Be Aware of Common SEO Mistakes: SEOFailBlog.com wants you to know that they’re watching for a variety of mistakes. From incorrect footer links, to a Google related searches fail, SEO Fail Blog puts the spotlight on bad practices.

Understand the Audience of New Platforms: Google+ is an amazing new tool for communication, but one that clearly wasn’t appreciated by Steve Yegge, an employee at Google, when he accidentally told the world about his misgivings with the new platform a few months ago. In a memo meant for Google employees on Google+, Yegge forgot one important thing: to click private instead of public post when sharing a blog. Read the now infamous memo on TechnoBaboy.com. One of the most shocking excerpts is of Yegge’s complaint that Google+ is simply a “prime example of our complete failure to understand platforms from the very highest levels of executive leadership, down to the very lowest leaf workers. We all don’t get it. The Golden Rule of platforms is that you Eat Your Own Dogfood.” Yegges was quick to post an apology. Let us all be considered warned about checking our settings twice.

Impatience With SEO Results: Quality takes time. Do not fear if a project has taken six weeks and the results are minimal. As you build links and prominence with Google, the people will click, according to Husayni.

“If people expect huge results in a very short period of time, they are bound to be disappointed,” he says. “Search engine optimization is an ongoing process that takes time, especially if the website has been in trouble for bad SEO practices in the past.”

Effectiveness with SEO pays off, after all. As it relates to Google search results in the orthodontic field, Husayni notes that, depending on location, there can be an increase in yearly income ranging from $50,000 to as much as $300,000.

“Americans performed 15.5 billion searches in 2010, and around 80 percent of customers research a product or service before making a purchase,” Husayni says. “So it doesn’t matter if you are offering dog grooming services, consulting or selling exotic cars, you want potential clients to be able to find you.”

StatCounter Global Stats—the company’s research outlet—reported that Chrome took 25.69 percent of the world market in November, with Firefox trailing just behind at 25.23 percent. Just two years ago, Chrome held only 4.66 percent of the global market.

Chrome’s huge jump was not enough to surpass Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, which maintains a strong lead with 40.63 percent.

“We can look forward to a fascinating battle between Microsoft and Google as the pace of growth of Chrome suggests that it will become a real rival to Internet Explorer globally,” said StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen in a press release. “Our stats measure actual browser usage, not downloads, so while Chrome has been highly effective in ensuring downloads, our stats show that people are actually using it to access the Web also.”

In the United States, Chrome still holds just 17.3 percent of the user market. Firefox retains second place with 20.09 percent, falling far behind the clear winner, Internet Explorer, with 50.66 percent of the U.S. market. Although Chrome sits in third place, the browser has made a sizable leap from last year’s 10.89 percent.

According to rival statistics released by Net Applications, an Aliso Viejo-based Web analytics firm, Google Chrome will most likely become the second most popular browser by mid 2012.

In any case, Google’s recent growth as a Web browser, search engine and social media platform is great for those marketing their business on the Internet, especially those focused on Google SEO.

Owner and founder of Master Google, Ali Husayni, is setting the record straight about at least one source of information.

On October 31, Jason Hiner—TechRepublic’s Editor-in-Chief—wrote an article about Google’s newest algorithm update, named Panda. He cited SEO as one of the main reasons for which Google revamped its page ranking system. Hiner claimed that SEO merely helps Web sites get ranked as high as possible on Google search results, regardless of relevancy to the searcher’s query.

“As a result, the sites that land at the top of Google search results have become more about which sites are best optimized rather than the ones that have the best and most relevant content,” Hiner wrote.

Husayni refuted the ungrounded assumption, saying that he’s simply confusing SEO with black hat SEO.

Black hat SEO breaks search engine rules and regulations. It is unethical. According to Husayni, the difference between black hat SEO techniques and Master Google’s SEO efforts is clear: Master Google has morals.

“Optimization, fresh content and encouraging other sites or people to recommend our clients’ Web sites are all valid business practices,” Husayni said. “They are even approved by Google.”

“Google needs SEO companies to better understand sites,” he added. “In essence, we are enhancing the ability of Google crawlers to index and understand sites.”

Hiner also stated that social media platforms were threatening Google’s relevance, forcing the search engine to launch Google+. “Social media has been replacing traditional web search for many different kinds of information gathering…” he said.

But Husayni said, “It cannot.”

“Social media is what it is and it will certainly help your search results, based on what your friends or circles suggest,” he said. “But it cannot and will not replace Google as a search engine.”

Husayni said that there are several reasons Google has nothing to fear, one being that a social media platform cannot index every site or page. It’s also susceptible to spam, just like other search engines, he added.

However, Google did need to add Google+ to compete with rivals, like Facebook and Twitter, Husayni asserted.

“It was essential for Google to start generating money through ads placed on social media sites, especially after the enormous amount gained by Facebook and Twitter this way,” Husayni said. “They also sought to customize their search results based on social connections. In theory, this will return much more relevant results.”

Hiner went on to say that Google’s Panda update caused “collateral damage,” weeding out sites that actually have good content and still ranking spam higher.

Husayni, on the other hand, thinks that the update has done wonders for Google searchers, achieving the exact results it was intended for.

“Panda was a powerful update and it cleared the air from content farms and base sites, those that spammed searchers with lots and lots of content or duplicated text,” Husayni explained.

Despite Hiner’s opinions, Husayni thinks that Google is stronger than ever, with SEO being a valid contributor to their success.

“There is always going to be manipulation,” Husayni said. “Some people are going to use frowned-upon techniques to boost their site’s ranking, but that is black hat SEO. I hope that Master Google’s honest SEO services will raise the standards of the industry.”

For more information about how the experts at Master Google can improve your Google ranking using ethical techniques, be sure to visit www.mastergoogle.com. For inquiries or to set up a free consultation with Ali Husayni, call Master Google toll free at 1-877-932-6559.

The new facet of the social media platform, dubbed Google+ Pages, allows businesses to add their own content so that fans can stay connected “to the sports teams [they] root for, the coffee shops [they’re] loyal to and the TV shows [they] can’t stop watching,” Google Senior Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundotra said in a blog post this morning.

“So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people,” Gundotra said. “But we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about—from local businesses to global brands—so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.”

Social networking rivals, such as Facebook and Twitter, have long accepted business accounts. In fact, building a corporate presence on these sites has become an essential part of marketing your business on the Internet.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that—since its initial release in June—many businesses eager to get on Google+ established personal accounts to advertise their companies, but were forced out by Google as early as July. Terminated account holders, however, were consoled by the promises of corporate accounts in the future.

A week later, Google Product Manager Christian Oestlian posted an announcement to his Google+ page that a pilot program to test business accounts was in the works, to which thousands applied. Already, businesses such as Macy’s and Coca-Cola have begun using their Google+ Pages.

And for good reason. As if the release of Google+ Pages wasn’t enough excitement, Google also revealed two perks to having a business account.

“Today’s launch of Google+ Pages can help people transform their queries into meaningful connections, so we’re rolling out two ways to add pages to circles from Google search,” Gundota explained. “The first is by including Google+ pages in search results, and the second is a new feature called Direct Connect.”

According to Gundota, the Direct Connect feature guides users that type “+” before their query to the relevant Google+ page. For example, those searching for “+Pepsi” will be immediately redirected to the beverage’s Google+ page.

In addition to the aforementioned features, Google+ gives businesses the freedom to add friends or companies to their circles, interact with customers via Hangout video conferencing, attract followers and share information about themselves. Google+ Pages offer unique capabilities that Gundota is sure the corporate world will love.

“Not only can [fans] recommend you with a +1, or add you to a circle to listen long-term,” Gundota said. “They can actually spend time with your team, face-to-face-to-face. All you need to do is start sharing, and you’ll soon find the super fans and loyal customers that want to say hello.”

On October 11, comScore, Inc.—a global leader in digital business world analytics—released its monthly analysis of the nationwide search market, revealing that 65.3 percent of searchers typed their queries into Google’s search box. During the same month-long period, second place market shareholder Yahoo fell to 15.5 percent, trailed by Microsoft’s Bing that remained unchanged at 14.7 percent.

Ali Husayni, SEO expert and founder of Master Google, said that Google’s increase was predictable, considering the company’s history of technological innovation.

“With Google being the cutting edge provider of search, it’s only natural for their search market to grow,” he said.

Husayni said that Google’s recent raise in market shares validates Master Google’s concentration on the search engine giant.

“It reiterates our thought process in developing our SEO strategies to focus on Google alone,” Husayni said. “Ranking on Google is what generates new business, which is our goal for every one of our clients.”

Following the release of the comScore report, shares of Google increased by $22.05, amounting to $537.17, compared with Yahoo, which rose just 37 cents to $15.84 and Bing, which climbed 69 cents to reach $26.94.

“Business owners should be aware that, in order to stay in business and grow, they need to be found on Google search results,” Husayni added. “That is the bottom line. If your business is not on Google, your business is doomed.”

Google’s third quarter results, which were announced October 13, reported revenues of $9.72 billion. “We had a great quarter,” said Larry Page, CEO of Google, in a press release posted on Google Investor Relations. “Revenue was up 33 percent year on year and our quarterly revenue was just short of $10 billion. Google+ is now open to everyone and we just passed the 40 million user mark. People are flocking into Google+ at an incredible rate and we are just getting started!”

The wealth of new search features and social networking components is what sets Google apart from the competition, Husayni said.

“The search results are not diluted or full of spam,” he said. “They have a very sophisticated, fast-paced way of analyzing sites and their relevancy to a particular query. What’s more, their development of Google+ is a good alternative to Facebook and Twitter.”

Husayni said that, in light of Google’s imminent monopoly of the search market, the Master Google team will continue becoming better at optimization strategies specifically geared toward Google crawlers.

“Now there is going to be even more competition for Google placement,” Husayni said. “And Master Google will certainly rise to the challenge.”

Why? Google has failed at least twice to come up with a better social media platform than the most popular onces: Facebook and Twitter. It launched Orkut and Buzz and both had minimum success except in some countries such as Brazil.

Google just announced that it is going to launch a new social media platform called Google Plus Project.

Now, “Google+ grew out of those mistakes”, say Mr. Gundotra and Mr. Horowitz who both worked on Buzz. Bradley Horowitz is a vice president of product management at Google who is leading the social media efforts with Vic Gundotra.

I personally don’t like Facebook because whatever I post is available to almost anyone (unless you have the time and are savvy enough to manage your privacy settings vigorously).  I only post items on Facebook or Twitter if I don’t mind that everyone I know or don’t know will see them. Well, that’s what Google wants to bank on.

“In real life, we have walls and windows and I can speak to you knowing who’s in the room, but in the online world, you get to a ‘Share’ box and you share with the whole world,” said Horowitz.

Google+ looks very much like Facebook, but it is going to be different in many ways. It will mimic the way people relate to one-another in real life. You don’t have to accept to be someone’s friend to see their updates, for instance; or you can monitor what your friends see on your page to ensure private photos are not viewed by everyone.

Also, you’ll have the option to video-chat, which is going to be a big plus compared to Facebook.

I personally hope this becomes another success for Google. After all, I am a Google fan.

The visits included Gmail, YouTube and Google search users.

This indicates that Google is still the main player in the search market and the strongest online company on the face of the Earth. For many years we have prompted our SEO clients to focus on Google and this is added proof that we have advised our clients correctly.

Ranking well on Google search results means that you will receive hundreds or thousands unique visitors that are looking for your kind of services and products. Promoting your site through Google search results is the most cost-effective way of earning new clients.

Our SEO clients constantly rank at the top of search results. Contact us to learn what we can do for you.

Since 1999, the Americans have never had such a positive attitude toward corporate America.

Google ranked #1, replacing Berkshire Hathaway, which fell to fourth place. Johnson & Johnson ranked second, followed by 3M Company at third. Apple’s reputation has been growing steadily since 2002 and is now ranked as #5.

The poll asked 30,000 Americans to rate top 60 most visible companies based on their leadership, social responsibility, vision, emotional appeal, financial performance, products and services, and workplace environment.

This is another reason why being ranked on Google is important. The general public sees Google as reputable and it trusts the sites that rank well on Google.

Today, we’re tackling the element of search engine marketing and what it means to businesses who have an Internet presence.

Search engine marketing promotes websites through pay-per-click advertising, paid placement and contextual advertising, says Ali Husayni, our resident SEO expert who founded Master Google.

When it comes to PPC advertising, Google Adwords and Facebook are popular- and arguably successful- marketing platforms, Husayni says.

AdWords
Google AdWords enables you to create advertisements that show up on relevant Google search results pages and the network of Google’s partner sites, according to information posted by Google.

You may wonder how Google Adwords works. Bright Hub explains it as a service that enables you to market your website via customized, premium placed advertisement links. These advertisements appear at the top and on the right side of Google’s direct search results pages, and they appear as a result of keywords the advertiser has associated with their ad. The ads also appear on blogs and other websites that utilize Google Adsense and contain your keywords used in your advertisement.

How much you spend on this type of advertising is completely up to you, but costs vary according to the competitiveness of your keywords. You only pay when a user clicks your ad- hence, the name pay-per-click.

“The more you spend, and the more wisely you spend, the more people will visit your site,” Husayni says.

Paid placement enables you as an advertiser to bid payments to a search engine so your service or product is visible in keyword search results. With Google Adwords, bidding higher than others for a specific keyword can enable your ads to rank higher on Google search engine page results than ads from your competitors who aren’t paying as much per click.

“Google AdWords is as important as SEO,” Husayni says. “That’s because there are people who only click on the advertisements, and not the organic search results, and vice versa. Participating in both enables businesses to capture everyone on their search results.”

Our research indicates that although 70 percent of Internet users ignore the “sponsored links” altogether, the majority of the rest only rely on ads to find the services and products they’re looking for.

“So, not having an SEM campaign means you’re losing potentially 30 percent of your clients to your competitors,” Husayni adds.

Facebook Ads
“Facebook ads have become a hot topic,” says Husayni, a top SEO expert. “You can specifically target a demographic that you want. It’s very sophisticated.”

With more than 500 million users, Facebook has become a force to be reckoned with. The social media site allows you as an advertiser to be extremely specific in selecting your target audience by enabling you to select people in certain age groups, in particular geographic locations and with specific interests. The advertising mechanism also provides a great deal of flexibility.

“You can try an ad for a few hours or a couple of days and if it doesn’t generate the traffic you had hoped for, you can alter your audience,” Husayni says.

You can control the advertising cost by setting daily budgets, and they can be adjusted whenever you choose. Like Adwords, you can choose a PPC option, or you can pay per time that your ad is seen.

© 2011 Master Google. Authorization to post is granted, with the stipulation that Sinai Marketing is credited as sole source. Linking to other sites from this press release is strictly prohibited, with the exception of herein imbedded links.

SEO expert Ali Husayni, founder of Master Google, said there are ways in which the social media outlet can help businesses gain customers.

LinkedIn- A Brief History
First, a bit about LinkedIn. Created in 2002 and officially launched in May 2003, it is the world’s largest professional network, according to the LinkedIn website.

LinkedIn is sometimes unofficially referred to as “Facebook for professionals.” As of March 2011, it had more than 100 million users located in 200 countries. LinkedIn users conducted nearly two billion people searches last year.

Gaining Clients Via LinkedIn
“When you have an outlet with so many users, you have an opportunity to gain clients,” Husayni said. “Add to that the fact that it appears LinkedIn is becoming increasingly savvy regarding SEO for its users and the effect on Google ranking, and as an SEO expert, suddenly you have my attention.”

Randy Schrum, president of a social media solutions company dubbed My Corporate Media, shared information in a recent webinar on tips to jumpstart an individual’s LinkedIn presence.

Schrum recommends using a professional photo as your profile picture. It also is important to complete your social profile by including an engaging headline that explains to people how you can help, he said. He suggests including keywords in this headline.

Husayni said businesses and professionals, such as dentists, orthodontists, realtors and attorneys, could use these same methods to promote the services they offer. It appears to Husayni that the developers at LinkedIn clearly understand the power of search tools and are seeking to increase that power on LinkedIn.

“I believe that is the reason why they recently added a new section in which users can enter information about their skills and assets,” Husayni says.

This new section allows users to highlight those things that separate them from the pack, so to speak. Users can enter languages they speak, patents, certifications and publications. Businesses can use this section to enter the types of services offered, because LinkedIn enables users to search companies by attributes, descriptions and more. Spotlighting these items moves personal and business profiles up in search queries, according to information posted on the LinkedIn Web site.

“Entering keywords into your profile information is like a mini, do-it-yourself search engine optimization campaign,” Husayni says. “This has the potential to help businesses and professionals attract clients when potential clients conduct searches on the site.”

When optimizing a profile on LinkedIn, the person with the most keywords wins, Schrum said in the webinar. For example, a realtor in Seattle who wants to appear first on search results for “Seattle Realtor” simply needs to look at the profile that ranks first in that search result, see how many times that phrase is used in their profile, and use it more times than their competitor.

Why Bother?
“Why not?” Husayni questioned. “Why not use all of the tools at your disposal?”

For business owners who are interested in SEO, it is important to note that profile information on LinkedIn can be fully indexed on Google, which can help a business improve its Google ranking. To take full advantage of this, make sure your profile is fully public, according to an article posted on 10slate.com.

“This is another outlet in which you can use targeted keywords to make sure your page contains words that people are actually searching,” said Husayni, a top SEO expert. “For our SEO clients, this is another avenue where our keyword research for their businesses can be applied.”

Learn More
To learn more about SEO company Master Google and the role that social media can play in SEO, visit www.mastergoogle.com or call toll-free: 877-932-6559; internationally +1-303-932-6559.

About Master Google
Master Google is a search engine optimization firm based in Boulder, Colorado that utilizes knowledge of the Internet market and ongoing research to develop and implement SEO strategies for its clients. It is an affiliate of Sinai Marketing, founded by Ali Husayni in 2004. Husayni serves as the firm’s chief executive officer and SEO expert.
-END-

© 2011 Master Google. Authorization to post is granted, with the stipulation that Sinai Marketing is credited as sole source. Linking to other sites from this press release is strictly prohibited, with the exception of herein imbedded links.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The site is: DoctoroJennifer.com… Some of the keywords are: Minneapolis orthodontist, St. Paul Invisalign, etc.

In the previous parts of this article I narrowed down Google’s interests into three categories: 1) content, 2) relevancy and 3) popularity. We discussed content in Part I, and relevancy in Part II of these series.  Here we focus on popularity.

Popularity of a web page refers to the number and the quality of links pointing to it from other web pages on the Internet world. The more “inbound” links a site has and the more they come from reputable sites (in Google’s eyes), the better your site will rank. This is the most important factor in Google SEO.

Google’s success is mostly due to its decision to rate web pages based on the quantity and quality of the links they receive – much like the academia’s rating of a scientific article. The more an article is used as a source by other scientists, the more authoritative that article becomes.

Google uses the same rating method for all sites: the more a site gets referred to by other sites, the more authoritative it is. In other words, the more links a site has, the better rank it’ll get.

This aspect of Google’s algorithm is based on the principle that sites with good content should naturally be used as sources by other sites. But the older Google becomes, the more difficult it gets for sites to naturally generate the needed link popularity in order to rank at the top of Google search results – despite the quality of their content.

On the other hand, Google frowns upon sites that engage in “black hat” SEO to gain artificial link popularity. So, what are you to do if you want your site to compete for that #1 position in a competitive market?

The answer is not simple.

First, you cannot just sit and wait for others to link their sites to yours. That simply won’t happen. In a world where there are thousands of new sites built everyday, your prospective site visitors have no way of finding you to read your content (unless you already rank on Google). Second, you cannot just write comments on 100’s of blogs or forums to gain the popularity you need (because most of these comments and the links you gain from them have “nofollow” attribute – meaning Google gives them no value. And third, what might have worked six months ago (in successful link-building techniques), may no longer be a good practice.

But there are other ways.

At Master Google, our research and development team works everyday to discover new methods we can use to semi-artificially (and yet naturally) improve our clients link popularity and, therefore, their Google rankings. To help our readers, we share our newest techniques so you can engage in a tried-and-true link-building campaign that will help you improve your rankings on Google. And here is a list of what works for us:

Blogging: we build blogs for our clients and constantly keep them up-to-date with new posts, while linking from them to our clients’ sites.

Directories: we submit our clients’ sites to directories that have a PR3 or more. Here is a list of directories we recommend.

Articles: writing, optimizing and submitting articles to reputable sites helps us gain link popularity for all of our clients. Here is a list of article sites with good page rank.

Press Releases: writing, optimizing and submitting press releases to news sites has huge benefits for our clients. We can improve their rankings immediately when we submit releases for them. Here is a list of SEO friendly press release sites.

Freebies: we offer freebies to those site visitors that link to our clients’ sites.

Competitors: we go after those sites that are linking to our clients’ competitors and request links to our clients’ sites.

Partners: we ask our clients to request links from their partners and/or friends’ sites.

All of the above is much easier said than done. Engaging in all of these techniques requires months of hard labor, a complete understanding of SEO and, of course, cash. Nevertheless, we’ve been able to transform local, small businesses into large-international ones in a matter of a few months by practicing what we preach.

So, if you’re someone who doesn’t have the money to hire a professional SEO company (we mean us… lol), then you need to learn the ropes of SEO. With hard work it’ll take you a couple of years to master the techniques and, after investing some money and a lot of time, you’ll be able to rank your site above everyone else’s. Reading my ebook on Google SEO Secrets revealed will also help you.

Oftentimes, smart business people who have substantial financial backing will delegate important tasks to professionals, instead of spending years mastering what someone else already knows and taking away the focus from their business. If you are one of those smart business people, fill out our form and we’ll be happy to look at your site and see if it qualifies for our Top of Google program.

• What is Google looking for when indexing and ranking your Web site?
• Why is site X ranking number one while your site ranks on the fifth page?
• Site X is not even a good site, so why does Google think it’s better than yours?
• Is it even possible to rank your site above site X?

Google SEO is not magic. Google doesn’t favor any site over the others without clear and measurable calculations. But what are these calculations?

Matt Cutts, Google’s anti-spam guru and SEO spokesman, has said numerious times that Googlebots, or Google Spiders, evaluate over 200 criterium to identify which site should be ranked above the others. In other words, there is a clear formula that these Mega software follow and score each Web page by, assigning each site a number. This secret number sometimes correlates with Page Rank- a number from 1 to 10 given to each Web page by Google- but not always.

The list of what Google looks for on your Web page is secret, but I have narrowed down the most important factors to be what’s written on the site, optimization and inbound links. In other words:

Content + Relevancy + Popularity = Top of Google Rankings

Google’s job is to show search results for any keywords you look for. It is true that Google looks at your Web page as a whole, but, in reality, it’s mostly interested in the content of your site (i.e. text, videos, images).

You might ask “what should I change so that Google likes my content?”

The simplified answer is have lots of original, relevant and fresh content without any grammatical errors. This will support your efforts to attract inbound links.

Original Content

The most important factor is to have original content. When it comes to Google, content that is copied from other sites is a big no-no. I have seen many sites get flagged and unindexed by Google for simply having duplicate content. To protect your site if you have original content, search for it on Google to find possible sites that have copied your content. Sometimes Google makes the mistake of degrading sites with original content because others have copied it.

If you cannot keep up with those that tend to copy your text, you can solve this issue by rewriting your homepage content once a month. That way, you can ensure that you have original content at all times.

Fresh Content

Blogs and news sites are good examples of sites that have fresh content on a regular basis. But if your site’s content remains the same, it is a good idea to rewrite it at least once a month. Google announced in Nov. 2011 that it is now more interested in fresh content.

Keyword-Rich Content

Having your keywords mentioned within your content is also very important. If your site is about selling shoes, make sure you mention selling shoes or synonymous keywords within your content.

What you should stay away from, however, is repeating your keywords more than once. Google will quickly degrade your site if it feels like you’re trying to manipulate it in order to place you higher on the search engine results.

Clean Copy

If your site has grammatical or spelling mistakes, it will negatively affect your site’s ranking. The best thing to do is to hire an editor to review your site’s content. You can get this done rather cheap, sometimes for just $25 per page.

In the next part of this article, I’ll be focusing on relevancy, another important factor in Google SEO.

Keywords are the terms that Google’s users use to seek out a Web site like yours. “For example, if an individual needs a Philadelphia orthodontist who supplies invisible braces, he or she could search for ‘orthodontist Philadelphia’ or ‘braces Philadelphia’ or ‘invisible braces Philadelphia,’” says Master Google’s Ali Husayni. “Those are all possible keywords for a Philadelphia orthodontist’s Web site.”

Some businesses need only one keyword and others use hundreds. If your list of keywords is long, you need to know how to prioritize them. The most important keywords are not always the most popular – because those are frequently very competitive. A national or international keyword like “physical therapy” is a good example.

Devoting your SEO activities and budget to just very competitive keywords means that you probably won’t get the results you’d like. You’ll get exhausted and discouraged after only a couple months. However, if you select your keywords carefully, you can make progress in a fairly short period. “Once less competitive keywords such as ‘physical therapy software’ have worked for you and your business increases, you can allocate more money to SEO and go after the more competitive keywords,” suggests Husayni.

Below are steps for compiling a list of prospective keywords:

1. Spend some time thinking of the words or phrases that guests at your Web site might employ in a Google search.
2. Search for these keywords on Google and visit the Web sites you find on the first page of your search results. Scrutinize those sites to identify other keywords you may not have already pinpointed.
3. Use Google Adwords Keyword Tool to search on one of your keywords. This tool will provide a thorough list of the keywords from the previous month that relate to your original keyword. Add these terms to your keyword list.
4. A different Adwords column displays those keywords’ volume for the past month. So you can learn which keywords were the most popular that month. The greater the search volume, the more vital that keyword is.
5. Some keywords will have fewer than 1,000 searches per month. Delete them from your list. They usually aren’t worth your time.

What you have left is your list of keywords. These keywords can help rank your Web site on any search engine; however, we only work with Google.

Another option is signing up for a service like WordTracker.com whose function is to help you find and evaluate keywords. WordTracker.com can also supply a service similar to Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

Page Rank is the result of Google’s search algorithm, which gives a number to every hyperlinked set of documents as a measure of its importance on the Web. The algorithm assigns each Web site a number from 0 to 10 representing that site’s value to Google. The 0 to 10 scale is logarithmic, like the Richter Scale, so that each number is exponentially harder to achieve than the previous number.

Google does not reveal all the factors that go into determining Page Rank, but the score does depend in part on the number of inbound links for a Web site as well as the quality of the pages providing inbound links. In other words, if site A links to site B, Google interprets that as a “vote” by site A for site B. The weight given to site A’s vote, however, depends on its Page Rank. If there are no links to a Web page, there is no support for that page. Another factor influencing Page Rank is how often the Web site is updated with fresh content.

“We are very pleased to have Master Google’s Page Rank increase so dramatically,” said Master Google CEO Ali Husayni. “Since each number on Google’s Page Rank scale is exponentially harder to achieve than the previous number, the fact that Master Google’s rank has increased so quickly to a 6 is a tribute to the hard work of our employees and the high quality of our Web site’s material. Most SEO Web sites never achieve a Page Rank of 6. So, we’re ranked right up there among the best SEO companies in the world.”

There are many ways to improve your link popularity and therefore your Google Page Rank (PR), but some of the techniques are more controversial than others. The “organic” way is to provide top-notch content and encourage other sites to link to yours.

Although much of Google’s formula for determining Page Rank (or a Web site’s popularity) is secret, they have revealed that the more sites link to your site, and the better Page Rank (PR) these sites have, the more link juice your site will receive.

However, link building the “organic” way can be a slow process and isn’t always guaranteed to work. So, many Web site owners are tempted to use paid links – simply paying 3rd parties to place a link on their sites. The process of buying links for the sole purpose of improving PR is frowned upon by Google and other search engines since they are trying to provide their users with organic search results.

“The best links are not paid, or exchanged after out-of-the-blue emails – the best links are earned and given by choice,” says Matt Cutts, a Google engineer who blogs about these issues. “Google does consider buying text links for Page Rank purposes to be outside our quality guidelines.”

It is important to note that buying links from 3rd party Web sites shouldn’t be confused with paid advertising or Sponsored Links. With paid advertising, search engines have provided a platform where you can pay them directly to place your link on their search results pages – clearly defined as “Sponsored Links.” Usually, you won’t be charged unless someone clicks on the link to your site – thus Pay Per Click is another name for these advertising methods.

Many Web sites do buy links and, done correctly, it can have a positive effect on your Web site’s Page Rank as well as its ranking on Google search results. But, before you start spending your marketing dollars, you should start with a well-organized SEO strategy – which relies on a variety of “white-hat” (and sometimes not-so-much white hat) Google SEO techniques.

If you still think you need a boost from paid links, keep in mind the strategies and cautions below.

Choose Reputable Sites: If you’re link building by buying links make sure the site you are paying for has a high Google Page Rank (PR 5 or above). Remember that your Page Rank increases because of the quality of your links, not just the quantity. Google gives a higher ranking to sites it views as having more organic back-links and offering legitimate content.

You cannot be penalized by placing a link on a link-farm or a site that has been banned by Google, mainly because your competition could have done that in your place. However, that’s just a waste of your time, since the link coming from a link-farm wouldn’t have any value for your site. But this works both ways. Links from reputable sites will increase your site’s PR. Multiply that by an entire network of second-party sites and you’re on the fast-track to success.

Text Links: If you pay someone to provide a link, you want to make sure the link either looks like an organic part of the Web page (like an endorsement of your services) or like an advertisement. If the purpose of a text link is to funnel traffic to your site, then that’s a perfectly acceptable link-building technique. Note that you’re NOT having the link there for improving your PR, although that’s a bi-product (and could well be your main objective). As far as Google is concerned, you have not crossed any lines.

One option is to pay a site to place content with embedded text links leading back to your site. Be careful which words you use as text links. If you use the same text link words over and over on different Web sites, Google’s algorithm may think that your Web site is spamming. Be sure to vary the keywords you use as text links.

Directories: Directories exist for a wide variety of topics and will provide a link to your Web site for free or sometimes for a fee.
When I try to explain the pitfalls of posting links to sites, I remind clients of all the spam and viruses floating about the Web. Now apply that concept to link building. Sometimes it’s not so easy to recognize the sheep from the wolves. In these situations, it’s best to consult with SEO experts before posting links to bad Web sites. Master Google has a lot of experience with guiding its clients through these treacherous waters and has helped many sites get to the top of Google in 2 to 6 months.

Safe directories have competitive Page Rank and have been vetted by Google’s AdSense or a similar service. Google doesn’t consider such sites to be link farms since they are run by human editors who evaluate each submitted Web site for relevance and quality –and there is a chance you will be rejected. Some of these sites operate in a bit of a gray area ethically, but usually Google allows them. However, many paid sites aren’t legitimate directories, so be careful. Only a reputable directory can increase your Page Rank and Web traffic.

Staying Power: Paid links offer another downside: they don’t last as long as organic connections. If you take the time to set up a network of organic links, those links will remain in place – directing traffic to you and raising your Page Rank – for a while. Paid links disappear if you don’t keep paying for them.

Getting Links for Free: Whether or not you decide to buy links, you should also consider how you can get links for free. First, offer great content that people want – and keep it fresh. You can also write articles for another Web site and ask for a link from the byline. Or you can offer good blog content or send out press releases.

So, use paid links if you wish, but be extra cautious when you do so. We’ve seen Google penalize sites for specific keywords when spam techniques were used. Pay only for reputable sites and make sure your text links vary from site to site. Then you’re off to the road of Google SEO success.

In January, Google announced that its computers, along with the computers of over 20 American companies, had been aggressively compromised and sensitive information was stolen by hackers who were traced back to two Chinese universities. The hackers were almost certainly working for the Chinese government since American businesses–and even U.S. government agencies that work with China–have seen a consistent pattern of such hacking. At the time Google said it was evaluating whether it wanted to keep its search engine operations going in China, which has demanded that Google censor its search results for sensitive topics such as protests by Tibetans or Uighurs and the events at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Google has spent the intervening time negotiating with the Chinese government to no avail. So it started shuttling its Chinese users to its Hong Kong site, which is not censored—a move that Google said was completely legal under Chinese law. Hong Kong, since it was under British control until 1997, enjoys a greater degree of freedom than the rest of China. Chinese officials reacted immediately by condemning Google’s move and actively blocking controversial topics from the Hong Kong site.

Since all of Google’s Chinese operations account for only $150 to $400 million of the company’s $24 billion in annual revenue, the company is unlikely to take a big financial hit. Analysts point out that Google was never able to move beyond a 33% market share of the search engine business in China—one source of frustration for the company. Long-term consequences, however, include Google’s losing access to one of the biggest and fastest-growing population of Internet users in the world. Google stock was down the day of the announcement, but only by $2.50, suggesting that investors remain confident in the company’s core business.

China experts suggest that China may retaliate by blocking access to Google’s other operations in China, such as its R&D, music, and mapping services – as well as ad sales for a Chinese-language version of its American search engine—with which Google hoped to retain a toe-hold in China. Hacking attempts against Google will probably rise as an expression of Chinese nationalism. The Chinese government could also make life more difficult for the company’s 700 employees in China. In the blog post announcing this decision Google clearly hoped to stave off such retribution, saying: “We would like to make clear that all these decisions have been driven and implemented by our executives in the United States, and that none of our employees in China can, or should, be held responsible for them.”

Google’s move is an embarrassment to the Chinese government and a stumbling block in their attempts to foster an appearance of technological innovation. Nonetheless the Chinese government was unwilling to budge in its negotiations with Google. In a statement on its blog, Google said, “The Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement.” When Google entered the Chinese market four years ago, the company hoped to bring greater access of information to China despite the censorship, but instead the Chinese government has tightened its control of the Internet. It completely blocks access to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Docs and Blogger. Chinese supporters of Google have laid wreaths outside the company’s Beijing headquarters. Many Westerners hoped that the Internet would allow China to become a bigger part of the global community, but these recent actions will only further the country’s isolation.

The Google dispute will also likely have a ripple effect throughout U.S.-China relations. The Chinese government might also blame other U.S. businesses, deny them licenses to conduct commerce and thus block access to one of the fastest growing markets in the world – or it might blame the U.S. government. Although the Obama administration simply expressed regret that Google had been unable to come to an accommodation with China, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the State Department have been stalwart in their support of Google’s fight for freedom of speech. The government might register a protest by cancelling upcoming trade missions, such as Commerce Secretary Gary Locke’s visit scheduled in April to discuss renewable energy.

But Google’s inability to reach an agreement with China is also symptomatic of an overall pattern of a worsening business climate for Western businesses in China. The government has been actively promoting innovation in Chinese businesses through a policy it calls “Indigenous Innovation,” which requires Chinese ministries to favor companies producing goods using Chinese intellectual property over products using foreign intellectual property. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has issued a statement expressing concern about this trend and American businesses are flooding the U.S. Department of Commerce with requests for help.

The U.S. government has also asked China to regulate its exchange rate with U.S. currency and has threatened to increase tariffs on Chinese imports if China does not comply. In a recent Washington Post interview, Chen Deming, China’s Commerce Minister, said “If the United States uses the exchange rate to start a new trade war, China will be hurt. But the American people and U.S. companies will be hurt even more.”  This is a spurious argument, however, since the two countries are mutually dependent.

One of the biggest winners in the dispute will certainly be Baidu.com, a Chinese search engine company which was modeled after Google and currently holds a 63% share of the search engine market. Baidu’s American stock has risen 50% since Google’s January announcement — while Google’s has declined about 5%. Other American search engine companies such as Yahoo and MSN’s Bing have only a small slice of the Chinese market.

Baidu’s ascendancy will be additional bad news for American businesses. While Baidu is happy to take American businesses’ advertising money, it is one of the biggest promoters of piracy in the country. Although it may not pirate products itself, it provides what are called “deep links” directly to pirated movies, MP3 files, software, and many other products. Outside observers suspect Baidu is paid by the pirates to provide these links and derives much of its revenue from these sources.

The Chinese government has done little to stop Baidu’s piracy; in fact, a recent trial found that Baidu was not liable for a particular incidence of piracy because it did not know its links went to pirated material. On the other hand, the Chinese version of The Chinese government has done little to stop Baidu’s piracy; in fact, a recent trial found that Baidu was not liable for a particular incidence of piracy because it did not know its links went to pirated material. On the other hand, the Chinese version of Yahoo, which is only 25% American owned, recently lost a court case about piracy. Such different results from such similar cases makes many suspect discrimination against foreign companies. Baidu’s increasing dominance, therefore, will make it harder for U.S. companies to protect their intellectual property. With the prospect of a looming American/Chinese trade war and Google’s loss of future business, it looks as though Baidu may be the only guaranteed winner in this battle.

“The (European) Commission’s… market investigation has indicated that scale is an important element to be an effective competitor in search advertising,” the EU executive said in a statement.

According to the latest analysis of StatCounter Google now holds 90% of the total market share compared with 7.4 percent for both Yahoo! and Bing.

The actual deal was struck in July of 2009, under which Bing becomes the search engine for both, while Yahoo! will go after the bigger online advertisers.

This is going to mean little for those who have a good ranking on Google search results. A combination of Yahoo!/Bing is not going to affect their market share in the near future. Of course, Yahoo! and Bing hope to take away a chunck of Google loyal searchers by this partnership, but that’s unlikely to happen.

Google has been great in changing its search tactics based on the latest trends in the industry. The other two giants are too slow to follow through.

I’m currently working on an eBook, which is going to encapsulate what I have learned in the past several years through training courses, studying Google as well as research and development. The eBook on Google SEO techniques is going to be out by March 1^st- I’ve already completed the first draft.

Google has over 74% of the total global search market and it provides hundreds of Millions of search results each month to Internet users. It also helps generate revenue for Web sites through its Google Adsense program.

So, the more traffic your site has, the better off you’re going to be. And having a strong presence on Google organic results brings your site the targeted traffic you’re looking for.

All of these reasons make having a good placement on Google search results that much more important. For most keywords the competition is fierce, but if you learn the tricks of Google SEO, soon, you’ll be able to place your site high on Google search results.

I’m thinking of offering a few pages of the eBook to be viewed for free and charge a flat fee for giving access to the entire eBook.

If I find enough people interested in the eBook then I am planning to develop training courses for those who want to become Google SEO experts.

So far, here are the titles of the chapters:

-        Is this for you?

-        Keywords Identification

-        Optimization

-        Optimization No No’s

-        Links, Links and Links

-        Acquiring Inbound Links

-        Link Building No No’s

-        Conclusion

I tried very hard to write this eBook as simple as possible so everyone can understand it. More is coming on the eBook soon.

Please leave your comments. I’m specifically looking for your feedback to know what you want to see in this eBook. Thanks in advance.

For SEO gurus the game got that much harder. 2009 was by far the most difficult year I had in keeping up with Google. Not only because our admired giant kept changing its search algorithm (like that’s something new), but also because the “link-building” game was being “copied” and “manipulated” by other SEO firms much faster.

“White-hat” SEO techniques that used to work wonders early in the year, had very little effect after a short period of time – due to over usage by all the SEO firms.

I personally rolled up my sleeves and jumped into the pool of learning how to find “new” ways of generating organic links. In another post I will share some of my findings.

I learnt one thing. Finding new organic link-building methods is an ever growing game. We have to spend more time digging into the NET and learn from our trial and errors and tweak our tests to see what works and what doesn’t. Honestly it wasn’t easy.

The good news is that we were more successful than ever. Most of our clients enjoyed top rankings on Google (the ones that were paying for the top rankings) and their businesses grew – even in the economic down-turn.

We were even able to offer free SEO to over 300 qualified Web sites. Close to 90% of them saw a change in their rankings. This is what we gave back to the Internet world.

Be tuned in as I will post more items related to some of our SEO secrets as well as laying down our strategies for 2010. Enjoy your holidays.

Ali Husayni
President

If you honestly don’t believe this is possible, then read on; I may have you believe otherwise.

First, there is a difference between guaranteeing to rank your site at the top and guaranteeing to refund your money if your site is not ranked at the top.

You see? We DO NOT guarantee to place every single site at the top, but we pay you your money back if we’re unable to do so.

Google also advises against those companies that guarantee your site to be at the top. After all, only Google decides who’s going to be at the top, and who’s not.

In reality, every site is capable of ranking at the top, however, the efforts to do so vary greatly and for some companies, it’s not worth the time/effort/investment.

I’ll put this in more simple terms:

Google is very logical and its logic is very simple: “Rank sites based on their popularity on the Internet.” In other words (generally speaking), sites with a better Page Rank (PR) get to rank at the top of Google for a particular keyword (of course with the correct optimization in place). PR is determined by the number and the quality of inbound links a site receives.

Google considers each inbound link pointing to your site from other 3^rd party sites as a vote of confidence in your site. The 3^rd party site refers its readers to your site for more information. Now, your site becomes a reference point for another site – thus a valuable site in Google’s terms. Imagine you have hundreds or thousands of these kinds of links. Google will realize that your site is a “mother” site. Therefore, it’ll rank it above all the other sites.

Do you see how simple this logic is?

The logic is simple, but to actually get your site known enough in the Web world so 3^rd party sites link to your site as a reference is another story. It takes very delicate and tedious work to accomplish this in a short period of time. And that’s what we have mastered.

I have been able to place sites at the top of Google in 2-6 months.

Sure. I can share with you numerous examples of sites that we’ve helped rank at the top. I just can’t mention them here for obvious reasons. Just fill out our services request form and I’ll set up a time to share with you some of our secret inbound link-building techniques and tell you precisely how long it’ll take for us to place your site at the top.

Is Google SEO right for everyone?

No, of course not. For some businesses, it is not worth their time, money or the efforts to get their sites ranked at the top. Some keywords are way too competitive and Google is dominated by huge corporations with great SEO budgets that smaller companies couldn’t compete with them. However, for most other keywords, it is very possible to rank at the top.

Find out for yourself if your site can compete. Fill out our services request form and I will personally respond to you.