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Lost Rankings? How To Recover from Google Penalties

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Over optimization tipsThere are two types of SEOs: those that chase Google’s algorithm using tactics that work now but won’t in the future, and then there are SEOs that take a more sustainable approach to optimization, avoiding tactics that have a limited life-span. Prior to 2012 algorithm chasers were able, for the most part, to achieve rankings success for clients with a few setbacks from Panda. The various algorithm changes that Google announced this year (and it’s only April) have really dealt a blow to the algorithm chasers and, unfortunately, many companies that employed them to manage their SEO.

Given the new landscape, it’s not uncommon for online marketing agencies to acquire accounts with websites that have been worked over by unscrupulous SEOs in the past. These websites face a mountain of obstacles to overcome, but they can be overcome. It just may take some time depending on the severity of bad SEO.

If you have a website or you are working with a website that Google no longer loves, you’re going to need to take a different approach. Quality content and a strong social presence will earn Google’s trust again in time, but here are some suggestions you can implement now to get you back on track.

Address over-optimization on-site

A good place to start is with scaling back keyword density and any abundance of optimized internal links on your website. If you use your browser’s “find” function to highlight a keyword on a page that used to rank and it looks like you are staring into the sun, that’s a good sign you need to remove excessive mentions of that keyword from your content (or break out a thesaurus). You should also look to adjust your internal linking strategy by either removing some links or linking from related long-tail phrases.

Balance over-optimization off-site with branded links

To diagnose over-optimized links, run your page through Open Site Explorer and click over to the “Anchor Text” tab. If you don’t see your brand name or domain name in the top 5 then it’s time to put your brand first and your keywords second. You might be able to score some quick wins by changing off-site links you can control, but ultimately you need to change your linking strategy. Some purists will tell you to forget anchor text entirely. Realistically, targeting a mix of branded links and longer-tail keyword links from other websites will probably yield better results, quicker.

Combat bad links with high-quality content strategies

Bad links may be the most difficult thing to tackle on a site that has lost Google’s trust. If it is possible to easily remove bad, low-quality links, do it. In most cases, however, your time will be better spent creating quality content that can get you quality links. Either way, it’s going to take time (more time than it took to acquire the bad links). Many websites will be able to implement quality link outreach campaigns right away through public relations or sweepstakes-oriented promotions. Infographic creation and distribution can also get you some good links in a relatively short amount of time. Long-term, your strategy needs to lay the groundwork that will allow you to scale content distribution and quality link building efforts in the future. To do this you will need to do the following:

  • Construct an authoritative blog with engaging content people want to link to –authorship is important so make sure there are people and faces connected to blog posts
  • Create a social media strategy that builds followers who interact with your business
  • Develop and promote people at your company who are experts in the industry
  • Aim to build relationships, not links

The goal for any SEO or website today should be to create a sustainable optimization strategy both on-site and off-site. Many businesses learn the hard way that it takes much longer to regain rankings that are lost when Google updates its search signals. Whether or not your site has been penalized –consider implementing sustainable optimization strategies sooner rather than later.

Posted in Google, Link-Building, Online PR, SEO, Social Media

 

Evaluating Display for Brand Marketing

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Google rolled out “Brand Activate” today at Ad Age’s Digital Conference. Current standardized metrics such as clicks, user interaction and conversions only depict a piece of the pie for brand advertisers. Google’s new initiative addresses the challenge of measuring brand favorability. Google is attempting to chip away at the billions of dollars spent on television advertising and increase revenue by offering Brand Activate.

Here are the first two Brand Activate solutions, which will be available to users in coming weeks:

1.)    Active View:  Measures whether an ad was at least 50% viewable on the screen for at least 1 second. This tool will be available on the Google Display Network Reserve first and eventually DoubleClick. Google says advertisers will then be able to pay only for viewed impressions.

2.)    Active GRP (Gross Profit Rating): Builds upon the standard measure used in television buying. GRP captures reach multiplied by frequency, and is expressed as a percentage. This tool will be built into Google’s ad-serving tools, allowing users to make campaign adjustments while ads are in progress.

Coming soon to Brand Activate:

  • Brand Impact Survey Pilot
  • Brand Lift Measurement Product
  • Other Cross-Media measurement capabilities
Posted in Display Advertising, Google, Paid Search | Tagged

 

Fun with Google Search: Profane Political Documentary Edition

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Longtime readers of this blog might remember (OK, probably not) 4 years ago when I wrote about the power of a popular video to show up in Google’s organic search results based on a random string of characters in the URL (“1-f”). The result in question then was the music video (on YouTube) for George Michael’s “Careless Whispers,” which, naturally, had no logical relevance to the search for “1-f.” Today, it’s an hourlong Adam Curtis BBC political documentary with a profane title … that has nothing to do with “1-f.”

That’s right, you read that correctly. See the screenshot below:

Unfortunately, this result cannot be replicated in real time because a new irrelevant video—”kitten vs TWO scary things”—has supplanted The Trap, the result I first saw a few weeks ago. As for the Curtis BBC documentary, its YouTube title (“The Trap – 1 – F*k You Buddy”) does not suggest any semantic connection to pink noise, asteroids or other potential meanings of “1-f.” Any human with 4th-grade literacy could probably interpret that the “1″ in the title (pictured above) refers to the edition of that particular film and that the “F” is nothing other than the first letter in the phrase “F*k You Buddy,” which happens to follow the 1 after a hyphen, which has space on each side of it, clearly separating the “1″ from the letter f. (The editor in me would also tell you that technically, there should be 2 asterisks there, one for each missing letter, but that’s a bonus observation.)

One conclusion is unequivocally clear: search has evolved significantly, but it still can’t substitute for human intelligence. While Google is making rapid advances in the notoriously tricky field of speech recognition, the good old-fashioned written word can still confound. Which irrelevant video will Google serve up next? Or will this issue be solved by the time my next search experiment takes place? Stay tuned to find out.

Posted in Google, Internet Video Marketing, Search Engines | Tagged , , , , , ,

 

My Top Five SMX West Takeaways

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After finally recovering from my trip to SMX West last week, I’ve started sifting through the many pages of notes I took during the conference. All of the sessions were extremely beneficial and I had the opportunity to learn from industry leaders such as Danny Sullivan and Susan Wojcicki. Every evening I left on total information-overload. But I mean that in the best possible way, of course!

While reviewing my seemingly endless pile of notes, I noticed some trends emerging. So, if you weren’t fortunate enough to visit the San Jose SMX conference yourself, consider my top five takeaways:

1. Become a Social Butterfly

If you’ve been resisting social media, you could be severely hindering the success of your business. I know what you’re thinking, no one is going to follow your business on Facebook. That’s where your creativity comes in. If you have a business that wouldn’t traditionally gain followers through social media, offer people a reason to follow you. For example, if you run a bank, maybe you can offer financial tips to people who check in to your business on Foursquare (after all, there are an average of 23 check-ins every second). Own a real estate business? Consider offering people who like you on Facebook insider information about local bars, restaurants and stores.

2. If you aren’t on Google+, Now is the Time to Join

If you didn’t already guess it from my first takeaway, social media was huge at SMX West this year, and Google+ was no exception. While many businesses are resisting the adoption of this social media channel, it offers a variety of important benefits for businesses. Did you know that only 57% of Fortune 100 Companies are currently using Google+ and of those 57% only 3% encourage visitors to visit their page by using badges on their homepage. Put yourself ahead of the competition by being the first in your industry to take advantage of this growing social channel. Google+ results are already showing up in Google SERPs. Make sure you are taking full advantage of this opportunity for your business to show up in the results.

3. Differentiate or Die

While it may seem dramatic, if you don’t differentiate yourself you won’t survive in the results. When searching Google for “how to make French toast,” you get almost 32,400,000 search results. How many of those do you think are really relevant to that search? Maybe four or five. That means, if you aren’t showing up in the top results for your key terms, it might be time to change your tactics. By keeping your content fresh, integrating social media, personalizing your content, and most importantly, creating content that is truly relevant to the searcher, you can start to differentiate yourself from the millions of other search results.

4. Understand Your Mobile Users

If you find that people are searching for your business on mobile phones, it is your job to create a mobile site that is as user-friendly as possible. People that are searching on their mobile device have a completely different mindset than those searching on a traditional laptop or PC. The cognitive strain is so much greater for a mobile searcher. When creating your mobile site, cut through all the distractions give your audience a simple, user-friendly platform.

5. Create Killer Content

Is content really still king? According to the speakers at SMX, yes! 92% of marketers agree that content creation is very or somewhat effective as an SEO strategy. How can you create content that is truly killer? Get in touch with your audience. Revisit your customer personas, tighten up your pages that drive the most income for your business, clean up outdated content, and focus on creating conversion-friendly content over Google-friendly content.

Now do you understand why I was on information-overload all week? While this may seem like an overwhelming to-do list when it comes to your SEO, if you just implement a few of these ideas and grow on them  over time, you can improve your conversions and rankings.

 

Posted in Conferences and Events, Content Creation, Google, SEO, Social Media | Tagged , , , , , , , ,

 

Competitive Advantage in 250 Milliseconds

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You don’t need to follow track and field to know who Usain Bolt and Tyson Gay are, and now you don’t need to work in Internet marketing to know about the importance of website speed for keeping visitor interest, thanks to today’s front-page story in The New York Times.

Track and field (or Internet marketing) insiders may already know that website speed has been written about before by Google and usability expert Jakob Nielsen, but one of the newest findings may surprise (via the Times story above):

“People will visit a Web site less often if it is slower than a close competitor by more than 250 milliseconds (a millisecond is a thousandth of a second).”

Our attraction to speedy websites may be subconscious, but the effect is no less powerful despite our lack of perception. Incidentally, 250 milliseconds is faster than the time it takes a 99-m.p.h. fastball to reach the plate, but actually slower than one beat of a dragonfly’s wings.

Implications of speed

Implications of  speed are seen all over; here’s a few examples:

  • General: If any Web page is deemed “bad,” people will leave it in a few seconds. If it’s good, they could stay a few minutes. The key is what they find in the first 10-20 seconds, which determines the probability of users speed-dating vs. having a cup of coffee.
  • Organic search: Google formally introduced site speed as a ranking factor in its algorithm two years ago.
  • Paid search: If your landing page doesn’t fire up quickly, impatient visitors will favor another, faster one.
  • Video: “4 out of 5 online users will click away if a video stalls while loading” (via the Times story above).
  • Email: E-newsletter subscribers might be suspicious of (or altogether ignore) links you put in emails if the pages they launch don’t load at the right speed. Your messages miss the mark they otherwise would have hit.
  • Mobile: Lack of speed in loading a mobile website can enrage smartphone and tablet users to the point of breaking things.
  • Web copy: Nobody’s reading very much of it.

In addition to weighing site speed in its search algorithm, Google also has published internal studies showing that visitors spend less time on less responsive sites and stated that having faster sites can also reduce operating costs. It even has a whole section of its coding site devoted to it.

Even back in 1997, when most people weren’t using high-speed Internet, speeds of under a second were paramount when moving from page to page (as Nielsen notes). A decade or two prior to that, IBM studies from the 1970s and 1980s showed greater productivity on mainframes when users experienced a sub-second lag time between a keystroke and the corresponding screen.

What does all this mean today?

You’ve probably heard the expression, “Go big or go home.” I say, “Go fast or lose customers.” How’s that for competitive advantage?

Keep your site lean and brisk … Vin Diesel and Keanu Reeves would be proud.

***

Image courtesy of Mark Fischer via Flickr.

You don’t need to follow track and field to know who Usain Bolt and Tyson
Gay are, and now you don’t need to work in Internet marketing to know
about the importance of website speed for keeping visitor interest,
thanks to today’s front-page New York Times story.
Track and field (or Internet marketing) insiders may already know that
website speed has been written about before by Google and usability
expert Jakob Nielsen, but some of the newest findings may surprise:
“People will visit a Web site less often if it is slower than a close
competitor by more than 250 milliseconds (a millisecond is a thousandth
of a second).”
Our attraction to speedy websites may be subconscious, but the effect is
no less powerful for us not even perceiving it.
Incidentally, 250 milliseconds is faster than the time it takes a
99-m.p.h. fastball to reach the plate, but actually slower than one beat
of a dragonfly’s wings.
There’s applications all over the place:
General: If any web page is bad, people will leave it in a few seconds.
If it’s good, they could stay a few minutes. The key is what they find in
the first 10-20 seconds,
[http://www.useit.com/alertbox/page-abandonment-time.html]
Organic search:
Video: “Four out of five online users will click away if a video stalls
while loading.”
Paid search: If your landing page doesn’t fire up quickly, impatient
visitors will favor another, faster one.
Email: E-newsletter subscribers might be suspicious of (or altogether
ignore) links you put in emails if the pages they launch don’t load at
the right speed. Your messages miss the mark they otherwise would have
hit.
Mobile: (link to Abby’s post) … *lack* of speed can even make some
people furious
Google formally introduced site speed as a ranking factor in its
algorithm two years ago. It also published internal studies showing that
visitors spend less time on less responsive sites and that having faster
sites can also reduce operating costs.
[http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-w
eb-search-ranking.html]
It even has a whole section of its coding site devoted to it.
Even back in 1997, when most people weren’t using high-speed Internet,
speeds of under a second were paramount when moving from page to page. A
decade or two prior to that, IBM studies from the 1970s and 1980s showed
greater productivity on mainframes when users experienced a sub-second
lag time between a keystroke and the corresponding screen.
What does all this mean today?
You’ve probably heard the expression, “Go big or go home.” I say, “Go
fast or lose customers.” How’s that for competitive advantage? Make Vin
Diesel and Keanu Reeves proud.You don’t need to follow track and field to know who Usain Bolt and Tyson 

 

Gay are, and now you don’t need to work in Internet marketing to know

 

about the importance of website speed for keeping visitor interest,

 

thanks to today’s front-page New York Times story.

 

Track and field (or Internet marketing) insiders may already know that

 

website speed has been written about before by Google and usability

 

expert Jakob Nielsen, but some of the newest findings may surprise:

 

“People will visit a Web site less often if it is slower than a close

 

competitor by more than 250 milliseconds (a millisecond is a thousandth

 

of a second).”

 

Our attraction to speedy websites may be subconscious, but the effect is

 

no less powerful for us not even perceiving it.

 

Incidentally, 250 milliseconds is faster than the time it takes a

 

99-m.p.h. fastball to reach the plate, but actually slower than one beat

 

of a dragonfly’s wings.

 

There’s applications all over the place:

 

General: If any web page is bad, people will leave it in a few seconds.

 

If it’s good, they could stay a few minutes. The key is what they find in

 

the first 10-20 seconds,

 

[http://www.useit.com/alertbox/page-abandonment-time.html]

Organic search:

Video: “Four out of five online users will click away if a video stalls

 

while loading.”

Paid search: If your landing page doesn’t fire up quickly, impatient

 

visitors will favor another, faster one.

Email: E-newsletter subscribers might be suspicious of (or altogether

 

ignore) links you put in emails if the pages they launch don’t load at

 

the right speed. Your messages miss the mark they otherwise would have

 

hit.

Mobile: (link to Abby’s post) … *lack* of speed can even make some

 

people furious

 

Google formally introduced site speed as a ranking factor in its

 

algorithm two years ago. It also published internal studies showing that

 

visitors spend less time on less responsive sites and that having faster

 

sites can also reduce operating costs.

 

[http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-w

 

eb-search-ranking.html]

It even has a whole section of its coding site devoted to it.

Even back in 1997, when most people weren’t using high-speed Internet,

 

speeds of under a second were paramount when moving from page to page. A

 

decade or two prior to that, IBM studies from the 1970s and 1980s showed

 

greater productivity on mainframes when users experienced a sub-second

 

lag time between a keystroke and the corresponding screen.

 

What does all this mean today?

You’ve probably heard the expression, “Go big or go home.” I say, “Go

 

fast or lose customers.” How’s that for competitive advantage? Make Vin

 

Diesel and Keanu Reeves proud.

Posted in Conversion Optimization, Google, SEO, Usability, Web Design | Tagged , , , , , , ,

 

Fathom Introduces New Web Series: “This Day in SEO History!” Rev it up to 1.21 gigawatts!

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Did you know that on January 27th, 1880, Thomas Edison invented SEO Keywords for optimal visibility? If you said no, then maybe it’s time for you to brush up on your SEO History! Fathom Video introduces a new monthly video series, entitled – you guessed it – “This Day in SEO History!”

This Day in SEO History Vol. 1

Thomas Edison Invented SEO Keywords for Visibility

In our first volume, Daiv Whaley, a SEO Historian, tells the story of Thomas Edison and his plight to make the Internet world a brighter and more visible place through the invention of the light bulb… and SEO Keywords!

If you find yourself a little rusty on your search optimization antiquity, then stay tuned for our next volume of “This Day in SEO History!” Or, you can learn more about SEO and all things online marketing at http://www.FathomDelivers.com

Posted in Google, Keyword Research, Link-Building, Online Marketing, Online Video, Search Engines, SEO

 

Title Tag Techniques: A Call to Action

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Calls to action or “CTA’s” are typically reserved for PPC campaigns, but they shouldn’t be.  Most title tags and meta-descriptions are not written to attract the end user, and they should be.  Getting a solid call-to-action within your organic listing can have a huge impact on your bottom line (assuming of course: the right keywords, conversion techniques, offerings, etc.).  Think about what would happen with your PPC campaigns if you used the same copy that’s reserved for your title tag.  I bet your click-thru rate would plummet.  Better yet, think what would happen if you used the most effective PPC ad copy in the title tag on your organic page.  You would have a significant increase in traffic for that page.

But, I could lose my rankings?
I get it—if you’re on the first page in a top position for one of your keywords, it’s risky to rock the boat by changing a title tag.  You could lose your top position or worse yet, move a couple pages back in Google.  It does happen occasionally, and it’s a calculated risk.  But I think the risk is justified … here’s why:

First, the best scenario would have been to get compelling calls to action in your title tag and meta-description before getting on the first page, but that’s not always realistic.  Setting that aside, if you properly built out the site architecture, content on the page, and incoming links— essentially doing your SEO due diligence—then small changes to your title tag and meta-description shouldn’t make a huge negative impact.  And if there are repercussions, they will likely result in a small loss in rankings (position #2 to #4, for example), which could actually be a good thing.

Here’s why: Let’s say you’re currently in position #2.  We’ve seen that position #2 can generate 10% of Google’s estimated search traffic, while position #4 can generate 6%.  If you move from position 2 to 4, you should expect to see a decrease in traffic by at least 4%, right??  WRONG!  If you’ve included a solid CTA (“free trial,” “buy now,” “download the guide,” “contact us,” etc.) then you’re likely to see an increase in traffic because your listing in Google is that much more compelling and will attract a greater number of clicks.

Below are a few examples of results on Google’s first page for a search for “network security solutions.”  I like the contact information and bolded exact phrase on the first listing.  The second two could use some help:

In summary, title tags and meta-descriptions should be written for more than just search engines.  They should be written for end users in order to grab their attention.  Get some solid calls-to-action in place, and you’ll reap the benefits in traffic which should equate to leads and revenue.  At Fathom, we build our SEO programs from the ground up with this in mind.

Posted in Google, SEO | Tagged , , , , ,

 

The Famous (not provided)…. NOT!

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I’m sure you’ve all heard and read enough about the painful missing information from our Google Analytics organic search traffic, the (not provided) data. Yep, it’s not over. If you haven’t heard about it yet, you can read it on Google’s blog.

I’ve been tracking this so-called “(not provided)” data since Oct. 17th, and the results are interesting. I have pulled together data from 10 sites in various industries which includes e-commerce, education, health, manufacturing, lead generation, and our very own site. Daily visitors range between 3 million to less than 1K and anywhere from 60K to under 100K in daily organic search traffic.

Figure 1 is a chart that shows a week-by-week comparison of the (not provided) data from 10/17 to 1/8. The chart is too large to fit this space so be sure to click the image for a much better view. Click here to see the numbers.

Figure 1

Site 9 and 10 were the most interesting as it climbs the scale for the percentage of (not provided) search traffic. I suspected education would be the front runner of them all. I guess our younger generations are not all that interested in Google Docs, Gmail or even Google+. Are you surprised?

Now take a look at Figure 2 below.

Figure 2

This chart shows a different perspective for the (not provided) search traffic. Below are the numbers. Again, Education is still not the front-runner, but we’re still in the early stages of this (not provided) dilemma.

Figure 3

Figure 1 and Figure 3 are simple segments from Google Analytics. I’m just pulling keywords with an exact match to (not provided), and you’ll see the percentage. Now, calculating the amount of (not provided) divided by the number of organic (Google) search traffic, you’ll see a widely different percentage in Figure 4.

Figure 4

The metrics are amazing across various industries, aren’t they?

So what metric did Google project its >10% search-engine traffic on? Was it week by week? One month at a time? Or did it combine several months to project >10%?

No matter what percentage we look at, they will continue to rise now that Google has launched ‘Search Plus Your World.’ What will the impact be on the (not provided) search traffic? We’ll have to report back once we gather some data.

What are your percentages and what metrics or segments are you using to get your (not provided) information?

A few colleagues in our field have come up with some interesting points: that it’s not totally the end of the world. So let’s move forward and discover what we can do with this information to make the best of it. Check out Avinash’s post and David Harry’s post for tips and value from this (not provided) data.

Posted in Analytics, Google

 

What Ohioans Are Saying About SOPA and PIPA

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This post is from John Roscoe, Senior Director at Strategic Public Partners Group.

 

What Ohioans Are Saying About SOPA and PIPA

On Wednesday, dozens of websites including Wikipedia, Mozilla and Reddit “blacked out” in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), which are both under consideration in Congress. The PROTECT IP Act is scheduled for a vote in the Senate on January 24.

Here’s what Ohioans are saying about SOPA and PIPA:

“While I support and respect Intellectual Property rights, SOPA and PIPA are fundamentally flawed bills which I do not support. Both of these bills would restrict Americans’ ability to access sites on the Internet, impose burdensome and costly new regulations on web companies and expand the powers of the federal government to police the Internet.”

–Congressman Mike Turner, (OH-3)

http://www.facebook.com/RepMikeTurner?sk=wall

“Please know I have concerns about the legislation and I do not support SOPA in its current form; it could infringe on first amendment rights.”

–Congressman Steve Stivers, (OH-15)

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rep-Steve-Stivers/116058275133542

“Therefore, I do not support SOPA in its current form and I am waiting to see what the final product will be when it comes before the full House for a vote. If I believe it infringes on the 1st Amendment I won’t support it.”

–Congressman Jim Renacci, (OH-16)

http://www.facebook.com/notes/congressman-jim-renacci/where-i-stand-on-online-piracy-updated/364778993536958

“While I agree that online piracy is a growing problem, like many of you, I have serious concerns that SOPA could have serious unintended consequences. Some provisions would allow companies to force internet providers to shut down site without any judicial approval as well as hold third party providers, like universities, responsible for what individuals upload onto sites.”

–Congressman Bob Gibbs, (OH-18)

http://www.facebook.com/RepBobGibbs

“SOPA and PIPA are well-intentioned proposals that attempt to address online piracy concerns; however, in their current form the legislation goes too far. The proposals can present damaging ramifications to free speech, global cybersecurity and Internet functionality. At this time, I do not support SOPA and Protect IP Act in their current form, and I hope further committee hearings will be held to resolve these concerns.”

–Congressman Bob Latta, (OH-5)

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bob-Latta/115988005143254?sk=wall

“Basically what this bill does is put too much of a burden on companies like Wikipedia to start really policing the vast majority of info that are on their sites.”

–Congressman Tim Ryan, (OH-17)

http://www.wytv.com/content/news/local/story/Anti-Piracy-Legislation-Could-Affect-Local-Firms/RLsHAaFn3E2-N3-kKcWTLw.cspx

“I am against SOPA and PIPA because it would censor the Internet. This legislation would affect innovation of online marketers and how we do business. Overall, I think it’s unlawful to allow an IP owner to shut down a website without even a legal hearing or trial with the alleged copyright infringer.”

– Jonathan Levey, co-chair of SEMPO Cleveland & Online Marketing Specialist with Fathom, Valley View

“These bills will absolutely cost jobs, and search engines, social media sites and bloggers will be greatly affected.  Plus, the people who want to pirate content online will still find ways to do so.  Piracy is a problem, yes. SOPA and PIPA are simply not the solution.”

–Bill Balderaz, President, Webbed Marketing, Columbus

http://www.webbedmarketing.com/blog

“This is a bill which will do almost nothing to actually stop piracy (which is, of course, already illegal), but will further rig the system in favor of those already entrenched at the top. It would give authority to copyright holders to sue internet start-ups and any site found to be hosting links (or links to links) featuring copyrighted material.”

–Eric Chase, Edgewood

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/letters/2012/01/18/voicing-opposition-to-sopa-bill/

“My opinion is that this bill is entirely the wrong approach to solving copyright issues. It makes community sites liable for content posted by users, and the risk runs as high as having their domain eliminated from the internet. In essence, it is remarkably similar to the Chinese approach to controlling internet content: if it is disagreeable to those in power, block it.”

– Brian Guilfoos, Editor, Plunderblund

http://www.plunderbund.com/2012/01/18/sopapipa-what-you-need-to-know/

“The problem with the legislation is that it is written too broadly.  For instance, the bill states that to prevent liability sites and their hosts must take “technically feasible and reasonable measures” to prevent unlawful content from appearing on their site.  Unfortunately, the broadly interpreted definition of “technically feasible and reasonable measures” means that a judge could determine just how stringent a university’s network security measures should be.”
– Rick Cartwright, New Media Dayton

http://www.rickcartwright.com/blog/
“We are threatening our abilities to learn, grow, entertain and conduct business. There has been roughly 43 years of invested knowledge from amazing thinkers, business people, programmers, who had the ingenuity to change the landscape of how we live our lives. In just one signing and passing of a bill, we erase years of dedication. Not to mention, jeopardizing the very ability to blog freely. Take a stand!”

– Travis Childs, Social Media Strategist, Cincinnati

http://cincinnati.com/blogs/queencitywelcome/2012/01/18/take-a-stand-against-internet-censorship/

“President Barack Obama, though stopping short of a veto promise, doused the bills with cold water over the weekend, too. The protesters will make their point in a different way today, and they’ll make it with the public rather than the politicians. It could prove a real attention-getter.”

– Cleveland Plain Dealer, Editorial

http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/01/in_protest_of_pipa_and_sopa_a.html

SOPA/PIPA will have “a chilling effect on web entrepreneurship in general.”

–David Howcroft, Ohio for Internet Freedom, Columbus

http://www.thelantern.com/campus/sites-black-out-in-protest-of-sopa-pipa-1.2744651#.Txhpv_kVf-I

“We would have to hire more people to monitor and police that, which would create a lot of overhead…their sole purpose would be to monitor.”

– Stephe Kamykowski, AST2, Youngstown

http://www.wytv.com/content/news/local/story/Anti-Piracy-Legislation-Could-Affect-Local-Firms/RLsHAaFn3E2-N3-kKcWTLw.cspx


 

Posted in Google, Online Marketing, SEO, Social Media | Tagged , ,

 

SEO and Your Company Profile

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The Company Profile – Why you’re missing the mark for SEO

On my down time, I read a lot of press releases, product announcements and general business news.  I must have issues, because it’s something I really enjoy!  Point being, I often read a piece of interesting content, e.g. a new product announcement, and am intrigued to learn more about the company.  Within the announcement, the company information is most often contained in a standard footer paragraph that has been approved by PR, and is very, very bland.  Not only bland, but it’s not catered in ANY way to the audience reading the given announcement, i.e. me.  Here are some ideas on how this could be done better, and why:

Positioning
Part of my job is sales.  I work for a company that has a great deal of experience with technology and education clients.  If I’m speaking to an organization in the education industry, do you think I’m telling them about our wonderful experience and history with tech companies?  Of course not!  Take the same course with your public-facing content on the Web.  If you’re sending a press release about your new software product, then you might want to cater the company information to the audience that is reading the press release.  Instead of regurgitating your company history, ticker symbol and basic information – perhaps you could give the background of the product’s history and how it was created, with sprinkles of ticker symbols and company info to appease your PR and exec teams.  Think of this as your first impression with a potential prospect.  How much of the information within your “About Us” paragraph does the prospect really care about?

How does this help with SEO?
Typically, every press release, article, blog post and any other content on the Web has the exact same company info paragraph with the exact same links pointing to the homepage.  Boring!  Mix it up, and your readers (along with Google) will thank you for it.  You’ll have a better range of anchor text and diversification of incoming links, both good for SEO.

Conversion
This goes hand-in-hand with the positioning bullet point.  If I’m reading about your new product (this is a good time to clarify that it doesn’t have to be a press release … it could be a summary of one of your products on another external site or a video about your new features, etc.), then I’m also going to read about your company.  Typically, that’s when I’m going to click on a link to learn more.  If your company description is not catered to my needs, or if your website content doesn’t match the product I was previously reading about, then I’m likely to go away.  However, if I’m reading an external article that highlights a company’s attributes, then sends me to a corporate webpage that also speaks to this, your conversion rates will increase.

Implementing something like this can be tricky—I get it!  Start small.  Write a few versions of your company boilerplate and walk over to the PR office and ask for approval.  They’re busy folks, but are more likely to green-light something like this if you’ve taken the initiative.  Or, if you’re working with an agency like Fathom, we’ll take the initiative, and you can take the credit!

***

Image courtesy of joshme17 via Flickr.

Posted in Content Creation, Conversion Optimization, Google, Link-Building, Online PR, Search Engines, SEO

 

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