5 Steps to Get Your Site Found on Google

Google just changed the face of their search results with a huge innovation, blending local with organic results. My last blog post was about how you’re missing out if you haven’t updated your business on Google Places, and now it means even more than ever!

First I’m going to show you how Google has changed. Then I’m going to tell you exactly how to get your own site ranking, and quite possibly showing up on the first page of Google search results more than once.

The Google 3 Pack, 7 Pack and 10 Pack have mostly disappeared. Now when you look up a search term with a local designation, you get a page that looks like this:

The organic listings are the first three below the ads. Note the little plus sign and “Show more results from…” below the second organic listing. When you click on the plus sign you get a list of that site’s indexed pages that Google thinks fit the search parameters, with the option of going even deeper:

Following the organic results are the top three Places results, and when you click on the Place page link you are taken to that site’s page:

Below the organic results for businesses that rank in the top three Places results are the more generic local directory results, icluding Merchant Circle, Magic Yellow, and Yahoo Local.

So what does all of this mean for you? If you own a local business, you have more opportunities than ever to get your site found on the first page of Google.

5 Magic Steps to Google Ranking

1. Your first step is to ensure that your site has the best search engine optimization possible, for both visitors and search engines.


2. Get yourself over to Google Places, click on Put your business on Google Maps, and spend time making your Places page complete and informative.


3. Ask customers to write testimonials and reviews on Google, Yelp, Insider Pages, Merchants Circle, and other local directories.


4. Add quality content to your site. Informational pages and/or a blog will work.


5. Build inbound links to your site from other sites. The best way to start the process is through article marketing.

Okay, so these aren’t really magic – they take hard work, dedication, and money if you don’t have the time or knowledge to do it yourself.

You have a few options – you can scour the Internet for information on SEO and implement it on your site, you can join the SEO Power Team’s 3 month course ($97 a month) and get professional tutorials on how to do it yourself (written by yours truly), or you can call an SEO Consultant and have it done for you.

What you must NOT do is ignore or put off marketing your website any longer.

© Kay Frenzer-Zeeh - visit SEO Diva for more great content.

Tags: Google, local search, search engine optimization, SEO, SEO tips

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Article Marketing Part 2: Keywords, Links, and Your Resource Box

When you write an article, it’s tempting to add your keywords in as often as possible. However,  it’s important to NOT cram keywords into it, or your article will look like spam content and may also be rejected by the article syndication service.

The algorithms used in today’s search engines are quite sophisticated and can easily figure out what your article is about without you hammering it home. You’ll also alienate your readers if your article reads like it’s meant for search engines instead of human beings.

The two places where you must have your target keyword phrase are in your title and your link. It’s very important to do this the right way:

1. If at all possible, put your keyword at the beginning of your article’s title. For example, “Article Marketing – 3 Days to Success” instead of “3 Days to Successful Article Marketing.”


2. Make your link, whether in your resource box for article syndication sites or in the article itself, your exact keyword phrase: “Read SEO Diva to learn about article marketing and how to…“


3. Don’t neglect to use your keyword phrase in the tags for the article.

It should be obvious, but I’ll say it anyway: make the article relevant to your keywords. I’ve come across articles that are about one thing, such as housebreaking a dog, and then in the resource box the linked keyword phrase is for something like Acai diet products. There’s no relevancy there, and it’s doubtful the link would add anything to the website’s ranking.

Using the Resource Box to Your Advantage

When you submit your article to a syndication site, you are often not allowed to put self-serving links within the article itself. Instead, you’re allowed two links in the resource box at the end of the article.

To make the most of it, write two or more sentences in a custom resource box for each article you submit. Ezine Articles recommends it be around 15% of your article’s word count.

One sentence should be a call to action along with your keyword linked to the most relevant page on your site (not your home page in most cases). For example, when you click on the article marketing link shown in #2 above, you’ll see that the link does not go to my home page but to an interior page of this site.

The second link should be an actual URL; using my example, it would be http://www.seodiva.net/article-marketing-3-days/. The reason is that when others republish your article, sometimes your link will be stripped out. However, by including your URL you have a better chance of 1) getting credit for the article and 2) for the reader to go to your site for more information.

You should also include the name of your business or site in the resource box, again for credit for the article as well as information for the reader.

Don’t forget to complete your author bio. Write a little about yourself, add your business name, a link to your site, and your social networking links.

When Others Publish Your Article

When other websites publish your article, they are supposed to keep the resource box and all links intact. Some do, but others strip out the links. By including your actual URL and business/site name, you are ensuring that the reader knows where the article came from.

Some unscrupulous people will exclude the resource box entirely, but since they are using duplicate content they aren’t getting credit for it from the search engines. Yes, it’s a ripoff, but your time is usually better spent writing more articles than tracking these people down and demanding they remove it.

Next: Article Marketing Part 3: Best Places to Syndicate Your Articles

Part 1: Article Marketing – 3 Days to Success

© Kay Frenzer-Zeeh - visit SEO Diva for more great content.

Tags: article marketing, article syndication, keywords, link building, links, SEO tips

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Article Marketing Part 3: The Best Places to Syndicate Your Articles

Now it’s time to syndicate your article on the Internet.

You will learn which article marketing directory works best for you, but here’s a rundown of some of my favorites. Except for Zimbio, they give direct links.

Your Blog – The first place you should put your article is on your blog itself. Wait a few days before you submit it to any other site, to give the search engines time to index it.

Ezine Articles – Articles published on Ezine are well respected and may actually rank in and of themselves. This article marketing service has strict guidelines and I strongly suggest you read them prior to submitting an article for approval. If you have first published the article on your blog, use the Ezine plugin (available from their site) to submit it; this avoids rejection because of duplicated content.

Go Articles – If you’re having problems getting articles approved on Ezine, you may want to use Go Articles instead. Their guidelines are not as strict and it’s easier to get articles published. Sometimes articles from this site will rank in search results.

Zimbio – If you’ve got a blog, set up an account on Zimbio and then register your blog so it will feed to Zimbio. I like to make my own “Wikizine” on the site and specify that my blog articles publish to it. Although the links are filtered through the site’s URL, articles can send traffic and rank on Google search results.

Squidoo – I have a soft spot for Squidoo. At one time articles from here would rank right at the top. There was a smackdown when spammers started misusing the site, and now the articles don’t rank as easily, but they still provide links and often some good traffic to your site. Squidoo lenses, as they are called, are fun to create too. For best results be sure to make at least five modules and add pictures.

Update: This Squidoo lens showed up on the first page of Google a couple of days after it was published. This gives the business 3 listings on the first page – always a plus!

Check out this list of the Top 50 Article Directories – gives traffic, pagerank, and whether the directory employs the nofollow tag.

I’d love to know which article syndication sites you prefer to use and that give you the best results.

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Keep Your Google Rankings While Updating Your Site

With a new project ahead, I have been concerned about how to keep my client’s awesome Google rankings while updating her website to one that is more current and functional.

Consequently, I was very happy to find this article in the Axandra newsletter, and have received permission to publish it in full.

How your web page changes influence your search engine rankings.

It’s a no-brainer that changes on your web pages influence the position of your website on search engines. However, it’s not so clear how search engines react to the changes on your site and what exactly causes the changes in the search results. A new search engine patent might have some answers.

Several search engine patents deal with the changes on your site.

Google published a patent that described how the changes on your web pages influence the rankings of your site 6 years ago. Last month, Microsoft was granted another patent that discusses the influence of web page changes on search engine rankings.

This new patent shows which elements on your web pages might be monitored by search engines.

Which web page elements are monitored by search engines?

According to the new patent, changes of the following web page elements can influence the position of the page in the search results:

• Keywords that are included in a web page.


• Keywords that are associated with a web page


• The anchor texts that are used in links on the page.


• The colors and the sizes of images on the page.


• The position of text or images on the page.


• The frequency of document changes over time.


• The amount of the web page content that has been changed.


• Tags that are assigned to the page.


• Search queries that are used to find the page.

How exactly do changes in these elements influence the rankings of a page?

According to the patent, searches are classified into the two categories “informational” and “navigational”. The effect of the web page changes depends on the category of a search query.

A navigational query is a query that is used to find a particular site. For example, a search for “ny times” will lead to the home page of the sites. Examples for information queries are “how do I fix a broken bicycle tire” or “who won the 2011 XYZ awards”?

If the searcher is looking for information about a recent event (2011 XYZ awards) then pages that recently added the keyword could be boosted in the search results.

For navigational queries, pages with static content might get a boost. This methods works fine with some type of sites but it could cause problems with home pages that update their contents regularly (for example nytimes.com).

What does this mean to your website?

This patent was granted to Microsoft but it’s likely that Google uses similar methods. Search engines don’t just look at the current version of your website.

They also remember how it was in the past. The changes on your website could indicate a change of ownership, they could indicate that you try to keep your website up-to-date, they could be a signal for spam and more.

When you change your web pages, consider which signal you might be sending to search engines.

When you optimize the pages of your website, do not optimize a page that already has high rankings for one of your keywords. Better optimize another page of your site for the new keyword.

The more pages of your website you optimize, the better. Optimize different pages of your website for different but related keywords to show search engines that your website is relevant to a particular topic.

Keep some of the pages fresh and leave others as they are to offer search engines different kind of pages for different search queries.

“Copyright Axandra.com – Web site promotion software“

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5 Steps That Will Make Your Site Immune to Algorithm Changes

Are you alarmed about the recent Google algorithm changes?

Here’s the deal in a nutshell – follow the rules and you won’t have to worry about algorithm changes and updates. 99% of the time they only affect websites that are trying to get rankings by cheating in one way or another, or that are so poorly designed and optimized that they seem spammy to search engines.

It pays to do things the right way. Follow these 5 steps and you won’t have to worry about changing algorithms:

1. Build a site that is valuable for visitors
   
   Check your navigation, content, photos, forms and landing pages


2. Ensure that your code is search engine friendly
   
   Review your titles, descriptions, content, alt tags and contextual links


3. Make it easy for visitors to convert
   
   Make certain your phone number is easy to find, contact form works, your shopping cart works smoothly to completion, your download links aren’t broken


4. Build links the right way
   
   Write meaningful articles that are interesting to read and add value, then syndicate them for keyword links as well as encouraging potential customers to visitor your site


5. Post to your blog on a regular basis
   
   Keep it fresh and interesting with valuable information for the reader, and avoid sales pitches

This can be a considerable amount of work, but if you’re serious about your business you’ll do it. If you’re not SEO savvy, hire someone who is. You want a website that is the best it can be – ranking well in search engines and converting visitors to sales.

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