Santa Monica, CA – Happy Holidays to all of our wonderful subscribers (and soon to be subscribers). We hope that you have found this blog to be a useful source of information and advice. As you know, it’s almost another year, and you might be putting another SEO strategy in place, which is why now is the time to act on the newest innovations that the New Year brings. Beware of staying stagnant with your SEO strategies, advises Ali Husayni, CEO of the SEO service company, Master Google.

After all, as we mentioned in January of last year, SEO changes as Google’s search engine does, which makes it all the more important to stay with the trends. And not to fear, Husayni still remains optimistic that no matter how it continues to evolve, SEO works and will continue to work in the foreseeable future, even with the added features introduced by Google+. Here are some of the changes in SEO that experts expect to see in 2012.

Unique Content, in Real Time: While Google’s search algorithms continue to emphasize the performance of a website, it is even more important to provide new content, especially content in real time. Content that encourages feedback is timely, every time, according to marketing strategist David Meerman Scott, during a recent interview with Socialnomics.net.

“Social media gives us the ability to communicate instantly, yet most marketers have not developed the communication skills to address real time,” Scott said. “Marketers have been trained with a campaign mentality, spending weeks planning, designing and executing in a sequential manner… [using a] new mentality, infrastructure and workflow to meaningfully participate in real time,” Scott says.

Spend more time not only thinking about your target audience and what kind of content they need, but when they need that content. Timely content encourages engaged feedback from viable sites, which helps your Google ranking, according to Husayni.

“If you want to be on the 1st page of Google make an effort to create content that will get the users involved in a conversation,” says Husayni. “Respond to every comment you get on your website. Be nice and offer guidance. When other users see how responsive you are, they will visit your website more frequently as well.”

Focus on User Quality, Not Quantity: This much is still true regarding users: if your site is getting good reviews from users, it will improve your Google ranking. If it’s getting bad reviews, the reverse. But remember, more clicks don’t necessarily mean more customers or higher customer satisfaction rates. Encouraging good reviews by interacting with customers is more important than ever, according to a Fall 2011 Constant Contact Survey study. Sixty percent of responding businesses reported that they enjoy engaging with all customers and prospects who post comments on social media platforms, whether those posts are positive or negative. Consumer feedback can lead, of course, to a higher customer retention and satisfaction rate.

Social Media Continues to Increase in SEO Importance: It’s true that social media is one of the factors influencing natural search rankings for Google. So, more than ever, you must consider social media as part of your SEO promotion strategy. Try to get inbound links from bloggers. If you release a new product, you want to have someone influential twitter about it. Be sure you have a Facebook presence. 

Targeted Websites: Be aware of how your target audience does research and try to entice viewers like more traditional marketing strategies. SEO companies like Master Google note that Google is looking for those sites that are valuable to users. You also need to find the online communities that your target consumer frequents. This will let you reach viewers as a group rather than individually.

The Rise of SEO-Led Marketing Campaigns: Increasingly, all marketing will be driven by SEO. Radio, TV, and print advertising will all be part of SEO campaigns to educate the users about products and services. There is an audience that traditional media reaches, but you have half the chance of reaching as many of them as you would have 10 years ago, according to Paul Gillin, a respected social media marketing guru and Author of The New Influencers. After all, in the last eight years, we have gone through a shift in consumerism. We begin with a search engine, as Gillin points out in his forum at the SuperGenius Conference.

“We used to go to a library and browse, now we expect it to be there,” Gillin says.

With a search engine’s place established by expert after expert, SEO ranking is at the heart of the campaign, rather than being an afterthought, and that is the new normal.

Geography is Even More Important Than it Was Last Year: Google Pages is increasingly part of Google’s search engine results. Google is also working on ways to incorporate the user’s location into results. As more and more people use GPS-enabled phones for searches, geographical considerations will play an even bigger role this year.

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

Popularity: 15%

TAMPA, FLORIDA—Many companies have been doing search engine optimization in-house for a long time, but they have traditionally been bigger businesses. This year, Ali Husayni has noticed more interest from small to mid-sized businesses in his SEO consulting and coaching services.

“For large companies with a large website and a big marketing budget, in-house SEO has been a no-brainer,” says Husayni, the founder and CEO of Master Google, SEO company. “Smaller companies are realizing that SEO is a force to be reckoned with and that they need it to be competitive in their market.”

One example of in-house SEO and what it can accomplish is Huffington Post, a news source with syndicated columnists, blogs and news stories. Due to the SEO work of their in-house team, the Web site www.huffingtonpost.com was outranking the news organizations’ Web sites, such as Washington Post and CNN, who originally posted the articles, according to a New York Times article.

Business owners see the success of large companies. They also see their competitors doing well in search engine results (SERs) and are determined to get similar results. Some try outsourcing SEO first, but the average business owner does not have the knowledge to discern a real SEO expert from a con artist.

“They may try one or two SEO companies and get burned,” says Husayni, who offers free SEO consulting to qualified business owners. “There are a lot of SEO firms that make a client an SEO guarantee, including big promises about results and a time frame that they just can’t deliver on.”

A recent blog post about small businesses and in-house SEO makes a similar statement about scammers, adding four other reasons for the trend: save money in the long-run, reduce dependence, confidentiality and individualized attention.

Husayni maintains that avoiding the SEO scam artist is the number one reason for this in-house SEO trend, though.

“Instead of potentially wasting money on a company that doesn’t deliver, businesses are investing that money in an SEO team,” says Husayni, who offers a package for top of Google results with a 100% money-back guarantee.

According to Bob Tripathi, an internet marketing expert and Search Engine Watch blogger, the in-house SEO is often undervalued because monthly SEO dashboards or quarterly business reviews cannot capture the intangible benefits it offers the company.

Besides improving search engine rankings, which leads to increased visibility and more customers, Tripathi says in-house SEO can provide unique thought leadership, unite departments and attract outside expertise.

But the task of creating an in-house SEO program from the ground up can be quite overwhelming, which is why Husayni recommends businesses work with an SEO consultant or coach throughout the process.

AOL’s director in charge of search engine optimization, Simon Heseltine, recommends that companies without experience in-house hire an SEO agency to help get the program up and running.

“I’d say that for a company that is going to start an in-house team, they need to make sure that they know what questions to ask and what answers to expect,” says Heseltine.

Husayni says that utilizing a consultant helps businesses minimizes the risks of setting up an SEO team and maximizes the return on investment by showing them where to start, who to hire, what to focus on and how to measure success.

He expects the trend of small businesses turning to in-house SEO teams will continue, eventually become the industry norm. Because of this, Husayni is currently developing additional content on his website and blog, including how-to posts, top SEO secrets that are not actually secrets and information about hiring SEO, as well as articles with the latest information on the topic.

“SEO is a dynamic industry, always changing, always presenting new challenges to overcome and puzzles to solve,” says Husayni. “This is just a new way for Master Google to help clients achieve and maintain their search engine results’ success.”

Popularity: 4%

Gmail, Adwords, Analytics, Google+, Places, Images and Videos are only a handful of services Google offers the business world. Small and yet successful businesses have long used these tools to further succeed in their ventures.

But Google also poses a big challenge for everyone who wants to gain business from them. It’s way too complicated.

Google adds new services way too often- sometimes faster than business owners can learn about them. Yet, many of its important features, such as its standard search, change drastically over time, making it difficult for companies to stay up to speed. Even JC Penny and Walmart couldn’t predict Google’s behavior and lost a great deal of business as a result.

One way to approach this obstacle is to identify which of these services is vital to your business and use it to your advantage.

Without a doubt,  Google Places (combined with organic SEO) is the most important for small businesses. Why? Because if your site is among the top five listings on Google Places, your customers will find you. It won’t matter if you don’t know how to use Adwords, Analytics, or Google+.

Being seen at the top of search results is equivalent to purchasing a large, eye-catching ad in your local Yellow Pages that everyone owned 10 years ago. If your ad was the first, your phone would not stop ringing.

If your business is listed high on Google Places, you will witness firsthand Google’s power to send customers your way. In a survey we performed, our clients that appeared on Google Places showed an increase of $45,000-to $274,000 in their annual revenue compared with when they didn’t show up on Google Places. On average, they spent just a small fraction of that money promoting their site. No other advertising method can beat that.

Now, the question is how to get on Google Places. Or, if you are already there, then how do you improve your rank to reach that number one spot?

If you are not listed, the first thing you ought to do is register your business with Google. The steps are simple and are explained in this video: how to get on Google Places.

If you are listed but you’re not at the top, then you need to improve your business’s reputation online. Here is the blueprint for accomplishing just that:

1- Get your customers to write positive reviews for you on your Google Places page. If they search for your business name along with the city you are listed under in Google Maps and then click on the letter associated with your business, a window will open at the top of your listing on the map that has a rating stars link. Clicking on the rating stars will get you to the reviews page. If you don’t have any reviews yet, then there will be a “write a review” link in this window.

2- Add the +1 button to your site’s pages and encourage your friends, family and customers to +1 your site. This will improve your site’s ranking on Google (for those who +1’ed your site’s page and those in their Google+ circles).

3- Improve your site’s link popularity. This means running a campaign that gets you natural, quality links from related Web sites. Since this is going to be the most important factor in helping you rank better on Google Places, I’ll explain it in greater depth in an upcoming article.

Keep your questions in mind and stay tuned.

Popularity: 17%

Being placed at the top of Google for keywords people search for definitely increases your site’s traffic. Here are some case studies on how ranking well on Google organic search results can do just that.

Mastergoogle.com

Given that SEO companies compete vigorously to rank well for our keywords, having any presence on the first page of Google for its related keywords and generating traffic is extremely difficult. But, as an SEO company that thrives by being able to rank its clients at the top of Google search results, we certainly have to prove it by helping our site rank at the top.

Google SEO Increases our site visitors by 198% since last year.

Mastergoogle.com is a domain we registered exactly two years ago. In the first year, 12,646 visitors found our site by searching on Google. This increased to 37,773 in the second year. And yesterday, we had the maximum number of visitors finding our site in a single day: 186.

This trend is not unique to our site. We serve many Google SEO clients that have trusted us with ranking them at the top of Google for sometimes very competitive keywords. Read more…

Mavenlive.com

Mavenlive.com is a unique and innovative physical therapy software that allows doctors and physical therapists to organize, modify and print exercises for their patients.

In the past year that we were working on their organic SEO, their site has witnessed an increase of 16,000 visitors. This is a 794% increase.

Google SEO Helps Start Up Company Increase Its Organic Traffic By 794% In One Year.

As a start up company, Mavenlive.com had to compete with well-established software companies on the first page of Google. Today, they rank #1 in Canada and #3 world-wide for their most important keyword: physical therapy software.

Read more…

Popularity: 10%

LAKELAND, FLORIDA – As we continue to grow and take on more clients here at Master Google, we’re finding a great deal of commonality in questions asked of us by our clients and those who inquire about our SEO services.

Because of that, we decided to address several of the most frequently asked questions, in hope that if you’re a client already using us for your SEO campaign management, this information will enlighten you on the importance of various SEO campaign elements. If you’re a business in need of an organic SEO consultant, this may give you some insight into how our process works.

Hands-down, the most frequently asked question is this:

How long will it take me to get my website onto Page 1 of Google search for my main keyword?
Through the years, we have become quite good at predicting such an uncertainty. We’ve written a couple of times recently about the quick success we’ve had in getting clients ranked on Page 1 of Google. The time frame varies greatly from client to client. Normally, clients who want to get ranked for local keywords see results within two to six months.

Why does my Google rank change sometimes?
One day you’re on top; the next you’re near the bottom of Page 1. We constantly check SEO ranking for our clients’ websites, and we see a variation in results occasionally, due to changes frequently made to Google’s algorithms. Google’s primary goal is to provide the most helpful information to people using its search engine. That requires almost constant tweaks and changes. We are diligent in keeping up with these changes so that when a change adversely affects a clients’ website, we can get on track to restoring the previous ranking.

How many keywords are you going to rank me for?
There is no limit to the number of keywords we will rank you for, but we’ll focus on 20-30 main keywords

Who is responsible for my site’s rankings?
Our team has many members and each one is responsible for a part of your overall SEO work. Our writers- perhaps the team members you will be in closest contact with- are charged with developing well-written, relevant content for you on an ongoing basis. These articles and press releases play a huge role in your overall SEO efforts. Other members of our team are responsible for strategically posting these articles and releases on websites to generate quality inbound links back to your page. We also have team members who are tasked with making tweaks to your site to make it more search-engine friendly.

Are you going to change my site or what I have on it?
Once we have access to your site, we will make any necessary changes that will enable it to be found and indexed easily by search engines. Sometimes it is necessary to make changes to the content on your site, such as removing duplicate content and replacing it with custom content created specifically for you by our writers.

When will my article and press release appear on my website?
Our writers work nearly one month in advance so we can be sure to get your articles and press releases posted on time each and every month. That means that although our writers may contact you early in the month to interview you for your article and/or press release, the item may not appear on your website until closer to the end of the month.

Where are my articles and press releases published?
Articles and press releases are posted to a variety of sites throughout the Internet. We have some posts on our blog that list the top sites we use for posting articles and press releases. Each month in addition to a SEO ranking report, we also provide to our clients a list of the sites to which their articles and releases are submitted.

Who reads the articles and press releases that are written for me?
This is a difficult one to answer. It could be anyone. People who conduct Google searches for your keywords may stumble upon these articles and releases. News wires may pick them up. Someone might read the article, find it interesting and forward it to a friend. The sky is the limit. And the most important reader of these articles is Google. Its spiders will read and index these writings and will give your site credit as the source – thus increasing your overall rankings on Google search results.

How much time do you expect me to spend on helping you rank my site?
You get out of your SEO effort what you put into it. Our writers rely on your input to guide their writing. They need you to approve topics, and then approve completed articles and press releases so they can be forwarded to other team members for publication.

What happens if I leave your company?
Nothing. In most cases, your site will remain at the rankings we get you by the time you leave. And slowly, over time, you will lose your rankings – not because we reverse what we have done for you, but because Google changes and your competition does more work to get ahead of you.

Are your costs going to increase over time?
As we have to do more to keep our clients at the top of Google search results, we may increase the monthly budgets. However, you have to give us your consent. But when we quote you a needed budget, that’s usually good for at least one year.

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

Popularity: 3%

Let’s play a game. Let’s pretend that one of our talented employees developed an Internet time machine and traveled forward in time so she could copy and paste an article that we will publish on our blog in February 2012 – seven months from now. Sadly for me, her program collapsed before she could check out some news sites and peruse the stock market. Sigh… foiled again.

But her trip wasn’t a total loss, because what we read in that article is worth re-printing. Or, should we say: pre-printing? Anyway, here’s what we found:

Google vs. Facebook in 2012: How Is the SEO World Changed?
by: Ali Husayni
February 12, 2012

If you haven’t signed up for Google+ and you haven’t migrated from Facebook, you’re among the remaining 35 percent of the social media late-boomers. Almost 65 percent of those who only used Facebook a year ago are Google+ fans now- while some still check their Facebook accounts.

Google once again has beaten another IT giant by building a more successful social media platform that is much savvier, easy to use and more intuitive than Facebook.

Only a few years ago, Google beat Yahoo! with its Gmail account and later bought YouTube to become the owner of the most visited sites on the planet.

As a result of Google+’s success, Facebook – which was at the top of the social media world just six months ago – lost more than 50 percent of its stock market value since July 2011.

So now the question is this: how does Google+ play into SEO, and how are we going to get our clients ranked at the top of Google (Google+ uses the same algorithm as Google search)?

How to Rank on Google

Since Google launched its new algorithm “Grizzly Bear” in December 2011, the results of every search you make today is unique to you and is based on the +1’s your friends, their friends, and friends of friends have given any particular website (given that you’re logged in to your Gmail account).

And in general, the more +1’s a site has, the better it ranks on Google.

This doesn’t mean the back-links have lost their importance, but rather, back-links now work hand-in-hand with +1’s.

SEO used to consist of three parts: content, optimization and back-links. Now +1 is another main factor in ranking on Google. Adding +1’s to your site is more difficult than the other three factors and thus “manipulating” Google SER’s is not as easy anymore.

Here is a short-list of what you need to do (in addition to what you already did) to rank better with Google:

1- Add the +1 button to ALL the pages of your site. Any visitor who goes to your site needs to have the ability to “vote” for your site.

2- Encourage your constituency (friends, clients) to +1 your site. This will increase the number of people you’re exposed to and therefore your +1’s will continue to grow.

3- Write GREAT content for your site and keep it up to date. As we have said for many years, become an authority in your field and be interesting for those who find your site.

4- Increase your site’s traffic in any shape or form possible. Run banner ads if you have to and sign up with Google Adwords. The more visitors your site gets, the better chance you have of getting +1’s.

The Future of Facebook Search

We expected Facebook to launch its search engine a while ago to compete with Google. But Microsoft took longer than expected to give the green light to Facebook and integrate its search algorithm with its partners’ social media platform. Now it seems to be too little, too late.

I conducted a few searches on FB search and compared the results with Google. Its weakness is that FB search only indexes sites that have been linked to from Facebook.com – leaving many sites out there un-indexed. Also, its algorithm is just based on the “likes” and on-site optimization and is leaving backlinks out. This is a fatal error of FB search developers.

I conclude that FB search is going to be a total failure just like Yahoo! and Bing and their merger. Google has more or less monopolized the search market, as well as the social media market. That, plus its advancements in word and spreadsheet processing, Google Maps, YouTube and their other FREE services, is going to guarantee their long-haul dominance over the Internet world.

But there are always ways to do things better, and Google needs to be very careful not to start late – as it did in the social media war. Google got lucky this time around, but it may not be so lucky the next time.

Popularity: 6%

BOULDER, COLORADO — Master Google continues to consistently achieve quick results for its clients, including the new clients signing up every month for its organic SEO services.

A significant portion of their clientele is comprised of orthodontists, approximately 20 percent, according to Saeed Khosravi, SEO marketing consultant and operational manager of the company.

“People do one million searches per month for the key term ‘orthodontist,’ and the number of searches for local orthodontist keywords is also high,” Khosravi says. “An orthodontics practice cannot afford not being on the first page of Google search results.”

SEO expert Husayni agrees, saying that being found at the top of Google search results, depending on location, can increase yearly income anywhere from $50,000 to $300,000. Master Google’s reputation throughout the orthodontics marketing and SEO services’ industry has led direct competitors to refer clients to them.

Dr. CJ Wagner - www.affiliateddentalspecialists.com

Pediatric dentist Cameron Wagner, who signed up in May, is one of those referred to Master Google by a competitor. Wagner is a partner at the Affiliated Dental Specialists practice that has orthodontists and pediatric dentists. Husayni’s competitor told Wagner that the SEO marketing agency was the most thorough in the business and would be able to meet his specific goals.

Husayni says initial improvements in ranking may or may not be significant due to the fact that the bulk of SEO work is professional popularity and link building done on a monthly basis for several months. However, some clients’ initial improvements happen within two to four weeks.

“For most of the clients, we can say about three to six months is required for them to see results, depending largely on the client market and strength and the client’s background,” Khosravi says.

Wagner has already seen positive movement in their practice’s ranking for many of their organic search terms. “Ali and his staff were able to make quick changes to our website that made our site a lot more accessible to potential clients. Their ideas are creative, and they have still allowed me to stay hands on,” Wagner says, which was a high priority for him.

Husayni continues to create and develop new SEO strategies for his clients because of the dynamic nature of his SEO optimization service. He is constantly monitoring Google updates and maintaining dedication to white-hat SEO principles. The payoff is that clients constantly top the search results, even when giants, such as Walmart and JC Penney, lose rankings after a Google update.

“Since Google changes its algorithm often, what has worked yesterday might not work today,” Khosravi says. “For this reason the site should get updated in terms of optimization. Also, clients’ SEO linking campaign should get updated to be consistent with Google’s updates.”

Peter Eisenhuth - www.doctorojennifer.com

Peter Eisenhuth, the marketing director at Orthodontics By Jennifer Eisenhuth, has been a Master Google client since 2008. Since Eisenhuth had already used and fired two other SEO companies for not delivering, he was skeptical of Master Google’s promises but impressed by Husayni’s results with other clients and the guarantee no one else offered.

“Ali oversees a lot of the projects himself, unlike some larger companies where you can get lost in the shuffle,” Eisenhuth says. “If there’s something I’m not happy with, he’s generally very responsive.”

Master Google delivered on their promises, and Eisenhuth saw the orthodontics practice shoot to the number one rank and stay there. He recently began working with Husayni to search engine optimize a second orthodontics business. Although the results have been slower, Eisenhuth is still pleased because he knows the market is a lot tougher now, three years later.

He says, “It doesn’t matter how great your website is if you’re not on the top section of Google. It’s going to be tough for people to see what you’re about if they don’t see you at all.”

Learn More
To learn more about Master Google’s business SEO services, please subscribe to our blog and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

About Master Google
Master Google, established in 2004, has mastered industry-standard SEO techniques and developed new ones. Master Google’s code-efficiency optimization techniques, along with the highest quality link building methods guarantee its clients’ websites success with Google and other search engines.

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

Popularity: 3%

Popularity: 10%

A brief explanation on what works and doesn’t work for Google…

SEO for Google consists of three main parts: optimization, content, and popularity. By understanding these factors in Google SEO, you can rank any Web site at the top of the search results.

Popularity: 6%

For many years, we have considered a Web page’s loading speed as one of the on-site optimization criterium used by Google spiders. The faster a page loads, the better rank it will have on Google.

This was proven a day ago when Google announced that it is going to add “site speed” to Google Analytics results. Site speed will measure and report how fast each of your Web pages will load (on average) when someone visits your site.

But why is loading speed is so important?

We know the sites that have sophisticated designs, such as FLASH sites, or sites that are image or video heavy, load slower. On the other hand, sites that only have text and very minimal navigation (except through text-links) load the fastest – but text-only sites are boring.

With the Internet speed growing in average households, you’d think sites that are more beautiful should get more credit by Google, but not so fast. It is true that we now have faster Internet speed around the world compared to a few years ago, however, as Internet users, our patience for loading pages has also diminished. We leave a page quickly if it doesn’t load within a few of seconds. Or, if we really want to visit the page, we become increasingly frustrated as we wait for its content to load.

According to Pear Analytics, In 2007 Amazon conducted a test to see how the speed of your page loading affects losing traffic. The results were astonishing. For every second that your site loads slower, you lose roughly 1% of your site’s traffic. This means if you have a FLASH site and it takes 20 seconds to load, you lose 20% of your site’s visitors before they even see your site. In sales numbers, losing 20% of your potential customers is HUGE.

So, our recommendation to you is to make your site load as fast as possible to increase your page views, traffic and, consequently, sales.

Popularity: 6%