When you run a digital marketing agency, the #1 query you get is: if I contract with you for search engine optimization, can you guarantee a first place ranking on Google?

What this tells us is that there are SEO providers out there who make such promises. As a result, there are clients who may achieve a top ranking – but not much else to show for their investment in SEO. The words “guaranteed rankings and traffic” have tainted the reputation of the industry. One of the most common tactics is for the SEO provider to select your keywords for you. They will select non-competitive keywords which your potential customers are unlikely to use. This makes it easy for them to deliver a high search ranking based on those keywords, but this does not deliver quality traffic.

Companies who spend a lot of money raising their ranking from #2 to #1 may lose sight of conversion or dismiss pay-per-click campaigns that could help their bottom line. It’s possible to reach #1 and achieve little or no impact. It depends.

Search Engines Warn Against Guarantees

Google provides a very instructive set of guidelines on search marketing that every SEO client should read. They make one very clear statement: No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google. Although this section specifically warns about providers who claim to have special relationships with Google (such as access to knowledge of the ‘secret sauce’ behind Google’s search algorithms), the warning comes straight from the company who would know better than anyone that SEO guarantees are not feasible. For one thing, this would destroy the integrity of Google’s organic search model, which is the entire basis of their business success.

Rankings are Dynamic and Unstable

A reputable provider knows that search results for the same search term can vary from hour to hour, and from location to location. It depends on which search engine server is fulfilling your query at any point in time; whether you log in to your personalized Google account or some other account; or which city you’re in when you type the query. These factors change the order of results, so making guarantees based on uncontrollable circumstances does not make sense.

Rankings are the Wrong Metric for Business ROI

This is the most important thing to remember. The reason companies want high search rankings is to increase business. Rankings are a means to an end, not the end. Rankings alone do not increase traffic or convert traffic into business.

The most basic metric of SEO success is quality traffic. If an SEO campaign shows a marked increase in search engine traffic, that’s one part of the success. The other part is whether visitors stay on the site and spend time on product and services information, play with demos or watch videos. This means SEO has brought the right audience to the site.

Traffic is good, but converting traffic into visitors who take action is the ultimate success metric. Conversion could mean buying a product, or for non-eCommerce sites, it could mean signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a white paper. When visitors land on a company’s website, how easy is it to find information? Is the content clear and informative? Is the website easy to navigate? Does it provide calls to action in visible, logical places? Does the company know which phone calls or emails to the sales department come through search and which ones through traditional marketing?

SEO can drive traffic but not conversion once the visitor lands.

This is where Analytics come into play. An SEO provider will always install analytics to determine where the traffic is coming from, which were the most popular search terms and so on. Analytics can also monitor user behavior on a website: which pages were most popular, how long did visitors spend on each page, when they abandoned the site and on which page. This helps determine how a website could be improved for better conversion. A website optimized for conversion is also part of the business equation. A high search ranking definitely helps, but by itself will not convert business for you.

So What’s a Reasonable Promise?

A good digital marketing provider will focus on increasing a client’s business. This means taking a consultative approach that is broader than merely SEO. Typically this means an audit of the client’s existing online presence that includes search, website effectiveness, social media, and even offline mediums that drive visitors to the website. This will generate recommendations which may include content strategy, website optimization, or a social media strategy. This takes a lot more work than just promising to submit a client’s website to all the search engines.

A client may not have the budget to implement all the recommendations, but the provider will be able to advise which components are the most critical.

The other factor is time. There will always be components that only the client can implement. This includes tasks such as freshening content and images, developing marketing content specific to the business, regular blog posts, and setting up offline mechanisms for tracking (different phone numbers for web queries and print ad queries is a good example). Fresh content helps boost search engine rankings; this is why regular blog posts are important. Social media also requires real commitment from the client. But a client may not have the staff or time to do this, so again, a good provider will explain how the various components impact the success of the plan and help the client prioritize.

Given factors such as: competing SEO campaigns, changing search algorithms, client resources and/or ability to implement, the only guarantee a digital marketing agency can give a client is: to provide the best advice possible for using the Internet to increase traffic and improve business.

Google Becoming Social

Google Plus is an entire suite of social products that in a way integrate the functionality and features of Facebook, Twitter, Skype and then some. All under one roof with one account. Here is a short video overview of the platform:

The three main elements of google plus are circles, sparks and hangouts. These three features are the social elements that are going to rival companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Skype as the platform picks up momentum. And considering that Google is the largest internet company in the world traffic and exposure shouldn’t be a problem. The coolest element of Google plus has to be hangouts. Imagine if Facebook chat was done via video and you could talk to 10 people at once. Google hangouts:

Will Google Plus Succeed?

This isn’t the first time Google has made attempts to break into the social space. Google Wave and Google Buzz were million dollar projects that were launched before with similar intentions that have made practically zero impact on how we use Google. The Google +1 button has been around for months now but it is still not clear what purpose it actually serves. It is essentially Googles version of the Facebook Like button but unlike the latter it doesn’t share anything or have any residual value, it is just a button that you click that seems to have no impact on your immediate experience. Only time will tell, but the amount of commitment and back end changes involved with Google’s venture into the social element of the web it is a good guess to say that the large social media companies now have another heavyweight competitor to share it’s user base with.

Down the Rabbit Hole…

As an ordinary user the new layout or the new social products  don’t really impact your life in any way other than giving you the ability to do even more cool stuff on the internet that you weren’t able to do before. But as a business owner or somebody who utilizes the internet to some degree to generate revenue or leads this leap into the social space brings with it a heap of new problems and opportunities.

Google has been focusing on location based search over the last few years and has succeeded in delivering relevant results to users based on their geographic locations. By doing this it has also succeeded in practically putting all phone book companies out of business. It has diminished local newspaper advertising revenues and taken on an entirely new type of media. The leap into the social space has brought with it the time and relationship factors. Bing has tied in Facebook search a while ago where if you are logged into Facebook any searches you type into Bing will return Facebook related results specific to your social network. Google has been giving you Twitter results for certain topics for a while now as well.

The sidebar on the left of your search results now lets you choose a date range for your search results. So if you are looking for the latest sports scores you can search your teams name and filter by 24 hours thus getting the latest updates on the topic.

If you use Google analytics you can now set it up to track your social media efforts as well as your website interactions:

The implementation of social elements into analytics tracking and webmaster tools is much more than a set of new features, along with Google+ and other new social products it’s a clear statement of the direction in which the company is headed. It is also an outrageously blunt hint as to what factors are being looked at by the new search algorithms updates when ranking certain sites above others in search results.

Google Algorithm Update “Panda” 2.2

If you have noticed that your search engine rankings are all over the map these last few weeks, going up and down twice daily or if your website has disappeared from Google’s results completely then you are experiencing the full wrath of Google’s Panda 2.2 algorithm update.

Google is about relevance and user experience. The main objective is to give the user the most relevant high quality result for their search query. SEO or search engine optimization is nothing more than at attempt at telling Google that your site is more relevant than the other sites about your specific subject. Link building and and keyword placement on the site have been proven factors in ranking your site higher in organic search results since the very beginning. However, people have learned through trial and error what elements the Google algorithm looks at when deciding which sites rank highest and have begun to take advantage of their knowledge by concentrating primarily on black hat techniques that work exceptionally well in raising their rankings. However once this became the focus the content quality has began to decline. People would rank mediocre or poor content sites at the top for high search volume key words in order to make an extra buck. This in turn makes Google look bad as the quality of the results it delivers to it’s users suffers as well. The answer – Google Panda.

SEO Practices are Changing…

Google panda focuses on filtering out those sites that have thousands of poor quality spam links and those with duplicate or poor quality content out of it’s search results. Unfortunately it isn’t possible for Google to make an algorithm that will de-list all the websites that use these bad practices because that would give spammers a weapon against good quality sites that they could sabotage via the same methods. So what’s the answer? Avoid the whole situation all together, rather than punishing sites with poor practices they will reward sites that have good practices. And with all of the new social media features and directions that Google is taking you can bet that your social media efforts are now of direct relevance to your keyword rankings on Google.  As noble as the attempt and idea is, it has millions of website owners around the world pissed off as they watch their rankings disappear completely for 2 hours and come back better than ever 2 hours later only to drop again to the bottom of the pile the next day. If you have a web store or a business that relies on the internet to generate leads or income you will definitely feel uneasy while these changes are happening. The ripple effect from the panda update and the social media direction can be felt most by those websites who have relied on link building more than content and social media before. This is likely to go on for the next few weeks as the dust begins to settle and your rankings begin to solidify again.

So what will work now? The same concepts apply: quality content, quality link building, quality website, etc. Everything works just as it did before but with more emphasis on one thing: quality. However there is now a social layer added to the equation. If you are up against a website with a bigger social media presence and activity in your industry, you can bet that they will be ahead of you in the search results as well.

However, if you want to search Google more objectively to see how your own website is ranking, for example, then Google’s personalized search can be very frustrating. Your website may be coming up first for important keywords when you are searching, but you’re not getting any traffic from these keywords because for everyone else you’re nowhere to be found on the first search results page. Fortunately, Google has made it easy to opt-out of the personalized search.

Disabling Personalized Search For All Searches

Here’s what you need to do:

1. First make sure you are logged out of your Google Account if you have one.
2. Next, perform a search on Google and then click on “Web History” in the top right corner of the search results page.
3. On the Web History page select “Disable customizations based on search activity” and you’re done.

Temporarily Disabling Personalized Search

If you want to only temporarily disable personalized search results, this is also possible. Try this:

1. If you don’t have a Google Account already (the one you would use for Gmail or Google Analytics) then sign up for an account.
2. Make sure you are logged into your account and then perform a search on Google.
3. Scroll down to the bottom of the first search results page and you will see the link for “View Customizations” at the bottom.

4. On the Search Customization Details page, you will see link a few lines from the bottom where you can view your search results  “without these improvement”. Click on that link and you will now be shown non-personalized search results for your most recent search only.

There you go! You can now search Google more objectively.

Ranking high on Google isn’t all about SEO and HTML tricks, but about regularly creating compelling and useful content that encourages people to return to your website. The beauty of Internet Marketing is that if you are creating effective content, then ranking well within your niche will be easy, provided you follow some important online marketing principles.

These 5 easy steps to ranking higher on Google’s search are tested and proven techniques that will enable you to increase your website’s ranking and overall traffic. Follow each of these guidelines and you will begin to see results in a short period of time.

1. Submit Your Business to Google Local

If your business is targeting local search traffic, you need to add your business to Google’s Local Business Center. Since most location-specific searches on Google now display Google’s Local Listings alongside an embedded Google Map (look at an example here) at the top of the search results, a Google Local listing is absolutely necessary.

Once you have signed up for Google’s Local Business listings you can customize your business’ Google Local page with pictures, videos and customer reviews. Since many businesses fail to make a compelling Google Local page, if you add some interesting content and get a few of your customers to review your business you will rank well in the local listings.

2. Submit Your Website to High PageRank Directories

I recommend against paying to have your website listed in directories since Google has publicly announced recently that they are no longer passing on PageRank from many of the spam-like directories on the Internet. The only two paid directories that I have attained good results from and are worth paying for a listing on are Business.com and Yahoo’s directory (both cost $299 per submission).

The best free directory to be listed in is the Open Directory Project or DMOZ. Google considers listings in DMOZ to be a strong vote of confidence in your website and one listing in this directory means you also get listed in the hundreds of directory partners that index DMOZ listings. The problem with DMOZ is that because it is volunteer-run, it can often take 3-6 months to get listed in the directory. That is why you should submit your website right away to the proper category for your business and then re-submit your website a maximum of once every month until you finally get a listing. Other free directories with high PageRank that can produce decent results are SearchSight, Jayde, SoMuch, One Mission,  Directory Storm, Infignos and Directory Free.

3. Get a Google Webmaster Account and Submit an XML Sitemap

A Google Webmaster account is an excellent tool for seeing how Google indexes your website and identifying any problems the Googlebot may be having with your website. In the Webmaster Tools section you can submit an XML Sitemap which will increase the number of pages of your website that Googlebot indexes and will also contribute to your website ranking higher.

Another useful feature is the site performance overview which measures the speed that your web pages load. Google has recently confirmed that site loading speed is a criteria used in their algorithm and that faster loading sites will rank better. For more information, you should read Google’s Webmaster Guidelines for creating effective content and ranking higher on their search engine.

4. Submit Articles to Article Directories

Writing interesting content and submitting it to article directories and syndication services is a great way to get vital backlinks to your website. When you submit to an article website like EzineArticles or Isnare, you can include a signature at the bottom that includes some author background and a few links back to your website. For the links to your website, make sure that you use targeted keywords in the link anchor to maximize the effectiveness of your article writing campaign.

5. Use to Google Keyword Tool to optimize your targeted keywords

Google’s Keyword Tool gives you the information about search volumes and popular keywords that you need to optimize your web pages.  Identify important keyword related to your business niche and then create specific content and blog posts related to those keywords. To optimize the content, place the keywords in the title tag, h1 heading tag and 4 or 5 times over the course of the content page. It is also useful to use internal link anchors in the content that contains the particular keyword or search phrase you are targeting.

Well, there you have it. Follow these 5 steps and you will be on your way to a higher ranking on Google.

Image Credit: manfrys / flickr (cc)

After 15 years of providing integrated Web solutions to businesses across Western Canada, Vancouver Internet marketing firm SmarttNet is setting out to help small and medium sized enterprises enter the profitable world of Web Analytics.

The recent addition of 4 Google Analytics Qualified Individuals to the company is a major expansion, but also a natural progression for SmarttNet, whose Chief Marketing Officer Martin Wong has always put hard numbers first when it comes to measuring the success of any marketing campaign.

“Web Analytics should be a cornerstone for any web strategy,” says Wong, “Especially with the economic downturn, it is absolutely essential for companies to measure and analyze any marketing activities. Web analytics can help you control your costs and optimize your return on investment by observing how your customers react and behave cross-channels.”

Google Analytics is a free and powerful tool that lets business owners measure website traffic and determine the effectiveness of their online marketing efforts. While it is free to install, small businesses stand to benefit greatly from the training and insights that Google Analytics Qualified Individuals can provide.

“Recent research from Forrester Research has shown that 75% of large enterprises consider Web Analytics technologies to be indispensable,” says Wong, “Through our expert implementation services and training programs, we want to bring the power of analytics to local businesses.”

SmarttNet is a full service Internet marketing firm with a long history of serving Vancouver’s business community. The company has roots as a connectivity provider and has since expanded to include co-location, web design, search engine optimization and social media marketing services.

With 4 Google Analytics Qualified Individuals in house, SmarttNet currently employs nearly ten percent of the 53 certified professionals in Canada.

For more information please contact

Jon Mandell
Writer and Media Specialist
jon.mandell@smartt.com
www.marketingsmartt.com

Even through all the confusion, there is some good news.  It’s not as hard as it seems.  If you know what your competitors are doing, you can easily mimic the same process they used, do it better and out-rank them.
Click to Read More!