This week, Evolving Interactive’s Director of SEO, Mark Bealin sits down with Stik.com founder Jay Gierak to discuss the effects of social media’s integration into search engine results. Stik.com uses your social and professional connections for an informed consumer experience. Watch the interview here:
A Guest Blog Post by Jerry Hillburn
Rise and shine fellow marketers, a new day has dawned at Google, and the game is afoot. On January 10th, 2012 at 06:29AM Google Time, Google quietly announced the arrival of Search, plus Your World . The big G has changed how search results are served up, and in doing so has created an incredible opportunity for those who publish daily content to get better positioning for their efforts.
According to Google, “We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships”. Interesting! As a fulltime participant in multiple social media platforms I have developed an understanding of the strengths and weakness of each. With Twitter you get tweets and about 5 minutes of fame, and if you’re very lucky, a viral retweet ripple that drives traffic. With Facebook you get a rich environment in which to engage your friends, and through Fan pages customers and prospects. As long as you live inside the walled garden you can have a lovely time with either.
But while both are great in their core offering, neither offer decent search results. I follow search very closely for my clients and I am always looking for ways to get their tweets or status updates seen in the big G search results. Over the past two years we’ve watched Facebook and Twitter updates appear in the results for a period of time, and then completely disappear. These messages come and go with little predictability.
Within the walled gardens of search on FB or Twitter we don’t see much better search results either. We often find that in Facebook Search you have to write your query in “exact case sensitive” detail or you get bounced to the Bing results. Google has owned the best search on the planet for years, but the walled gardens block its bots, which prevent it from serving up consistent Facebook and Twitter results.
For instance, let’s say you’re a chiropractor. You’re interested in finding people who are having lower back pain issues. Prior to 1/10/2012, when you do a search on Google for the exact term “my back hurts”, you would get a list of websites that offer to help you with your pain. But you don’t get a list of people who updated their Twitter, or FB status with mention of their pain.
Of course we will all still be tweeting and posting statuses to our friends, but for those of us who work in G+ there is the added benefit that when our friends, business partners, and clients work in G+, everything they post shows up in the Google search results.
There is a wrinkle. To see those results, you have to be logged into your G+ account when you search. But if you’re like most of us who have a gmail account, you’re always logged in and your search results now will be influenced by that little detail.
And so fellow marketers, there you have it. One doesn’t have to think hard as to how this new paradigm will be of benefit for your customers. And while I am hopeful that other results would appear as well from Facebook and Twitter, given the intense rivalry between these companies, I am not taking bets on it happening anytime soon.
This is a guest blog post by Jerry Hilburn. Jerry Hilburn runs a company in San Diego serving the local small business community with business web development, social marketing, and content publishing services. You can reach him at www.san-diego-marketing.com .
The Stop Online Piracy Act (“SOPA”) has been looming in the House of Representatives for over two months threatening to change the internet as we know it. The Senate has its own version of the law, the Protect IP Act (“PIPA”) that goes to vote on Tuesday, January 24th. Many of the sites you visit on a daily basis may have some form of protest against these proposed acts. Despite the outcry of criticism and support from both sides of the issue, we are fielding a lot of questions about SOPA and PIPA. So what’s all the uproar about and why are technology companies so opposed to it?
For starters, try to think of the internet like a jungle. The Internet has safe places, dangerous places, and everything in between. It has highly useful and informative areas like Wikipedia and Google and it has the not so useful areas such as every cute kitten viral video you’ve ever seen. Yet, all of these things are dependent upon the creative and innovative contributions of webmasters, hobbyists, entrepreneurs and artists all over the world. In short, it’s an organic structure that builds upon itself and is constantly evolving. This has created a vibrant and open atmosphere that is undeniably a source for good in world. SOPA and PIPA are a threat to this organic structure and will inhibit the internet’s ability to innovate and make people’s lives better.
How so? The Stop Online Piracy Act was introduced to the House of Representatives in October, 2011 by Rep. Lamar Smith (R.-TX). Intending to restrict the spread of pirated copyright material; SOPA would bar any advertiser or payment facilitator, like PayPal, from doing business with sites found to have pirated media. It would bar search engines from linking to the site as well as forcing Internet service providers to shut down access to the site. All of this can be done without due process. Also, illegal streaming of pirated material could carry a sentence of 5 years in prison. Opponents of the bill, such as Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter, and many other technology companies (including Evolving Interactive) say SOPA would allow the government to censor the internet and moreover, violate the First Amendment.
With SOPA being the main lightning rod for upheaval, the Senate’s version, PIPA, has received less scrutiny and actually may have a better chance of making it through to the vote. PIPA is essentially the same as SOPA except for a few minor differences. In a minor upgrade from SOPA, PIPA lacks the power to tell search engines they can’t index flagged sites. In a glaring oversight, however, PIPA lacks any punitive actions the Justice Department can take against studios for lying about pirated media. As you’ll read later in this article, studios are not immune from lying and being hypocritical in their actions. Both SOPA and PIPA have at least had the DNS blocking provisions removed due to it potentially causing great harm to the structure of the internet. The fact the DNS blocking provision has been removed at least shows promise that there could be room for compromise. But there is much more to compromise upon.
Despite our opposition to SOPA/PIPA, piracy is still a very real problem. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) estimates that the economy loses $58 billion a year and threatens 19 million jobs in the United States due to online piracy. These exorbitantly high numbers have been called into question by a fair share of industry experts, including Julian Sanchez, who believes the loss of profit is closer to $445 million (roughly the worldwide gross for Chipmunks: The Squeakquel).
Regardless of the financial losses, the solutions proposed by SOPA and PIPA won’t get to the root of the problem. Congress has consistently shown that they don’t understand how the internet works. Every time a torrent or P2P site goes down, another five will pop up. If PIPA or SOPA are passed, the estimated cost for tax payers to enforce these laws is $47 million over five years plus the estimated $142 million hit on the private sector for maintaining and enforcing the blacklists. If PIPA or SOPA are passed, the United States will be a player in one of the most expensive games of Whack-A-Mole ever created.
Another central argument against SOPA and PIPA is the rampant hypocrisy involved. For instance, the author of PIPA, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D. Vt.), spoke out against internet censorship in other countries. In March of 2010, he stated, ‘One of the most pressing challenges posed by the Internet is the censorship
of online information. For some time now, we have witnessed the troubling efforts of repressive regimes — such as the governments of China, Iran and North Korea — to censor, or in some cases eliminate, their citizens’ access to information via the Internet.’ Just less than two years later, Senator Leahy is trying to do the very thing he spoke out against: censoring and eliminating the United States citizens’ access to information via the internet.
The hypocrisy doesn’t stop at just the politicians. Just check out TorrentFreak.com’s study on where pirated movies are coming from. Using a map of Hollywood IP addresses, TorrentFreak found that even studios are pirating. Computers from Fox Entertainment’s studio were torrenting films like Super 8, a Paramount Pictures production. It should also be worth noting that when one of their films, ‘X-Men
Origins: Wolverine’, was torrented, the person who leaked it was sent to jail for a year. Even computers from NBC Universal’s studio were torrenting their own intellectual property like the film Cowboys &
Aliens. If SOPA or PIPA are passed, will the studios be reprimanded? Unlikely since piracy is enforced collectively by groups like the MPAA, the studios, which are the backbone to these groups, will likely never be sought after.
In no way is the disapproval of SOPA and PIPA an act of endorsement for piracy. Piracy cuts the blood flow to the entertainment industry, stealing rightful profits from artists, performers, musicians, writers
and more. Yet, the tactics SOPA and PIPA would seek to rid the internet of piracy are draconic and heavy handed. A possible solution is the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN Act). With the OPEN Act, the International Trade Commission would be responsible for the enforcement of piracy, rather than the Justice Department. The International Trade Commission is already tasked with
seeking out counterfeits and forgeries of physical products from the US. Their experience dealing with these kinds of issues and the fact that they are less political than the justice department would make them better equipped to enforce piracy laws. The most positive aspect of the OPEN Act is due process and due diligence when investigating. As opposed to SOPA which would make the Internet service provider shut down the website, without due process.
To raise awareness and protest the proposed SOPA and PIPA, Google has censored their logo and Wikipedia and Reddit shut down their sites for all of January 18th. Countless other signs of protest can be found all over the internet. To add your voice to the issue, you can contact your local Congressman through Google by going here: https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/
One of my neighbors is starting his own business, and as such, a new website. He asked me earlier today if he should bother putting a blog on his site, as he’s seen on his competitors and other sites across the web.
The short answer is yes.
The long answer is as follows.
There are several great reasons to have a blog on your company’s website, no matter what stage of business you are in. One of my major rules in SEO is that while your site should be optimized for the search engines, it should be geared towards your potential customers. Your blog puts you in a great position to do both.
Blog For Your Customers:
Having a blog and updating it frequently with stories and anecdotes relevant to your industry tells potential customers that you are an expert. If they are using a search engine to find you, they have other options. You want to stand out from this crowd. Your blog doesn’t (and shouldn’t) just have to be stories about your specific business, though it is great to throw up a few self-promotional posts about a deal, product or service every few posts. You can also write about what is trending in your industry, and how that affects your business and your customers.
This is also a good opportunity for you to expand your brand. If you can write a few posts that are very informative, charming, funny, witty, etc. your readers will put you in front of other readers, who become followers, who could become customers. Your blog can and should easily tie in to the other social media you are running for your site (you are right?). When you have a new blog post, tweet it, share it, plus it; and invite your followers to do the same. Maybe offer a few prizes or discounts to followers who help get you out there. The more people you can attract to your blog, the more people you attract to your site where people can learn about who you are and what you do well.
Blog For Search Engines:
Again, you should write posts targeting your customers. They are the ones that will be hitting up your shopping cart and calling about services, not Google. However, you still need to make sure you are optimizing your blog for search engines. This means using this valuable space for keyword rich content. Since you’re already writing about your industry, it isn’t hard to relate it directly to your business and a specific keyword you want the search engines to notice.
Next, your site can be developed so the blog posts count for additional pages. It helps your site to have extra inner pages indexed by the search engines, especially if they are rich in valuable content. And while your blog should be a separate page on your site, it will help to have the most recent post on your homepage (and just your homepage). This ensures that your homepage is getting fresh new content every few days or so, which will make the search bots want to crawl your site more. And having the new post on your site will draw your readers to your home page to check up on the latest. This will build your site’s value in the eyes of the Google bots.
In the end, the long answer arrives at the same point. Yes, it is very valuable for your site to feature a keyword rich blog that happens to tell your customer what they want to know. You don’t have to post every day, but don’t wait too long before you write a new one either. You want your customers to come to your site often and like what they see.
In the last two posts of SEO You Should Know: Local Edition, we’ve discussed how you can begin to establish and manage your presence in the increasingly important world of local search. In just a few hours, you can locate, claim, build, and maintain your company’s profiles on Google, Yelp and Bing.
Those are only three of hundreds of online directories, search engines, and review sites that could have your company’s info. If you have the time (and patience), you can find these directories and complete the similar processes of getting your company listed. The more references and links to your site, the better. You could also hire an experienced SEO firm to focus on developing this local presence for you. And with the obligatory pitch out of the way, on to this week’s post.
A problem you will probably come across as you scour the web for these (mostly free) local directories is the issue of duplicate listings. It can happen on the lesser known directories and even on the heavy hitters like Google, Yelp, and Bing. You would think having more references and pages talking about and directing to your site would be a good thing right? It is, but not in this case.
Duplicate listings can occur when the search engine’s bots crawl the web after each query is submitted and they bring back all of the information they find to the searcher. In the vastness of the internet, there are bound to be some discrepancies. These could occur when a customer cites the wrong address or phone number on a review site. Or maybe your company moved years ago, but some engines still have the old address and number. Possibly your URL or email address have changed. The reason we claim these business listings to remove discrepancies and manage your local profiles is the same reason we remove duplicate listings.
First, we don’t want incorrect information about your business feeding the search engine bots. In the last two posts, we talked about NAP. It is very important from a local standpoint that your NAP is accurate and matching the NAP that could be found at any corner of the internet in regards to your company.
Second, it is important that you leave the competition to your actual competition. You don’t want to be competing with yourself. Some of our clients have had duplicate Yelp or Google profiles with slight variations. Your potential customers won’t put too much thought into uncovering the correct listing or the incorrect one. Your gamble will be hoping they pick the one you’ve spent the time carefully selecting pictures, writing great descriptions, and developing your image. So we want to remove these duplicates to make sure when they click on your business name, they are getting the best first impression.
The tricky part is the actual removal of these listings. Some directories and engines are better than others. As we’ve mentioned before, Google has very little (if anything) in the way of customer service. If you come across multiple listings on Google for the same location, you will have to go through the claiming process again. Once you verify that you are the owner, update the information in the profile and then suspend the listing. (Note: Don’t delete it from your places, just the Google Results…you’ll still want to be able to manage it). Every once in a while, do a Google Places search for your company and make sure no other duplicates pop up. Popular or larger companies have this happen often.
Most of the other directories are easier, but are not uniform. For the most part, it is a matter of tracking down the customer support section of the directory, and sending an email to the support team to help you by manually removing the listing. Other times there will be an FAQ section, and in many cases you can find support there by selecting “Duplicate Listing Error” or something similar and submitting a request to have the duplicates removed. It helps if you know the URL’s of the duplicates, so have those ready or open in separate tabs.
Then it’s just a matter of time and patience. Keep up with your emails sent out to these support teams and check back every so often. There are a ton of directories out there, so your work is never completely done. Justify this with the knowledge that every little bit really does help. And again, if you’d rather leave it to the SEO pros, there’s always that option.
We’ve come to the end of our local advice for now. Stay tuned for the next edition of SEO You Should Know, and we’ll tackle another element of search engine optimization that will help you grow your online presence. As always, if you have any questions, email us at moc.evitcaretnignivlovenull@ofni, call us, or sound off in the comment section.
