gets ranked.
Google recently added blogger authority to its ranking algorithm so that popular writers have more influence than those who don’t publish often.
By joining Google Plus, bloggers can help Google keep track of their posts. That helps small businesses improve their page rankings. It’s a little sneaky, but this will have a big influence over who joins Google Plus in the upcoming year.
What are some other reasons you think small businesses should join Google Plus?
As most people know, search results can vary from city to city or even from one zip code to another. If I search for [electrician] from my house, I will get slightly different SERPs compared to someone searching from another zip code within Phoenix. We’ve just rolled out the ability to track a URL at the city or zip code level, so you can now see that variation without having to do any workarounds such as adding a modifier. This feature has been in testing for a few months and we’re confident that it’s the best local search tracking available. Now you don’t have to settle for only country level tracking or average ranking data that doesn’t work for those wanting to segment their tracking by location.
When you log into your account, you may notice a new icon next to the “Add a Domain” field. Clicking this icon will allow you to specify a location to track SERPs for.
In the box that pops up, start typing in a location and we will automatically suggest options for locations and zip codes.
Once you’ve set that, the icon will turn green and the next domain you add will be added for that location. We’ll automatically tag the domain with the location you’ve selected so you can filter by location from the dashboard. From there, it’s just like any other domain/locale combination in our interface and we’ll track it daily for you.
Keep in mind that since we count keywords on a domain/location combination, each new location you add a keyword for will count toward account keyword limits since a new SERP has to be processed for each location. If you run into any issues or have any questions, feel free to contact support through the link at the top of the interface and we’ll get you taken care of.
Content marketing, SEO and social media marketing really go hand-in-hand (in-hand). The content you create fuels your social media activity, which spurns social signals that help that content do better organically, hopefully driving more traffic to your site over time. In my opinion, content really is the foundation of any successful SEO program and is what will propel your online brand forward. But the key to content marketing is making sure your content is appealing to the right audience at the right time. After all, the point of inbound marketing is to be where your audience is when they need you. So is your content marketing setting you up to be in the right place at the right time or are you missing the mark?
In an interview I did with B2B marketing expert Michael Brenner, he said;
…not every buyer is ready to marry you the first time they “meet” you. Buyers, have to go through a process of learning, absorbing, sharing and deciding. This is compounded by the fact that there are many people playing a part in the decision process. So effective content marketing will map to the number of people and their questions in the early, middle and late-stages of the buying process.
Who are the influencers and decision makers you are trying to reach?
If you sell an enterprise software product who are you really trying to reach? The CIO might be the top of the IT food chain but would an IT director be the one actually doing all the research? Maybe your “in” into the company is the IT team itself. After all, those programmers and developers are going to be the ones actually using your software. They might not have the authority to buy, but they can be you internal champions and influence the decision making process. Depending on what your enterprise software actually does (does it impact marketing efforts, customer service and experience management or enterprise sales teams?) you might need to appeal to other departments as well. You’re going to need to convince everyone in the department that your software product is the best solution for them, which means you need to create content that speaks to the needs and goals of each influencer and decision maker. For instance, the IT department wants a product that will make their daily lives easier while the CIO needs to balance the budget AND make IT a competitive advantage for the enterprise. Your content marketing efforts need to address the unique needs of everyone involved in the buying process if you want to ultimately close the sale.
What information does your audience need right now?
As Michael also pointed out in his interview, “There are many more people looking to understand “Big Data” for example, than are looking to buy it tomorrow. So your content production should map to the volume and types of questions your customers are asking.”Someone might not be ready to buy today but that doesn’t mean you can ignore everyone that is in the information gathering phase of their buying cycle. What will the CIO want to know about your enterprise software product? Do they want to hear the nitty-gritty details or are they looking for the “big picture?” How does that differ from what a programmer would want to know about your product? Your content marketing efforts need to answer the questions, both broad and specific, posed by your target audience if you want to establish yourself as an expert and industry leader.
If you aren’t quite sure what kind of information your audience is looking for ask your customer service and sales teams! These front-facing employees manage your prospects and customers day in and day out and have their finger on the pulse of your audience’s information needs. You can also use your website’s analytics to keep track of how people are searching for and finding your website, as well as what content seems to get the most social and organic activity. If you track the data long enough certain content themes are bound to appear.
How can you push prospective customers further along in their buying cycle?
Once you’ve captured your audience’s attention with a piece of content the next challenge is keeping their attention. Chances are you aren’t the only game in town so what can you offer your audience that will keep them interested and engaged and drive them deeper into their buying cycle? This is going to vary from business to business (customer to customer really) but you can’t hope that one touch point is enough to keep a potential customer interested and involved with your brand. Can you connect with them on social media? Get them to sign-up for a newsletter? Download a trial version? Register for a webinar? These “micro conversions” might not amount to a monetary sale just yet, but with every micro conversion that prospect gets one step closer to becoming an actual paying customer.
It might seem like quite a content mountain to climb, but that’s why it’s so important to know everything there is to know about your target audience. The better you can define them.
Image Credit: Shutterstock / leungchopan
This infographic by KISSmetrics breaks down 8 areas of a website that often have issues that can cause visitors to leave a website. Each area also includes “what not do” and “how to fix” common problems. Three areas mentioned that I really agree with are:
I think this infographic can be very educational for business owners and web development agencies trying to educate business owners.
Google has put a set of videos together that can help business owners understand what it means to be hacked, what hacking is and what you can do about it.
The first video explains what hacking is and what typically happens when a website is hacked. I believe all businesses should watch this to understand what can happen to their websites and have an understanding of the results of hacking.
It is also important for businesses to keep in mind that the hosting service they choose is critical in regards to the recovery of a hacked site. Paying more for better support is often better than getting a cheap hosting service that doesn’t have the proper backups in place or the experience to properly handle something as serious as a hacked website.
The videos following the first tell you exactly what steps to take if your site has been hacked.
Videos on- Spam, Malware, Error Template, SQL injection, File Damage, Server Configuration
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