If you’ve been around search marketing long enough you may remember Google’s “Florida” update. I remember it well, those days in November (I forget the year. 2003 I think) when many webmasters in North America and around the world woke up to find their search engine rankings had dropped, completely off the charts in many cases. And this just at as the holiday shopping season was building up. Many were in a panic!

Google had begun rolling out a major update to its ranking algorithm, an update that was quickly nicknamed Florida.

It took us months to realize what we believe changed with the Florida update.  The biggest change – Google had largely devalued much of the PageRank (link juice, whatever you want to callit0 applied to incoming links from what Google considered low quality web pages/sites, possibly devalued PageRank from web pages that had clearly optimized anchor text, and apparently penalized sites participating in reciprocal linking schemes, link farms etc.. This lead to the dramatic drop in rankings for web pages that had been previously ranked in high positions largely from those incoming links.

Right now Google is testing a major update, nicknamed Caffeine. This update will likely start rolling out after the holidays, in January or February (Google having graciously decided to wait till after the holiday season to roll out this update).

However, this update has been running in one of their many data centers right for some weeks now.
 

What can we expect as Caffeine rolls out

Here is some of what can we expect as Caffeine rolls out and in the future (Some of this is from what Google’s Matt Cutts had to say at the recent Pubcon conference in Vegas, some from “reading between the lines” of what he said)

Faster indexing – Caffeine, as the name implies, will speed up Google’s indexing of the web, very much needed with the growth of the web and the desire of searchers for more fresh, even real-time results. 

Freshness – It appears that Caffeine gives higher positions for fresh content within the Blended/Universal results listings (see the More Info section below for more on Blended/Universal results). Matt put emphasis on freshness at Pubcon. I think we can expect Google’s search results to include more recent (fresh) and more real-time results high up in the search results as Caffeine roils out.

Note – Did you notice the real-time results Google has been including in the search result for a few weeks?  There was a box, for me it has appeared at the bottom of the page of results, labeled “latest results for xx”. It included real-time results from Twitter etc. I’m not seeing it anymore, but I think we can expect this or something like it to be back and probably, at least in time, positioned up higher in the results.

I do hope Google will start giving searchers the option to toggle off/on the many different types of results that are beginning to clutter up the search results screen (and maybe give us control of where we’d like them positioned?)

Social Signals. I think we can expect more social media results in the search results. And we can expect social media to play a bigger and bigger factor in the rankings of search results influenced by, for example, user reviews, sidebars (like Sidewiki) about web pages, citations (mentions) in social media sites like twitter and facebook, etc.

Moral – If you haven’t starting incorporating a social media strategy into your online marketing: You Better Get Going! See some of the related articles below on social media.

Web page load speed may become a ranking factor, not just an indexing issue, judging by the tools Google is releasing, or mentioning, to help webmasters improve load speed. Matt talked about this at Pubcon. Google is not only concerned with providing the most relevant search results, they are also concerned with the user experience when the searcher clicks through to a result. Load speed is an important factor in the user experience. Today, in Google’s Adwords PPC platform ads can be rejected based on slow load speeds for the landing page. So we shouldn’t be surprised if load speed becomes a ranking factor in organic results too. In additon, if Google needs to speed up indexing their torelance for slow loading pages will deminish.

You should be keeping an eye on load speeds using various tools and realize that the load speeds new visitors to your web site experience are often completely different than what you’ll see within your own network viewing pages that have likely been cached from previous visits.
 

Will there be major changes in rankings?

I don’t expect there will be major drops in rankings like there was during the Florida update, at least right away, but it’s possible.  Google has been very forthcoming with this update even giving us a chance to test it out earlier. We and most people didn’t see major changes in rankings.

This Caffeine update may be the initial changes to Google’s indexing and ranking system foundation which Google will build upon over months and years, so the intital effects on rankings may be minor.

On the other hand, however, we’re seeing reports of big changes in rankings over the past couple of weeks and it’s possible, since Caffeine is running in at least one data center, that it is a factor.

Don’t be too surprised if Google takes care of some practices it considers to be spam during this update too!
 

What should you do if you see dramatic decreases in your search positions? 

NOTHING! There’s really not much you can do or should do except wait to see what develops over the coming months (unless you haven’t been doing some things you should be, see below).

During the Florida update some SEO’s were taking educated guesses (some not so educated) as to what the new algorithm changes were. Webmasters started taking knee-jerk reactions, making changes to their sites in an attempt to “fix” their rankings. They were all wrong.

In the end those webmasters and SEOs had to accept the fact that their reliance on techniques focused primarily at influencing search rankings was the real issue.  And in the end what’s important now, high quality, search engine friendly web sites with great content that others want to link to and mention will still be important. You just might need to focus more on some things, such as developing fresh, great content and social media promotion, etc

Side Bar: I recently talked to a client considering implementing a potentially spammy link building technique, a technique that sounds like its main purpose is to influence rankings. I tried to convince them not to spend time and effort on something that at best may likely work only for a while and at worse could hurt them at some point. I suggested they spend their time on the things that not only pay off now, but for the long term. I was told, “that takes too much time”. Well, Sorry, you’re right. If you want to be successful at online marketing for the long haul then yes it takes time and resources.

For More Info

Randy at SEOmoz put together some other insights about rankings gleamed from Pubcon

Universal or Blended Search Results: What is it? Optimization Tips

Ready to get going on social media? Here’s some info –

Social Media Marketing Parts 1 & 2. A two part article on Search Engine Watch about Social Media Marketing

Your Customers are talking about you! And your potential customers are listening!  Many use social media to talk about their customer experience. And many research companies’ customer care online prior to purchasing products and services at least sometimes.

Where to put your blog for best search engine results

Blogging Tips: Promoting Your Blog, Your Products & Services, Usability Tips, Tips For Providing Useful Information.

More blogging tips – 25 Link Building Tactics to Improve Blog Search Ratings, Lee Odden

Ask for customer reviews. Good reviews = more business

4 Reasons to Submit Optimized Online Press Releases. Plus tips and resources for writing and distributing online press releases

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The post Ready for the Next Big Change in Google’s Search Rankings & Results? Caffeine: Fast, Fresh Results, Social Signals appeared first on eVision Online Marketing.

In past articles about Google Maps we’ve covered:

• Video Demonstration of Google Maps since the emergence of Blended/Universal Search

• Video on How to claim & update or add local search listings in Google Maps.

In this article I’ll cover the important factors for getting the best results in Google Maps (Not just rankings but overall results including enticing people to take action). Let’s get right to it –
 

Find & claim your listings.  The simple act of finding and claiming your Google Map listings, even if you don’t update them, will likely improve your rankings as it verifies the listing  (Learn how find & claim your listings in our video blog).
 

Proximity to the search location. You’d think this one’s pretty obvious, that the closer your listing is to the location being searched on the better you should rank (all other things equal). So if the search is for “lumber New Haven” the listings from within New Haven should rank higher than the listings outside of New Haven, again all other things equal. And this is often the case with cities.

However Google’s results when there are not enough listings in a location, such as a smaller town, or when the search is for a wide area like a state can be skewed towards downtown areas of cites etc.

This tendency of weighting towards the centers of cities has diminished as other ranking factors have evolved (the “all other things”) and this should continue as Google is “constantly tweaking our ranking factors” (From a Google representative in a Google Maps forum about this issue)

Note – The letter in front of the following items corresponds to the letter in the following Google Maps “Edit/Add” Listing screen shot.

A: The Company/Organization Name in the Listing.  Having the service keyword in the name, such as “Acme Web Design” should help both with rankings and usability (making it quickly clear what you do). But see the Google Maps Guidelines linked to below: You are you required to use your actual business/organization name. However I’ve seen this rule broken repeatedly (see how to report spam below).
 

B. The Web Site/Landing Page. You don’t even need a web site but if you do…

Think about the best page to link to, just like you would when developing PPC ads. Should you link to the home page? Possibly it you have a single location and a limited focus.

Many of our clients have multiple locations. We’ve had the best results with one or more web pages per location. We link the Google Maps listings to the appropriate page. This has been helping with rankings. Plus, getting people directly to the location page they are interested in helps with conversions.

Have a site or page that is optimized for your key products & services along with local phrases; such as towns served, should definitely help your listings for searches on those products or services and locations. Many times I’ve seen the description developed by Google for the local search listing include text from the web site rather than from the Google Maps listing.

Some specific page elements to think about including on the web pages.

The location address in text.
A local phone number in text.
The location and/or towns severed in the HTML Title Tag.

C: The Google Maps Description. Spend lots of time on this 200 character description. As much time as you would developing an HTML Page Title and Meta Tag Description combination for an important page on your web site.

This description should be developed to help “sell” your business or organization to those who read it. If you include the keyword(s) and/or location being searched on in the description, for example “Web designers in the New Haven area since 2005”, it should help with rankings too.
 

Categories in the listing. If you are listed in a category that is being searched for, such as “web design New Haven, CT” this should help your listing rank better.

You can be listed in up to 5 categories. You can even suggest new ones. Do some searches on some important products or services and locations and check what categories are being used by others.

See the video for a demonstration of categories in “Google Maps Video: How to find, claim, update and add listings in Google’s local search”

Pictures & Video. Pictures and video can help you sell your business and its products and services.

Often a picture will be included in the Google Maps listing like our client’s below. That’s probably not going to help rankings, but could help click-throughs and conversions.

Picture in a Local Listing Result

Additional Details
Use the Additional Details fields to show more information about your business, its products and services (see the screen shot of an additional details area below).

These Additional Details can help sell your business, its products and services and they appear to help with rankings too. I’ve searched on some details that appear no where else but in the Additional Details and the listings where retuned in the results.

An example of Additional Details displayed in a listing

Citations (mentions and links on other sites).  You’re used to link popularity (PageRank, trust etc) for the traditional organic listings. It works very much the same for local listings.

Having Citations (mentions or links) on other web pages that help validate your local listing are a very important factor in local search rankings. These mentions don’t even have to link to the site, just verifying a local address and/or phone number helps.

Look for listings and mentions on sites (See the screen shots at the bottom of the article). Check any current listings you have for accuracy of the address, phone numbers, categories, and for issues such as duplicate listings, etc as Google often imports this information into your Google Places listing:

• The online yellow pages like SuperPages that are used as a source for search engines like Google. (See URL’s to the online yellow pages below).
• Regional listings such as on Yahoo, Business.com, local directories (eg chambers etc).
• Listings in sites like CitySearch, Yelp, etc.
• Local listings on the other major engines will help as they all crawl each others listings.

Try “reverse linking” the sites reaching the top local search listings for your local product and service keywords. Find which sites mention or link to them and what sites Google includes information from within the Maps listings. Might they be a fit for your site? (See the screen shots at the bottom of the article).

Ask for Reviews
I do not believe that reviews per se are a ranking factor. In my testing it does not appear that the number of reviews or the user ratings are affecting the rankings in Google Maps, however…

Having reviews may help verify a local listing and help build trust, but I haven’t been able to verify this.

Much more important, having good reviews can help you sell your business online.

Plus, snippets from your reviews are often included by Google in the local listings (see the screen shot below)

Local Listing with Review snippet

Also, searchers can exclude Google Maps listings by User Rating.

You need good reviews!!! (See the video for a demonstration this in “Google Maps Video: How to find, claim, update and add listings in Google’s local search”

Look at the sites reaching the top local search listings for your local product and service keywords and see which sites Google includes reviews from. Then ask for reviews on them as well as directly in Google Maps.

See “Ask for Reviews” for much more 

Where to Find Citation and Reveiw Sites

A: Review Sites Google Extracts From

B: Infobases Google Uses

C: Find More Possible Citation Sites In This Section

Resources

The Major Local Search Sites

• Google Local Business Center (LBC)
• Yahoo Add/Edit Local Listings 
• Bing Add/Edit Local Listings

Check this site out too: getlisted.org. The site will attempt to find your local listings for you, get you started on updating the listings, and they have lots of tips.

Google Maps Resources

• Business Listing Quality Guidelines
• Report Google Maps Spam 
• LBC Help Forum
• Problems & Errors forum

Recently posted in the Google Maps forum by a Google employee about reporting problems with listings “The best way to escalate these types of errors is to use the “Report a problem” link at the lower right-hand corner of the map. You’ll be able to provide details of the issue and subscribe to be notified of when the error is corrected.” 

The Major Online Yellow pages and Info sources to the majors

• InfoUSA (Database for many online yellow pages such as Yahoo’s)
• Yellowpages.com (ATT)
• SuperPages.com – Verizon (Database for other online listings: Google, Bing). Last known tel number for issues,  800-320-1395

More Info

Blended or Universal Search results.

Video Demonstration of Google Maps since the emergence of Blended/Universal Search

Video on How to claim & update or add local search listings in Google Maps.

How Flickr Can Help Your Local Business Get More Traffic – An article on Web Marketing Today about hosting images on Yahoo’s Flickr photo & video sharing site. These images are sometimes shown in the Blended search results including on Google

49 Local Search Ranking Factors Rated by Importance – The results of a survey of 27 folks who work on local search; 41 positive ranking factors, 8 negative factors

How to Promote and Syndicate Your Local Business Listings – More about citations on Web Marketing Today

The post Google Maps SEO, How to get top rankings and improved search results in Google’s local search listings appeared first on eVision Online Marketing.

Often when people search for companies or specific  products and services there are reviews in the search engine listings even is people don’t specifically search for reviews (More and more people do search for reviews too).

A quick example. A Facebook friend’s daughter posted that they were going zip lining in our area one day so I sent her a message, “Sounds like fun. Where is it?”

She sent me the name of the place and the town it’s in. I searched for it on Google. All I wanted was to find their web site, check it out, get the hours, that kind of stuff.

However near the top of the search results was a Yelp review about the place, so I read it. The review was pretty negative as was the only other Yelp review. So I searched for more reviews by searching on the name of the place and adding “reviews” to my search. I found about 5 more reviews. Most of them where also negative talking about lots of opening season problems. So I’ll wait till next season and hope they listened to the reviews and fix the problems!

Ask for Reviews
You should consider asking your clients for reviews like Amazon.com does. A few weeks after buying something you’ll get a message from Amazon asking for feedback in their customer rating system.

Many shopping sites run their own customer rating systems, like Amazon, or use a shared review system like Power Reviews. Most ask for reviews.

You should consider asking for reviews too. Otherwise you could end up with mostly negative reviews.

Its human nature, many people will not take the time to write a review unless they are upset. So reviews can tend to be mostly negative.

You should be able to improve your ratings if you ask for reviews (assuming you have mostly satisfied customers!)

You can ask for reviews even if you don’t have your own customer rating system just point them to the best online review site.

Find what review sites are best for you
First search to see what reviews sites are best for your company and industry.

Search on your company and product names and add “reviews” to the search phrase.

Search on your competitors’ names and their product and service  names and add “reviews” to the search phrase

Search on generic product and services for your industry and add “reviews” to the search

Send a message to some existing clients
You can send a message out to some existing clients if it hasn’t been too long since they purchased or used your service etc.

See “How to Ask for Customer Reviews” on salesandmarketing.com in the ”For More info” section below for some tips; such as not sending out a blanket blast to all clients as this could back fire.

Set up a system to send a message to new customers
Have a message sent to new customers after just enough time has passed for them to have used your product or uservice long enough.

Tip – If you find more than one important review site you can cycle the messages for each review site.

You could just ask them to “please provide your feedback”. You might also mention it you’re not happy, “please call us at xxx-xxx-xxx. We’d appreciate the opportunity to correct the issue”

If you offer something to get them to write a review you want to make sure it doesn’t cross the line and look like you’re paying for reviews (See How To Ask For Customer Reviews – Nicely. Tips and examples, below)

Include simple step by step instructions on how they should do the review (I may post an article or a video on how to submit Google Maps Reviews in the future)

For more info

“How to Ask for Customer Reviews” – Tips from Sales & Marketing Magazine

“How To Ask For Customer Reviews – Nicely”. Tips and examples

Your Customers are talking about you! And your potential customers are listening!

The post Ask for customer reviews. Good reviews = more business (And will likely help your local search rankings) appeared first on eVision Online Marketing.

People ask me for information on a topic and even I have a hard time finding the relevant articles in our blog.

So I’m going to produce occasional blog posts that list and summarize all or most of the relevant articles on a topic.

Below are 4 articles about optimized press releases from the eVision blog (and others) over the past year or so (see below for a similar article about social media) –

• 4 Reasons to Submit Optimized Online Press Releases (Plus tips and resources for writing and distributing online press releases)

Online optimized press releases are a promotion and SEO tool that is even more beneficial now because of Blended Search results.

In this post: 4 reasons to submit optimized online press releases, the short term and long term benefits, plus tips and resources for writing and distributing online press releases.

• Getting Press Releases and Article Ideas Accepted by Publications

Tips to get your press releases and article ideas noticed and accepted by publications (both print and online publications) including researching the publication and specific reporters, checking the publications editorial calendar for upcoming topics, and contacting the right people at the publications, by Michael O’Brien, Senior Account Executive, Marx Communications.

•  Is The Effectiveness of Optimized Online Press Releases Declining?

There’s no doubt that the effectiveness of online press releases has diminished over the past two years [This article was written in January 2008] because of the explosive growth of submissions (it’s much harder to get noticed than it use to be) and due to the growth of social media.

We still believe that online press releases are well worth the effort (they’re a relatively low cost marketing tool). However, they should be just a part of an online marketing campaign that includes focusing on social media as appropriate too.

• Optimized Press Release Case Study

This article is a couple of years old, but it’s a good case study from an actual client that demonstrates the effect of a series of optimized press releases on the number of “quality” long term incoming links to a web site.

More Information

5 Useful Social Media Posts from The eVision Blog – Here are some useful blogs about social media from the eVision blog (and others) over the past year or so.
 

 

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The post 4 optimized press release articles from the eVision Blog appeared first on eVision Online Marketing.

You should understand what Blended Search Results is and start taking steps to prepare for it.

Universal or Blended Search Results is actually an opportunity that could lead to more click throughs to your site and the web sites and web pages on other sites that you have influenced.

What is Universal or Blended Search Results?
Universal or “blended search” results is a “blending” of results on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP) including web pages, video, news, images, financial data, etc

You may have noticed the links at the top of the Google SERPS for some years now (see screenshot below):

For some time the main Search Engine Results Page included mostly files such as HTML web pages and PDF’s, etc. Most searchers saw the default listing of 10 files on each SERP, that is they saw“10 Blue Links”.

If you wanted to see, for example, some image results on a topic you searched on, you needed to click on the Images link at the top of the SERP. These additional search results, called Vertical search, have not being used much. Many people ignore them or are unaware of them.

With Blended Search, more and more, the major search engines will be including many types of results in the main Search Engine Results Page.

Here are some examples.
This first one is from a presentation I gave at a direct marketing conference for Eastern Europe in Ukraine this past May. One of Jessica Simpson movies was one of the top movies there over the past year so I searched on her name as an example.

Near the top of the first page of search results a few sample images were displayed (see below) along with a link to see more images:

A little further down in the search results a News item was listed (see screen shot below) along with a link to see more news articles. Also notice the Wikipedia result at the top of the screen shot.

Here’s another example, this one for a search on “Titanic Movie” (which was also a bit hit in Ukraine). Notice the YouTube Video links in the search results below (and of course a Wikipedia result):

What does it mean? What should we do? Some Optimization Tips
The Landscape is changing. It won’t be the “10 blue Links” we’ve been used to in the future. Because of the blending of result types – images, video etc together with the web pages/files – there will often be less than 10 web pages or files on a results page.

The results will include more than the HTML web pages and PDF’s we’ve been used to. The search results will include images, videos, news, financial data, etc.

Work on getting results from more of these sources –

Video & images

News (press releases, promotion, mentions in articles, good works that others write about, etc)

Social media. If you also focus on other areas of social media, such as blogs, reviews, company and personal profiles, submission sites etc you’ll get more results in the SERPS (see below for a link to a post with some tips on social media below) 

Do this and you could dominate the Search Engine Results Page for your own organization, product and services names and influence many of the results in the SERPs from other web sites for important topics (search phrases).

For More Information

Here’s a post with some tips for participating in social media

“The Beginning of the End? Or the End of the Beginning?” Article by Kevin Ryan at Search Engine Watch

Optimizing PDFs for Search Engines

The post Universal or Blended Search Results: What is it? Optimization Tips appeared first on eVision Online Marketing.