EVERGREEN, COLORADO – Unnatural linking warnings via the Google Webmaster Tools are quite common now. A lot of SEOs and webmasters have been receiving such notifications through their GWT accounts. However, analyzing a site’s backlinks profile is not a cakewalk, particularly when you have tons of them. In any case, bad links (whether internal or external) can do serious harm to your website’s or blog’s search rankings. That’s why it’s vital to put things in order before you get the much-feared Google slap.

Whether externally or internally, there are some specific types of backlinks that you should avoid at all cost. Given below are eight of such links that can quickly impact the rankings of your site negatively in search engines like Google.

#1. Irrelevant Links
Whether it’s about linking out or getting linked, links have got to be relevant. After Google rolled out its Penguin update, link relevance has become an issue you can’t ignore anymore. Links that fall outside of your own niche are considered to be irrelevant by Google because they are not of any help to the user.

What benefit does a blog that caters to the SEO industry intend to bring to its target audience by linking to or getting linked by an “obscure sport bike lights site,” for example? Trying to build backlinks from sites with a high page rank that don’t fall under your niche, therefore, is an unethical SEO practice.

Whether you link to someone or somebody links to your site, link relevance must never be ignored. Period.

#2. Paid Links
Buying links to blast your way to the top of Google search engine results is a serious SEO crime. John Mueller, a popular Googler, made it quite clear that if you have been buying links for the last three years, you should go back three years and get those paid links removed. John further advised not to wait out search rank penalties, as it can take months or years to recover.

#3. Link Farm Links
Link farming is a technique that’s used to create tons of backlinks for a site over a short span of time. The fact of the matter is that the aforementioned technique has only one goal – to build backlinks.

While using the link farm technique, pros create a network of websites hosted with different Web hosting companies. The main purpose of building this entire network is to quickly build tons of backlinks. For this very reason, link farms are at the top of Google’s hit list.

#4. Dead or Broken Links
It happens that a high percentage of external links are broken or dead over a period of time. Or else, links that you published a long time back do not lead to the same content anymore. Whether links are broken internally or externally, they put a damper on the overall quality of your site. Though a couple of dead or broken links may not actually bring trouble, they can be the cause of a site’s loss of rankings when they accumulate. So don’t get your site’s SEO devalued by having too many broken links. Keep a regular watch!

For checking website URL errors, you can log into your Google Webmaster’s account and click “Crawl Errors” under the Health section in the left navigation.

#5. Repetitive Anchor Text Links
Anchor text has been manipulated for years. It’s due to this ongoing manipulation that Google began to take on this seriously. If you repeat anchor text only for the sake of appearing at the top of search engines like Google, you should expect a Google penalty anytime soon (if you aren’t hit yet). To avoid such penalties, you should always remember to add as much diversity to your anchor text as possible. Quit obsessing over the money keywords.

#6. Too Many Links from One Source
This is something that not many webmasters know. There are several cases where a site was penalized only because it had too many links pointing back to its domain from one single source.

To make your site’s backlinks profile look natural to search engines, adding variety is one of the key things you can do. It’s a good idea to get links from .net, .edu, .com, .org and country-specific domains to make your site’s backlinks profile more robust and natural.

#7. Junk Directory Links
Beware of bot-powered directory submissions! Mass submitting your site to hundreds or thousands of junk directories to loophole your way to the top of search engine results is now history. Most of the generic website directories are already dead, i.e. de-indexed by Google.

“Once you get beyond the top tier (Yahoo, Business.com, DMOZ etc), are there any directories that are worth being listed in? It depends. First, you want to navigate to the directory page you are likely to be listed on, copy that URL, and search for it in Google. Look for the cached date to see when the page was last crawled. The longer it has been, the worse it is: anything more than 45 days is trouble, anything more than 75 days is a real danger sign,” says Michael Gray of the Wolf Howl.

Getting backlinks from directories that nobody uses doesn’t improve your SEO in any way.

#8. Blog Network Links
You might have heard about the fall of Build My Rank, a popular blog network. It was pulled down by Google on March 19. Google is in a war against anyone or anything that tries to manipulate its search rankings. Therefore, it’s highly recommended not to use any similar blog or link networks for building too many links overnight. Relying on a single blog network for your site’s backlinks is an entirely bad decision.

Did you analyze the backlinks profile of your site yet? Please feel free to talk back in comments.

TAMPA, FLORIDA – Here’s something I’ve noticed in the five years that I’ve been involved in SEO copywriting: too many people (writers included, at times) don’t know what it takes to make a good press release.

Courtesy of businessonrails.co.uk

They understand the benefits of submitting press releases to posting/distribution sites to generate quality, in-bound links back to their websites. But they often invest considerable effort in writing them, only to have their releases turned down by the likes of sites such as PRWeb, PRLeap, or PressRelease365, just to name a few examples.

So if you are an SEO writer or a do-it-yourselfer interested in improving your site’s rank on Google, I offer the following tips to writing a press release that will get published by these valuable posting/distribution sites.

1. Think “Timely”
Timely, late-breaking news tends to be good press release material. I often use this as my rule of thumb: if it happened last month, it’s happening this month, or it will happen next month, it’s timely. So if your business celebrates an anniversary in July, you want to write about it in June, July or August- not in December. Other timely news that can make a good release includes: speaking engagements, conference attendance, television or radio appearances and special events.

2. Celebrate Milestones & Other Significant Occasions
Have you broken a sales record? Reached a new high in subscribers to your website’s blog or your company’s publication? Added a member to your leadership team? Been published in a prestigious trade publication? All of these are items worthy of a press release. Think about the things going on in your company that are truly worth bragging about. Chances are that’s a press release just waiting to be written.

3. Consider What is Newsworthy
This one can really trip up people. What’s newsworthy to you make not garner a second look from an outsider, so remember your audience. If you’re trying to increase Google ranking while also reaching new customers or clients with these releases, think about what might interest your constituency. Introducing a new product or service, upgrading equipment that streamlines a process for your customers, opening an additional location or debuting a newly redesigned website are examples. Other examples are making a charitable contribution to an organization, hosting a webinar, rebranding your business and offering a free service.

4. Myth-busting
Every industry has myths. What are the most common myths, misperceptions and outright falsehoods in your industry? Clear up that confusion in a press release and increase your own credibility at the same time.

5. Offer a Tip Sheet
Everyone loves advice from an insider or a subject matter expert. If you’re a vacation rentals company in the Caribbean, offer 10 tips for staying safe while traveling abroad. An orthodontist might write about the five most important questions to ask an orthodontist when considering the best professional to provide your treatment. A software provider may offer a tip sheet on the eight benefits of using their cloud-based software system.

I could go on all day about possible press release topics. If you use any of the search engine optimization firms that focus a great deal of effort on generating content for your website on a routine basis (like Master Google), having a list to jog your memory will help you ensure that you are truly helpful when your writer contacts you to pitch press release ideas. Here’s a quick reference list of topics you might also want to keep handy if you are responsible for writing, pitching or even just approving press releases for your company:

• Study or research results recently released
• Winning an award or other recognition
• Anniversary of when you began working in this industry
• Anniversary of being at your current location
• Sponsoring an event or a local athletic team
• A change in company ownership
• Developing new technology
• Participation in research, testing, pilot programs, etc.
• Endorsements from respected industry leaders or celebrities
• Staff promotions
• Going green
• Holiday-related news
• News related to awareness or health-themed months, weeks or days, such as Breast Cancer Awareness Month, National Children’s Dental Health Month or the Great American Smokeout
• Contests and sweepstakes
• Inspirational stories related to your industry or business
• Offering an expert opinion on a popular trend in your industry
• Community service opportunities

Many press release posting websites offer excellent suggestions for press release topics. Here are some popular links you might consider checking out:

Topics for Press Releases- Find Your Inspiration
The Ultimate Collection of Press Release Topic Ideas
40 Potential Press Release Topics
12 Questions to Uncover Press Release Ideas

The important thing to remember about submitting press releases to posting/distribution sites is that many of them put your submission through an approval process prior to posting it. If it doesn’t rise to the level of a press release, it will be denied. Numerous press release posting sites are free, so you’re not out any money if the release is turned down. But many sites charge a fee. Why invest your time and money into writing and submitting something that goes nowhere?

Follow my guidelines and you’ll be better positioned to never feel the sting of rejection.

EVERGREEN, COLORADO– I think the number of internal links placed on one page is as debatable an issue today as it was a couple of years back, so I thought it would be good to dedicate my new post to this issue.

On March 9, 2009, Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Web spam team, wrote a post on his blog about the reasonable number of internal links that one could place on a single page.

According to Matt, placing less than 100 links on a single Web page was a good SEO practice. At the time, Google would index only around 100 kilobytes of a page.

Today, Google’s crawler is strong enough to index a lot more than just 100 kilobytes of a single page. That means indexing more than 100 internal links on one page is not a problem with Google anymore.

So does it change the rule of the thumb of having fewer than 100 links per page?

Let’s discuss this significant SEO issue in more detail so that we make sure we don’t place any more links than what’s reasonable, and build our sites in line with the Google quality guidelines. It’s always advisable to keep yourself abreast of the key SEO issues so that search penalties don’t bother you.

Is More Than 100 on a Page Spam?
Well, it depends. There are multiple sites that contain more than 100 links on each of their internal pages and yet Google doesn’t penalize them. But there are cases where Google might look at a page that has hundreds of links as being spam. The problem arises when you mess with Google’s quality guidelines. If a single page has tons of links that are hidden or crammed with keywords (for obtaining more SEO value), it’s a clear signal of indulging in spammy tactics.

Otherwise, placing more than 100 internal links on a single page is not something that Google automatically considers as spam.

According to many SEO professionals, it’s not the quantity of internal links on a single Web page that matters. What actually makes a difference is the ratio of the amount of content on a particular page to the number of links it contains. And the recommended content to links (read keywords) ratio is 10 percent.

The Flow of Page Rank
Technically, Google Page Rank of a particular Web page gets divided among all the links that it contains. Therefore, having tons of internal links on one page substantially reduces the amount of PR that each of those links pass along. Conversely, if a page has less links, each of the links will pass more PR.

“At any rate, you’re dividing the PageRank of that page between hundreds of links, so each link is only going to pass along a minuscule amount of PageRank anyway,” Matt was quoted as saying in an interview with Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz.

Let’s not go too deep into the flow of PR internally, as it involves a lot of mathematics. Maybe we can dedicate a new post to that topic soon.

But There’s One More Thing!
Confused? You can easily find sites where one page has more than 300 or 400 or 500 links. Many have 1,000 internal links on a single page. Let’s take an example. You visit a page that contains around 450 links. How many pages are you actually going to visit? If you truly fall for the content, you may be compelled to click three or four links; maybe six at the maximum, right?

Hundreds of links might just bore you. But, who are you?

Yes, the user!

It’s the user who remains above everything else. It’s the user that you have to keep at the top of your mind while placing multiple links on a page. It’s the user who you want to click those links. And you can’t bore or irritate the user by providing them with a huge list of links, can you?

“Links are not magic fairy dust,” says Michael Martinez of SEO Theory. “Links and link structures have limits to the value they may possess and confer. A link in the midst of 1,000 links has relatively little value. Fifty links on a page has more value together than the 1,000 links that used to be there. That is because on a short-linked page, every link on the page IS there for the user — ALL of the users.”

If the user isn’t pleased, Google won’t be either.

Are the internal links on each of your site’s pages placed simply to increase the SEO value? Let’s talk back in comments.

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – The SEO game is fast. Google is constantly changing algorithms. Panda and Penguin updates upset some of the gray- to black-hat SEO work that you’ve already implemented.

The SEO game is also slow. It takes months to build a solid campaign. You work to build links, create great content and share that content with your audience.

How do we know if our efforts are paying off? Maybe we see an increase in site traffic as a result of our labors. Maybe we even see an increase in business. But let’s remember the point of all this blogging, social media sharing, link building and on-page optimization: to sell your product.

With Google Analytics, you can track the exact keywords that lead to customer conversions. Analytics offers different kinds of goal tracking, but before we delve into these, let’s first go over what “Web analytics” means. Master Google’s Manager of Operations Saeed Khosravi defines Web analytics as: “where the visitors (traffic) have come from, what they have done on the site, when their interaction with your site is accomplishing the certain objectives of your site, and then when a conversion has occurred.”

Thanks, Saeed!

About Google Analytics Goals
Google Analytics allows users to use four types of goals to measure success.

First is URL destination. You may be interested in measuring the analytics of users who fill out your contact form or who are directed to a “Download Complete” page.

Second is visit duration. Visit duration, as you may have reasoned, allows you to set a goal based on how long a visitor stays on your page. You may be interested in which pages attract viewers for more than two minutes, or you may want to know if your newly designed pages are doing their job of engrossing viewers.

Third is pages per visit. You may set your magic number at four. Your goal will be met once a visitor visits four pages of your website. This information could help you determine your most popular and least popular content.

Fourth is event tracking. Users can set up any event they wish to see tracked. This could be the download of a certain PDF on your website. It could be clicking a certain button or link.

Google Analytics allows you to set up to 20 goals. There are four sets of goals available with five goals listed in each subset; therefore you can determine up to 20 goals. Decide what goals you would like to track. Think of your endgame. If you sell products from your website, you may want to track the time visitors are browsing on your product pages. If you own a dental office, you may be interested in gaining new clients. In this case, tracking the amount of visitors that schedule an appointment would be a good goal to measure. When you set up a new goal, you’ll have to choose its type – either URL destination, visit duration, page/visit or event.

How to Set up Goals In Google Analytics
Google Analytics gives detailed instructions on setting up goals on their support page, but I’ll give you a quickie version here:

1. Sign in to Google Analytics.
2. Click the “Admin” tab at the top right of the screen.
3. Choose the “Profile” that you want to track. If you only have one profile, don’t worry about this step.
4. Select the sub-tab “Goals.” You will see four sets of goals, and each set will tell you how many goals you have remaining.
5. Add a goal by clicking “+goal.”
6. Give the goal an easily recognizable name.
7. Choose the type of goal you want to track from the ones listed in the section above.
8. Enter the specifics for your desired goal.

How to Determine Converting Keywords
Now that you’ve set your goals in Google Analytics, you can start tracking the converting keywords relevant to your business.

To find your converting keywords:

1. Sign in to Google Analytics.
2. On the left navigation bar, select Traffic SourcesSourcesSearchOrganic.
3. Look for your goals defined above the Visits graph and below the Explorer tab.
4. Select your desired goal.
5. You should now see your converting keywords with detailed analytics below the graph.

Elisa Gabbert at Search Engine Journal discusses how to find converting keywords. She mentions certain types of keywords that regularly show up for Search Engine Journal, including brand keywords, how-to keywords, geographic/location keywords and product keywords.

“You can also use your research to inform your future content marketing efforts, “ Gabbert writes. “When creating and scheduling new content, prioritize keywords that fit into the patterns you identified.”

Knowing your converting keywords will help drive more traffic and more business. Capitalize on keywords with low competition and continue to use the converting keywords that work for your business.

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE – Google continues to improve its social networking platform Google+ to compete with social giants Facebook and Twitter. In January Google introduced Search Plus Your World to integrate personalized results on your search engine results page. Now Google has overhauled their look.

The new Google+ graphical user interface is bigger and more visual. Before the change, all the relevant content – the news stream and profiles – gravitated toward the center of the browser. The new home page takes up the entire browser, making pictures larger and making the news stream more prevalent. Contacts appear on the right side of the window so you can still chat as before. But now “hangouts” are a focus.

Hangouts allow users to video chat with up to nine other people in their circles. Google also let certain users broadcast their video hangouts to the world. They call the broadcasts Hangouts On Air. On May 7, Google opened up Hangouts On Air to all users. The live broadcasts will become more prevalent over the next few weeks as Google lays the groundwork for an outpouring of data. You can broadcast live to a worldwide audience, and you can also see how many people are watching you in real time. Once your live broadcast is complete, Google uploads the video to your YouTube channel and saves the video on your Google+ homepage as a post. President Barack Obama, soccer star David Beckham, and supermodel and TV personality Tyra Banks have all hosted G+ hangouts.

But that’s not the only thing Google’s pulled out of its hat recently. On May 9, Google announced a G+ mobile app for increased sharing capabilities.

“To be clear, we’re not interested in a mobile or social experience that’s just smaller,” Senior Vice President Vic Gundotra writes on the Google blog. “We’re embracing the sensor-rich smartphone (with its touchable screen and high-density display), and transforming Google+ into something more intimate, and more expressive.”

Smartphones are essential to many people’s lives. They use them to check the weather, to check their email, to video chat and to play games. It’s surprising that Google just now unveiled its G+ mobile app, but taking time to perfect its features may pay off in increased user participation.

As soon as I saw that Google released a mobile app I grabbed my iPhone and installed it. (The iPhone app is available now, and Google says the Android version will be released in a few weeks.) The first screen on the mobile app – after signing into your Google account – is to turn instant photo upload on or off. Photos from your mobile device will instantly upload to a G+ album, cutting out the manual uploading for users. Next your G+ stream flows vertically down the screen. The app is highly visual, and if I do say so myself, nicely executed. People in my stream show up in modern, sans serif type and posts have non-invasive +1 buttons that are sleek and intuitive. The posts are also visually-driven, so remember to add a photo to your G+ posts for more eye-catching content.

Releasing google mobile app will help G+ compete with Facebook and Twitter for mobile sharing. Sharing more on G+ means more opportunities for your content to reach a wider audience. Everyone who shares your posts matters, as users in the same circles will have more access to personalized search results. This emphasis on sharing is perfect for organic SEO, as relevant content will likely be shared with interested parties.

I’m interested in what other changes Google will implement to differentiate their G+ platform from Twitter and Facebook. Personally, I think the mobile app and live broadcasts are important steps.

What improvements would you like to see Google+ make to increase their user participation?

EVERGREEN, COLORADO– In the past week, I have spoken to three companies who have all complained about the same problem:

“We were growing in our rankings/traffic and all of a sudden, we dropped…”
“Our traffic dropped after Panda update…”
“We lost rankings for our main keywords when Google updated its algorithm…”

Their stories are very similar:

“We hired this SEO company who was very cheap and at first they did really well…”
“We paid for back-links and it was great for the first couple of months…”

Well… My dear friends, SEO is neither cheap nor easy.

As a matter of fact, in today’s market if you are looking to hire a company that can do cheap SEO for you, shoot yourself in the foot instead. That way, you save your money and the pain you’ll experience is about the same.

Think rationally.

Your competition – the one down the street – got to the top of Google for a good reason. How much money are they taking home each day? Hundreds? Thousands? Don’t you think if it was easy or cheap, then everyone would be at the top?

SEO requires knowledge, experience, tactical planning, hard-core execution, and vigorous analysis. And who do you know who would give you all of that for 100 bucks? I certainly couldn’t. Neither could my team.

Dear blog follower… You’ve seen the kind of advice we give out. You’ve read about our successful clients and you know Google SEO is doable. But always remember nothing good in life comes cheap.

What do you think? Leave your comments.

NASHVILLE, TN – Search engine optimizers from all over flock to Seattle July 25-27 for MozCon 2012. This year’s event at The Westin Seattle was sold out. Speakers from SEOmoz, Distilled, Above the Fold, BlueGlass and SEER Interactive will discuss timely search engine optimization tactics. Attendees can see the MozCon agenda to plan their days at the conference.

SEOmoz, an established SEO firm, hosts MozCon. Last year was the first official “MozCon,” though the conference developed from SEOmoz’s PRO training that has been going on for years. Around 500 attendees came last year, including Matt Hunckler of Slingshot SEO.

“Given the dawn-till-dusk schedule of activities, there were a ton of opportunities to get to know some of the SEO industry’s finest,” Hunckler writes about MozCon 2011. “The group in attendance included some of the sharpest marketers, communicators and tactical geniuses I’ve ever met.”

This year attendees will spend Wednesday through Friday with other search engine enthusiasts, soaking up information during the day and exchanging Twitter handles over cocktails at night.

MozCon probably isn’t the place for someone who’s running his own business and occasionally wading through SEO tips to increase his Google rankings. MozCon is instead for the person who lives, breaths and dreams SEO. (If you are an SEO newbie, here’s an overview of how to start your SEO campaign.)

I won’t be attending the event, but that doesn’t stop me from dreaming about it. A lot of the lectures seem really interesting, and it’s clear from the wide variety of lectures at MozCon that effective SEO encompasses many areas.

I’d like to sit in on the Thursday lecture by Ian Lurie called “How to Earn Links Without Doing Anything.” The description says that Lurie will reveal how to be so “brilliant” online that you won’t need to look for links – they’ll find you instead. I’m guessing this talk with emphasize the importance of not only blogging, but of blogging well and blogging often. Blogging is a key aspect of SEO that we’ve talked about over and over again. We’ll continue to talk about it, too, because it’s essential to getting you to the first page of Google.

I’m sure Rand Fishkin will unload a wealth of information in the 30-minute Friday session How to Build a Content Marketing Strategy. You may be thinking 30 minutes is too short to cover this topic, but if you’ve ever seen Fishkin’s Whiteboard Friday series, you know he can pack a lot of goodies into a limited time frame. (Seriously, take a few minutes to check it out.)

There are also several data-focused lectures to help optimizers measure results. The Attribution Modeling talk from Mike Pantoliano on Friday will help attendees analyze Google analytics organic search results with the help of Excel data organization. Other data driven talks include Badass Excel Tips and Tricks for Your Data, Estimating Traffic Based on Keyword Research, and Link Analytics Through API.

Hopefully when MozCon is over we’ll be able to access some of the SEO wisdom that was imparted there. I will be checking SEOmoz frequently to look for any videos or transcripts from the conference. I’m sure attendees will be blogging and tweeting live from the conference.

Are you bummed you aren’t going? (Me too.) Sign up to receive alerts about MozCon 2013.

Keyword Density is one of the famous SEO terms representing the ratio of times a particular keyword or keyword phrase has been used in the writing, compared to the whole document. In other words, it tells you how frequent a keyword is stated in the writing.

Keyword Density Definition by Amin Vanda

In the late ‘90s, keyword density was the main criteria search engines used to assess relevancy. The higher the keyword density meant the more the relevancy, up to a certain level (about 7 percent was the red line of search engine spamming).

But today, keyword density is just one of the side factors of relevancy measurement along with anchor text linking, domain’s age, popularity, visitors’ count, etc.

Although spamming is not totally defected by search engines, SEO experts often glance at keyword density to avoid over-optimization (keyword-stuffing) of their publications. Most of the article sites have a certain threshold of keyword density to announce an article as promotional, which neither search engines nor SEO companies like.

How Different Google and Yahoo Treat Keyword Density
Based on research presented on goRank.com, by comparing the results of more than 2000 keywords, the following secrets were revealed:

• Yahoo has more of a tendency for more words in a page
• Google and Yahoo have almost equal sensitivity to the page title’s keyword density
• Yahoo prefers less link text words and more keyword occurrence, compared to Google
• Other page elements, such as meta description, meta keywords and H1 tags played the same role for both search engines

How Do I Measure a Key Phrase’s Density?
Using the famous keyword density formula (keyword occurrence ÷ total words x 100 percent), you can determine the percentage of a certain keyword’s density, but today there are some cool prefab SEO tools for this, called Keyword Density Tools, that enable you to measure a certain Web page’s keyword frequency or abundance. Some of these tools depict the results by a list of mostly used keywords and some others show a keyword cloud. WordPress especially presents a plug-in  for your WordPress blogs for illustration of the keywords or tags cloud. This cloud consists of a mass of tiny and giant keywords where bigger words represent higher density.

What Do I Do to Decrease a Keyword’s Density?
Headings, repeated, bolded and italic words in a text will be counted as important by search engines. So a highly styled, excessively keyword-stuffed document is more likely to be punished by the search engines by dropping in page rank. You should never use excessive styling to highlight a keyword for search engines or readers. If your document shows a high frequency of a certain keyword, you can either use other forms of the word, or use its synonyms to decrease the frequency.

Note that excessively keyword-condensed documents will sound unreasonable when read by a real human and thus losing traffic will be minimum of the consequences of this malpractice, so keeping the keyword density between 3 to 7 percent by the optimizer will make it easy to use for Web users and search engines, and consequently result in better page ranking.

ORLANDO, FLORIDA-Have you noticed that your Google Places page looks different yet? Because it probably does as of last month when Google converted approximately 80 million Places pages into 80 million Google+ Local pages. This is a move toward integrating Search, Maps and mobile.

Courtesy of webmarketingpros.com

Users can still access these pages through regular Google search or maps, but that information is now available on a new tab within Google+ called Local. Businesses’ old Google business profile is now a Local+ page that is the home of all important business information, including address, phone numbers, hours of operation, photos, videos and reviews.

The announcement was made by Avni Shah on May 30, a director of product management at Google.  He explained, “Today, we’re rolling out Google+ Local, a simple way to discover and share local information featuring Zagat scores and recommendations from people you trust in Google+.”

Business owners might not even notice the change since managing their local listing is still currently done via Google Places for Business. There is mention of future changes that will allow them to “take full advantage of the social features provided by local Google+ pages” though. That sounds like a Google guarantee that they will continue to push Google+, so get used to it now.

How This Might Change Local SEO
You might be wondering what the difference really is if the user might not notice anything other than an aesthetic change, and the business owner might not notice big changes when it comes to managing their listing. However, there is a big difference between the old Google Place Pages and the new Local+ business profile. These new local business profiles will be indexed. That means they will show up in the search results and, when optimized properly, can be another tool used to get more visibility and a higher SEO ranking.

There are all sorts of ways to spiff up the new business profile, but here are some basic guidelines to help you create a page that appeals to your visitors and the search engine:

1.Keep the About section brief. The introduction section is one of the areas where you can include keywords about your business. Just make sure they fit naturally into what you write there and keep it concise. The address, contact information, hours of operation and category tags show up under the intro, and then the reviews of the business show up under that. Reviews and recommendations are often the biggest influence in people making a decision, so don’t crowd those out with a long-winded explanation of your business. There is a new rating system as well. Zagat’s 30-point scale is being used to score all types of businesses instead of Google’s previous rating system of five stars.

2.Ditch the stock photo. The flexibility of Google+ gives you the option to really display your business. Take advantage of it by showing visitors the new office renovations, a photo tour of the facility, the staff hard at work, or some of the products your business sells.

3.Start asking satisfied customers to leave you a review. Some businesses have had problems with their reviews getting lost in the transition between Google Places to Google+ Local, an issue that Google has acknowledged in the forums. However, there doesn’t seem to be a resolution to the problem at the moment, so focus on getting new reviews. Let your customers know that their feedback is important and valued. Don’t be afraid to make a direct request that specifies what you would like instead of hinting around. Most people aren’t going to be offended by, “I’m so glad to hear that you’re satisfied with the service you received! We would love it if you took the time to write a review on our Google+ Local page that explains what you needed and how we were able to meet that need.”

4.Don’t ignore your reviews. The point of the page is to be social, to develop a following, to discuss and interact. Negative reviews are going to happen. The way you respond to them is the opportunity to define the business. Reach out and try to resolve the problems. Best case scenario is you convert a disgruntled customer into a loyal fan, but if nothing else you are showing all the other potential customers that you genuinely care enough to respond thoughtfully to complaints.

5.Find the Posts’ section sweet spot, somewhere between abandoned looking and spam city. The Posts section is where the action is at, and theoretically where the interacting happens. Don’t let this section sit untouched-the time stamp showing that your last post was four months ago, but try to avoid the mistake at the other end of the spectrum too. Posting link after link to content you’ve posted elsewhere or posts simply promoting yourself is spammy. A conversation should go both ways, so keep throwing “conversation starters” out there.

It might take some people time to get used to the new look and way of managing the page, but the good news is that this transition has the potential to transform local search and how local businesses can get to the first page on Google. The discussion online amongst the SEO experts about the switch has been mixed-some love it, some hate it. Wherever you fall on that continuum, hopefully you’ve gotten a few ideas for the new business profile.

EVERGREEN, COLORADO — Great SEO is all about establishing a long-term relationship with search engines.

To rank at the top of search engines, you should be able to “woo” the search engines as well as the users. If you continue to tweak your website without getting any considerable boost in the SEO, it’s time to take a microscopic look at what you’re doing and whether you’re doing it the right way.

Courtesy of blog.karachicorner.com

Most importantly, you shouldn’t get caught up in SEO trends. According to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, SEO experts should concentrate more on the fundamental tasks that will win visitors for the long-term. You can never expect a site to rank in the top 10 search results without having any idea why it’s useful to searchers. Sadly enough, many exist in the SEO field that would burn the midnight oil trying to find out the latest trick to loophole their way to the top of search engine rankings.

Getting obsessed with the latest tricks won’t help. Instead, you need to stick to the fundamentals to achieve the best SEO results, and that will increase the stickiness of your site. You’ll never be able to boost your website’s SEO until you know:

What Your Ideal Customer Looks Like
Without identifying who your target audience is, you can never direct your online business marketing and SEO efforts in the right direction. Webmasters make the biggest mistake when they start to make search engines the target of their SEO campaigns. Your target audience is the group of people that has a keen interest in buying a product or using a service that you have to offer.

Do you know who those potential clients and customers are?

If not, you should first identify what a potential client for your business actually looks like. You need to define an ideal customer on the basis of key demographics like age, geographic location, hobbies, marital status and income range, among others.

By knowing what an ideal customer for your business looks like, you place yourself in a better position to use your customers’ vocabulary. In addition, it opens your doors to many other potential online marketing opportunities. Therefore, identify your target market so that you know where to focus your strategies and produce the kind of content that will provide real value.

Who Your SEO Rivals Are
Identifying your competitors tells you how tough the search optimization task is going to be for you. If you have offline companies as competition, for example, it might be possible to get a leg up quickly. That is because they usually don’t do the best SEO or have a flash-based site that doesn’t have good rankings. Or you may face competition that’s already well-established in the world of search engines. You may also need to compete with bigger brands.

Though gathering competitive intelligence is a time-consuming task, it’s extremely useful in terms of targeting the right keywords or knowing the types of backlinks your competitors are using.

“Understanding what your competitors are doing online is a must and absolute priority when launching a new website that is entering a competitive space and also when established websites want to keep an eye on their competition” says Loren Baker, the founding editor of Search Engine Journal.

By keeping a close watch on the competition, you will be able to find answers to important questions including –

What are they doing to boost on-page SEO?
What link building strategies they are using?
What potential keywords are they focusing on?
How active are they in terms of search engine optimization?
What SEO tactics have the greatest impact?
What’s their presence in the social media space like?

By keeping a close watch on your competitors’ strategies, you’ll be able to learn more, know what really works and fine-tune your own SEO strategies depending on the specific requirements.

How to Stay Fresh (and Relevant)
To take the SEO of your website to the next level, staying fresh is one of the best recommendations. Always remember to keep the content on your websites up-to-date. To stay ahead of the competition, you should focus on building a solid social media presence as well. If your target audience also comprises mobile device users, you should consider creating mobile-friendly versions of your website.

In any case, don’t forget to be relevant.

Do you think your SEO is headed in the right direction? Please feel free to talk back in the comments.