People love to talk about SEO, especially business owners.  It’s become a buzz topic and many of the folks (especially small business owners) that catch wind of it will do the minimum that they’re aware of – which often consists of stuffing their website full of keywords.

I’ve had many conversations with business owners that tell me that they’ve optimized their website and they handle their own SEO.  This brings a cringe because more often than not their idea of SEO is centered on website content and keywords – nothing more.

They’re often blinding by the pride of seeing their website appear in the search results, even if it’s not at the top.  I hear “There’s only a little way to go, just need to tweak my site content a little more”.  Too much emphasis is being placed on website content itself as a ranking factor and it’s not – at all.  Website content as a whole does not determine placement in search results.

There is so much more to site rank.  The content within a website is merely there to establish relevancy. Relevancy in content is the doorway into the SERPS but it’s not a fast-pass to the finish line.  It’s rare that you can optimize a site and get top rank.  If that happens, you’ve probably found a local or regional phrase with no competition or a completely irrelevant keyword – or both.

Other Ranking Factors

There are hundreds of variables that are considered during the milliseconds between hitting enter on a search query and the posted results.  Google has to ask a lot of questions to determine who, of the millions of pages in most categories, are the most relevant and in what order of relevancy to file them for a specific phrase.  Of those hundreds of factors, there are several that carry a bulk of the weight.

• Trust/Authority of the Domain
• Link Popularity
• Inbound Anchor Text
• Keyword Use
• Traffic
• Social Engagement Metrics
• Registration Hosting

How much emphasis is placed on each is going to vary with every update made to algorithms which tends to happen almost daily (especially with Google).   Because of the weight put on so many different factors, it’s easy to see that website content – while important – does not carry the weight of your SEO and should not be your primary concern as a ranking factor.

Yes, you can gain some rank by optimizing your site and it needs to be done but don’t do the victory dance yet.   I hear the question of “I’ve optimized the site, so I’m done and we just wait now, right?”  Absolutely not.  On page optimization is only the first step and it’s your means to establish relevancy alone.  This is how you enter the race against the competition and you start engaging your target audience for specific search phrases.  From here, you need to start thinking about the other ranking factors.  Link building and social engagement or social sharing is going to be the big fish that feeds your SEO hunger and start bringing in results.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

One would think that the days of spamming the search engines were nearing a close, and the type of search engine spam seen in the 90′s and at the turn of the millennium was long gone. But it seems with every new update and promise of a cleaner search environment from companies like Google, those who tip their black hats to the masses find a different way to scam thousands (even millions) of internet users.

The recent death of Osama Bin Laden has brought about a new round of attacks and cyber scamming through both black-hat SEO and Facebook PPC hijinks. SEO Poisoning attacks have already spread far and wide as it’s been reported by researchers at Kaspersky Lab, an antivirus firm.

While leveraging non-relevant events or keywords was once used to get just about any website to the top of the SERPs before the days of the Google slap, the less common SEO poisoning now focuses primarily on phishing campaigns. Within hours of the announcement from President Barack Obama that Bin Laden was confirmed dead, the phishing started on a massive scale.

This type of SEO poisoning is less common because of consistent updates and the diligence of search engines to refine and improve search results but they still commonly center on major news breaks. Phishing campaigns will typically spike surrounding major news events because cyber criminals are using the traffic heavy search queries to lure internet users. Most are unsuspecting because they’re interest is piqued and they’re distracted by their own curiosity.

It’s sad to see and frustrating to know that these black hat types sit in wait like a Nigerian scammer, waiting for some type of global event that will generate a mass of search volume with virtually no competition for those unique search phrases. They’ve established a system that lets them jump on any topic.

Meta Spammers Would Be Proud

With this particular campaign, malware authors had launched an SEO campaign to spread rogue antivirus software through the organic search results while simultaneously flooding Facebook with adware. The primary damage was done through their manipulation of the search algorithm, where they positioned the malicious web sites at the top of the search results; sites purporting to offer frontline news on the death of Bin Laden, including videos and pictures of his death.

Of course no such videos exist, and photos of the deceased terrorist were never circulated. With curiosity piqued however, users flood into those sites where they are faced with offers for anti-virus software that is not the “best antivirus 2011″. The rogue antivirus program is actually powered by the Trojan.Win32.FakeAV.cvoo Trojan virus, and it’s designed to trick users by polling for credit card information in exchange for a PC cleaning.

To ensure the effectiveness of their bogus campaigns and phishing scams, the cyber criminals also created a slew of adware campaigns on Facebook, inundating the social network with ad claims of free food or airline tickets in wake of celebrating the death of Osama Bin Laden. Those who clicked through were launched into a funnel of websites that are designed to continually gather information (email, personal contact info, etc.) without ever actually coming through. The payout for the phishers is that they get paid for each contact, view or click.

Will Algorithm Updates be Enough?

I’m a bit put off over the whole matter – that such a major event could and would be exploited. Aside from the gross exploitation of something very close to a lot of people around the world, including Americans, it also shows that the major players in search and social media don’t exactly have everything together.

This type of occurrence shows us that while Google may very well be constantly refining their algorithm to improve search results, they’ve got a long way to go before what people find in search is actually relevant to what they’re looking for. I know that the most recent update is supposed to head in this direction, as Google is putting more weight on social proof for ranking. Unfortunately, as long as keywords and inbound links provide the most weight for ranking factors this type of SEO poisoning is going to continue.

What do you think – can the move toward social proof and author authority as a ranking factor help to prevent issues like this in the future?

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

Earlier in the week, the New York Times published an article that exposed the black-hat tactics of J.C. Penney. The article detailed how the company was able to obtain #1 rankings in Google (organic listings) for virtually every product category that the company sold. This included living room furniture, dresses, bedding, area rugs, home décor and more.

This type of performance has been going on for months, clear back before the 2010 holiday season. J.C. Penney even outranked Samsonite.com for the term “Samsonite carry on luggage”.

The purpose of organic search is essentially to “read” the “actions” of the web and its virtual population so that – within the search results – Google can dish back the most relevant content based on what the population of the world (and the web) deems to be the most relevant.

So it’s not good when a company worth $17.8 billion in total revenue for 2010 goes on to generate paid links that manipulate their rank, essentially creating the impression that the collective opinion of the world is that they are the most relevant site for dresses… and bedding… and area rugs.

And hundreds of other search phrases – essentially equaling more than two thousand paid links across blogs and other irrelevant site pages that used descriptive anchor text to manipulate their organic rankings.

Since That’s Been Said – Let’s Shut Up About J.C. Penney Already

This is where I’m going to stop beating a dead horse because everyone and their brother has written this topic to death about what Penney did wrong, the lack of detection from the mighty algorithm, etc. In reading up on this topic I discovered something very interesting that I have to address because SEO is in my blood.

If I didn’t talk about this it would be a disservice.

What stood out to me is the epic fail by the New York Times to manage their own SEO. You would think they’d be marginally interested in it since they were so interested in what another major corporation was doing with paid links.

And we thought J.C. Penney was having issues.

As I dug for information and bounced around various blogs and news articles I noticed how difficult it was to pull up the original article from the New York Times – at least in organic search. Sure everyone was linking to it but I plugged in a half dozen or more search terms trying to locate the original article on my own all to no avail.

Amazingly enough even when I included “nytimes” I couldn’t find the piece.

This caught the attention my wife, primarily because I was laughing hysterically from my home office.

What I was faced with was one of the most well-known and trusted reporting brands in the U.S. (likely even worldwide) completely failing to drive effective traffic to their own piece (which was clearly set to go explosively viral) by making one of the simplest mistakes in optimization.

Slapping a generic title on their content.

While The World Focuses on the J.C. Penney SEO Fiasco…

Despite the vast authority of the New York Times in terms of web presence, they ironically failed at setting themselves up for continued organic traffic – on a post about SEO.

A simple analysis of the title shows that they neglected to include the subject of the article (The company in questions – J.C. Penny) or anything that has to do with SEO or Search Engine Optimization. Instead they opted for “Search Optimization and Its Dirty Little Secrets”.

….really?

It’s clear why they chose that – “optimization” is a buzz topic nowadays and they wanted to put a marketing hook in their title. Unfortunately the emphasis on marketing and trying to hook a reader with a journalistic title failed to embrace the power of simple SEO best practices when it comes to constructing titles.

Is it a permanent fail? No – more than likely they could adjust the issue by altering the title but several days after the launch of the piece it remains unchanged. At this point it likely doesn’t matter because so many people are linking to the original piece that they’re getting plenty of traffic anyway.

What’s unfortunate is that it’s not just the New York Times that’s making this kind of mistake. They may have the audience to generate links that will bring the traffic and make the rain come but other businesses online are not so lucky.

When they fail to construct optimized titles set up for long term search placement from an SEO standpoint they’re shooting themselves in the foot.

People search by key words and phrases. Google returns titles with relevant keywords or phrases. If your content fails to deliver in the title, then it becomes extremely difficult for anyone to find you online.

If you’re a business owner or you’re involved in marketing online, then you should take a moment to consider whether or not you’re also making this same mistake when it comes to your content deliver and content marketing.

It’s not likely that you’ve got an audience the size of the New York Times to sustain you.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

There is certainly no dearth of SEO companies and link farms crying themselves hoarse trying to elucidate the importance of the backlinks to the novice website owners. Although most experts suggest that link building should form an integral part of page rank improvement efforts, the million dollar question remains do backlinks still hold the same importance that they once did? After all Google is constantly upgrading its algorithm, so there is always a possibility that the big G may have changed the way in which their search bots scrutinize the links to a site to decipher its popularity. A patent filed by the company in 2004 was recently granted and has shed some light on how the company handles the backlink factor.

The link building mistakes that even the experts make

• One of the most fundamental and glaring mistakes that even the experts are prone to making is using only PR6 and above sites for their back links. It is important to understand that ‘au natural’ is the operative phrase when dealing with Google and it certainly does not seem natural that only the high hitting sites want to link to you. It will be obvious to the spiders that you are trying to scam the system and that’s not going to work in your favor.
• The secret to getting the giant G to love your site is to ensure that you have a healthy mix of sites linking back to your site, so while the PR6s and others look fabulous, including the PR0s and PR1s will keep things looking normal. However, you need to ensure that you do not go overboard with the easy backlinks. Although you certainly should include some web 2.0 sites, forum posts, blog comments etc just using those to fill your link spread is certainly not going to help your cause.
• The third mistake is getting links from a fixed number of niche sites; for instance, if you have a site related to gardening, you get backlinks only from 3 sites that have a good PR standing and are relevant to your niche; this again is a dead giveaway
• Finally, error #4 is a repetition of the first mistake; there are always people who scour around exclusively for backlinks from highly ranked domains such as .edu and .gov. If all the sites that link back to you are from these top level domains, your ploy is going to be ridiculously obvious.

Meet Mr. Righteous Surfer, he is your best friend

The central ethos around which Google wrote its search algorithm is that of Mr. Righteous Surfer, who is this guy you wonder? Well, he is the average Joe who goes site hopping looking for information and other things online.

A lot of businesses have been built around anticipating the customer’s next move or what he is most likely to do and Google has done something similar with the Mr. Righteous Surfer technique but the tech geniuses that those guys are, they have taken it several steps farther.

You do not have to get a written explanation of how the Google algorithm is designed as long as you understand this simplistic yet ingenious concept. When people rummage through websites and come across links, they are more likely to click some over the others. For instance, if you have an automobile related website, with two links on the home page, one which leads to the ‘about us’ page and the other which takes the visitor to a page on car repair tips, which page do you think Mr. Righteous Surfer is more likely to visit?

The way Google views this conundrum is that a link which has a higher likelihood of being clicked on and visited, should enjoy a better rank. This is of course the most simplistic explanation of the Mr. Righteous Surfer Model and Google has tweaked it enough to turn it into a commendable search engine force. However, the central theme still remains constant, Google trying to offer the best services to its customers. So, this brings us to the trillion dollar question, what would be the perfect link as described by Google.

Google on what is the perfect backlink

Here are some valuable insights on the right way and place to put your backlinks in, so that they can garner the much needed attention from Google.

The aesthetics: So, do the font size, color and how the link stands out against the background really make even an iota’s difference to the standing of the link? You would be flabbergasted, but the answer to that question is a resounding ‘yes”.

Think like Mr. Righteous Surfer here, would you not have a higher propensity for clicking on a link which has a larger font than the surrounding text and one which stands out because of the contrasting colors used for the link font and the background? In all likelihood, the answer to that question will also be positive. This brings us to another crucial point, do not try to hide links in the text; it will do more harm than good. Also, always make sure that the links are highlighted, so that your visitors can clearly demarcate them from the rest of the text.

The anchor text: While the importance of using anchor text which is related to the theme of the page has been elaborated umpteen times, few know that Google also checks for the commerciality of the anchor text. Although the company has not warmed up to anchor texts with overt commercial intent; unfortunately, you cannot always circumvent this factor, especially if your keyphrase includes the word ‘buying’ or ‘for sale’.

The surrounding text and the page attributes and how they connect with the link: Another elementary point that Google takes very seriously is the relevance of the link to the content of the text on the source page. So, adding a link to a loan site on a page that offers home cleaning information is definitely not going to earn you brownie points from the big G. While this factor is painfully obvious even to the new kids on the block, what even the experts fail to tell you is that Google has taken their scrutiny deeper.

Not only is the overall relevance of the page checked but also that of the text that surrounds the link. So, you will need to ensure that the link fits in perfectly with the surrounding text, in terms of the niche. To check Google’s views on a page that you are linking to and its relevance to your link, use Google’s external keyword tool. Simply add the url of the page where you intend to place your link and if the keyword that you are targeting appears, your selection is spot on.

Image links: For the image links, it is vital to ensure that they not only have the right tag but should also link to a relevant page. For instance, using the image of a flower linked to a gardening page will certainly be a hit with the spiders and will definitely earn a place in Google image search. Make sure that the name of the image file has the keyword that you are targeting. The aspect ration of the image is also an important consideration, so you need to ensure that your images are not so puny that they go unnoticed. For example, a pixel size of 200 X 200 will certainly get noticed.

The target URL: Google does not take kindly to techniques that try to undermine the efficacy of their algorithm. The bots are not just looking for the relevance of the target url to the source page which has the link on it, but they also want to ensure that the links do not point to a site on the same host, which may very well belong to the same person. In other words, any attempts to cheat the system by link masking or pointing to a deeper page on the site or placing a link on one of the other sites that you own, will not work.

The position of the link on the page: It would do you good to understand early on that Google does not think highly of comment links, footer and sidebar links and forum links. So make sure that your link is in the main body of the page and high up in the list if one has been used.

The visitor’s choice: Google also has a system in place whereby every link on a page earns a positive point when a visitor clicks on it, increasing its rank while the other links on the page earn a negative point because they were not clicked on. This proves a very vital point, that if you place your link on a page which already sports several dozen other links, you will just end up getting a lot of negative points.

The dubious claims about ‘no follow’ links: This one has been doing the rounds of the internet for a while, with many experts claiming that “no follow” links are worthless, but are they really? Let’s go back to Google’s core mantra again; does it not say that you need to have a healthy mix of sites in your link profile? Then, why should pages that offer “no follow” links be exempted from this rule?

Where to find the ever elusive perfect backlink?

Do not let anybody convince you that spending hundreds of dollars for an automated link building tool will get you the perfect link. It simply isn’t going to happen. As opposed to this, the semi automated tools out there are a better bet.

Also, it is imperative to understand that while Google will point you in the right direction by showing you all the sites that are relevant to your niche in a search, you will need to do the heavy lifting on your own and this involves building rapport with the owners of the sites and gaining credibility in your niche community.

Do not expect webmasters to fall over each other vying to get you to place a guest post on their site. However, if you build up a relationship with them first, project the image of being a friendly person who is genuinely interested in the niche and the various sites dedicated to it, you may just be able to get your foot in the door.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

Numerous articles have been written recently about the recent overhaul by Google in how it’s displaying local search results.  With all the opinions flying around you’re bound to have misconceptions and after reading a lot of the content it’s clear that there are many.  The primary misconceptions are in how the changes made by Google will impact search results as well as how businesses are going to have to change their approach to gaining position in the SERPs.

1. Google Places will Phase Out Organic SEO

The primary concern seems to be that these changes will phase out organic SEO.  Likewise, some are concerned that the change puts more emphasis on the Google Places address.  This is unfounded and inaccurate.  Truth be told with this new revised local display, you’re gaining visibility with local SEO and/or Google Places listings.

The changes don’t really affect or diminish one or the other.  Both should be considered required elements in your local marketing campaign.

2. Google Places will Make Virtual City Ranking more Difficult

There’s also a misconception that with Google Places pages, you will have an extremely difficult time ranking for any city name outside of the one in which your business is located.  With the way the SERPs have run for years, it’s always been a bit of a chore ranking for cities where you only have a virtual presence – especially in larger cities or more competitive markets.

In smaller cities, where many mainstreet businesses tend to grow, it’s always been easy to manipulate and appear within the 3 pack or 7 pack of local results.  The new Google Places hasn’t changed that.  Do enough searches outside the major cities and you’ll see businesses ranking for multiple areas where they have no physical presence.

3. Google Places killed Local Directories

Finally, people keep uttering the “local directories are dead” mantra – that really needs to stop.  This goes back to me previous post about making absolutes.  A directory or site is dead when it actually goes down and disappears.  People say the same thing about phone books but they’re still in use.

Google Places is not going to kill the yellow page directories and other local directories.  If you do a search for businesses, you’re still going to find the listings within sites like superpages and yellow pages showing up at the top of the search results.  The local directories are doing just fine in the search results and they will continue to do so.

In the end, we need to realize that organic seo is not going to disappear because of Places listings.  It’s a means of supporting the same goal, and you should not stop one to start another.  Instead, embrace all the options that are available and leverage them to the best of your ability.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

Once you find and locate someone that is able to create all the written content you need, it’s important for you to cultivate a good relationship with that individual.  Great copywriters will find a lot of opportunities for work – after all good copywriting is an in-demand skill much like SEO.  As a result, copywriters are going to be evaluating you as a client just as much as you are evaluating them as a service provider.  If you don’t match the caliber they expect for the clientele, you may find that they continue business elsewhere.

Here are 6 tips to keep your copywriting chugging along in a great relationship with you.

1. Find out what they prefer to write

Some copywriters would leap at the opportunity to create a 500 word article on imported bison meat or even landscaping.  Others would rather have glass inserted in their fingernails before they suffer through writing one more piece of real estate or finance content on foreclosures.

Before you work with a copywriter, find out what they prefer and enjoy writing about.  If you carry a lot of different projects you may be able to position them with something that caters to their preferences.  When you can match them up in this regard, you’ll always get higher-quality content – plus they’ll look forward to working with you.

2. Keep communication open.

There are a lot of experience copywriters who use a standard Q&A for each of their clients that must be completed before a project can begin.  This questionnaire will help them learn about your product, service and marketing goals as well as the tone and style through which you want to present everyone to the audience.

3. Writing is a process

It’s simply not realistic to expect a copywriter to generate exactly what you need on the first go around.  While there are some copywriters talented enough to hit the nail on the head after a good Q&A powwow, more often than not you should expect some revisions.  It’s a creative process, so expect a few steps in production before getting the final piece of content.

4. Be patient

One of the fastest ways to turn off a copywriter is to demand a rapid turnaround on all of your projects.  First off, most copywriters have dozens of clients – it’s not fair to demand they drop everything to complete your project quickly.  Likewise, if you ask for something immediately but then you don’t respond immediately for feedback and/or revisions then you’ve made yourself look bad.  At best, they ignore the next “emergency” you have.  Worst case scenario, they choose not to work with anymore.

5. Writing is not a commodity

Too many web designers, developers, and SEO’s view writing as some sort of machined commodity.  In truth, it is both an art and a skill.  It’s a position that should be valued, but if you don’t value it that’s your business.  Keep in mind however that no self-respecting copywriter will choose to work with someone that constantly asks questions like “how many 500 word articles can I get for $50”.  If you want to retain a copywriter then you have to respect their craft.

6. Some copywriters don’t do SEO

That’s completely acceptable, as well.  Don’t shun a copywriter because they don’t understand optimization.  Some very talented writers were trained to write from a journalistic approach.  If you know what SEO elements you want in your copy, then it’s best to provide your expectations up front so that when the writing is being produced the copywriter can incorporate the necessary keywords in the titles, bulleted lists, etc.

Strong copywriting is essentially the backbone of not only some of the most powerful websites but also the strongest marketing campaigns carrying the weight of rank in the SERPs online.  It is the well-written content that drives engagement among users and consumers.  Consider that a single blog post or article can spontaneously generate a viral outbreak, links, sales and conversions and it’s easy to see why keeping a good copywriter is so important.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

One of the things that I enjoy the most about marketing online and the various projects I get involved in is the fact that I get to work with a variety of creative individuals.  Each of these people turns out to be a talented specialist in their area of expertise and one of the most creative sectors that’s offered me the opportunity to meet some great people is in copywriting.

If you’re not keen on the term, a copywriter is someone who develops written content for marketing purposes.  Essentially, a website content writer is a copywriter.  So is someone who handles content marketing (Seo copywriting).

If you plan on doing any business online, whether you’re a small mainstreet company or you’ve got a larger start-up or launch then you can benefit from the services that a copywriter offers.  They can help you in virtually any vertical, ensuring that the message you deliver is right on track with your target audience.  They are an essential part of any marketing and SEO campaign, and can ensure that your on-page content matches that of your content marketing and distribution.

There are thousands of copywriters available around the word, and sifting through the masses of people to find the right one that’s talented and affordable (and likeable) is a daunting task.  Thankfully, in my experience, I’ve manage to find some great ones to work on my projects with me.  Here’s how I managed to do that:

There are a lot of places to look for copywriters, but these are some of my favorites:

AssociatedContent.com – If you’re in need of a writer for a specific subject, then these open article sites are a great place to look.  You can review content by category and review the samples and content provided by the author before you ever choose to contact them.

Blogs – A good copywriter is always trying to hone their own craft and show off their skill and experience.  Look for blogs and content on website copywriting and SEO copywriting.  Use blogs to review the skill of the writer and gauge their experience in the craft.  Likewise, check around to see if those writers are participating on the blogs of others.  If they’re heavily involved in the community they are likely a great choice for your project.

Craigslist – If you don’t mind wading through a lot of emails with samples then craigslist is another source of writers.  It’s also a great way to find local writers that don’t mind working in an office if you’re looking for someone that is able to physically attend meetings and such for a product launch.

Writers also favor sites like Elance.com and Guru.com.  As with any freelance site, you can expect the replies within to be hit or miss.  Elance.com is a higher quality site than freelancer.com but you may find a large majority of the people responding to your proposals are several time zones away and live halfway around the world.  While this may keep the cost low, it’s always nice to be able to pick up the phone and talk to someone about a project.

Once you do locate a good copywriter, keep them handy and load their contact information in a place where you can readily find it.  There’s nothing better than having a copywriter on call when a hot project lands in your lap.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

Google has grown into a monster in the last decade is it has cornered one market after another.  Recently, they’ve continues to create a thin layer of reviews in order to displace all of the general and focused directories that they’ve sent spiraling into bankruptcy.  Some of the big players however are telling Google exactly where they can stuff it.

TripAdvisor reviews have completely disappeared from Google Place page – at first because of a technical issue but then once that issue was resolved the site kept its reviews out of the grubby mitts of Google.  The stayed “gone” as TripAdvisor decided to pass on Google’s generous offer to borrow their content and use it to replace them within the search multiverse:

As Google creates a thin review layer to displace some of the directories they are driving into bankruptcy, some of the wiser middle men are telling Google to go get stuffed. TripAdvisor reviews disappeared from Google Place pages due to a technical issue, but then they stayed disappeared due to TripAdvisor passing on Google’s generous offer to borrow their content & use it to replace them in the search ecosystem:

“Google is no longer able to stream in reviews from TripAdvisor to Places pages after the user review giant blocked it.

TripAdvisor confirmed the move today in an email, stating that while it continues to evaluate recent changes to Google Places it believes the user does not benefit with the “experience of selecting the right hotel”.

“As a result, we have currently limited TripAdvisor content available on those pages,” an official says.

Google has placed a growing emphasis on Business to Consumer relationships as of late, attempting to offer up more suggestions for everything under the sun.  In response, top market leaders such as Yelp and TripAdvisor are preparing to (or have already) told Google to get bent.  Outside of the major companies however there are still x,y and z businesses that need all the exposure they can get.  Their head-hung alliances with the search giant tend to be more short-term thinking.

Google will continue to partner with the little guy which will eventually wear down the walls of the market leaders.  At someone point someone is going to have to agree to play ball and bring the siege to an end.  In a world where most consumers do more than 80% of their business through search, it’s a bold move to back out of the search listings – even if it’s a matter of principle.

Eventually I’m certain that the market leaders will come around, and there will be concessions for deals.  Those businesses and market leaders need to remember that even if Google doesn’t do the things the most appropriate way, sometimes you have to deal with the ugly in order to get to the gold.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

The recent launch of the new keyword tool from Google raised the hackles of a lot of advertisers, as it took the system from being quite granular and focused to being a lot more broad – essentially making the system more presumptuous than anything else.

Where the system once allowed you to narrow in on specific areas, it now assumes that you want to pick from a broader base of keywords than what you were originally looking for.  This may not necessarily make sense when you consider how the quality score system works for punishing irrelevant ads.

Based on user feedback / complaints they updated the tool to offer 3 different filters: more like this, include or exclude keywords, and a setting which makes the search optionally tighter if turned on.

Given the keyword categorization, localization, trending data, match type options, these new filters, handy CSV export options & all the data they offer the whole of Google Keyword utilities is transforming into a monster tool that should be (if it’s not already) a regular part of any SEO’s arsenal when it comes to market research.  The new system allows you to tackle multiple levels of research within minutes – unfortunately if you’re a geek like the rest of us when it comes to SEO you’ll probably be tampering with it for hours.

If that wasn’t enough Google decide to one-up itself with… itself.

They recently announced a new tool that’s built around estimating the actual size of various global markets.  This means you’ll get data specific to the vertical and just how big that market is globally.  While the previous incarnations of our favorite research tool allowed this, the new version will allow you to compare market sizes by search demand, side by side at a quick glance.  It will also list your local keywords in various languages that carry a similar meaning.

There are a number of paid systems out there that yield great tools for keyword research but Google continues to be an excellent source of free tools for refining your own market research.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

If you’ve been trying to win out online with SEO and corner your own little vertical market, then here’s a head slapper that might surprise you.  Bing isn’t Google.

I know, that’s a shock right?

There’s a problem with so many marketers and small businesses trying to carve out their niche with SEO – they focus too much on Google and too little on the new contender that’s entered the ring.  Some are considering Bing and Yahoo but focus on Google, others are ignoring the new search engine completely.  In the process, they’re ignoring a heavily commerce-focused demographic that generates a lot of traffic (and subsequently – revenue).

The problem with Bing, in the eyes of many, is that Bing isn’t Google.  We established that, and we know that “Bing is no Google” – we get that, too.  However the entire system is a heal of a lot better than the simple search functions offered by MSN just a few years ago.  Bing is by far the most legit competition being offered against Google on the net today.  Even Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt readily admits that Bing “is their biggest problem” and competitor, going on to stay “Bing is a well-run, highly competitive search engine.”

So the question to ask is why so many business owners and marketers online are turning their nose up at the growing search engine? Bing is set to gain a lot of popularity as it continues to expand it will continue to hook in a good portion of market share for a number of reasons:

• They are setting long term strategies for their market domination.  They care more about 6 years from now than they do about next year – that’s a model many businesses could learn from.
• They are highly focused on search, where Google is primarily concerned with creating gadgets in their lab to expand beyond just search.
• Bing is innovative.  Granted, they’re a little more susceptible to link manipulation than Google but that’s bound to improve.  Google was there once as well.
• Google is becoming more commercial in order to sustain itself.  Bing doesn’t need the commercial focus to turn a profit.  Where Google was once a completely free system, today, Google is a monetize-forward search engine getting more bloated and, yes, even greedy.  Microsoft has deep pockets, they can go the distance while they invest in refining search
• Bing is also running Yahoo’s SERP, as well.  ComScore reports that Bing’s marketshare is up near 30% because of the agreement.

Don’t take this as me simply banging the drum for Bing.  I’m not getting compensated for making this content and you don’t see any promotional links in this particular post.  This is simple truth that businesses and marketers should be embracing a search engine that is readily growing and building its traffic.  With a growing market share, users are making the switch over to Bing.

If you’re spending all of your time manipulating your results in Google with SEO techniques, but you’re ignoring the other search engines, you’re essentially ignoring as much as 20% of the traffic on the net – perhaps more, perhaps less – it depends on your market and where your audience does their searching.

Good market research would reveal not only where your audience gathers, but where they do their searching online.  It may shock some of the more common businesses and marketers to know that a good portion of the traffic comes through Bing and their page 1 listing on Google is actually a page 2 or page 3 listing in Bing.

Different algorithms yield different results – are you paying attention?

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.