Our round-up of the best advice on how marketers should respond to the Google Search plus Your World integration
Most are dubbing the latest changes to Google's search engine as some of the largest since its launch. The integration of Google+ with the the new Search plus Your World certainly has the industry buzzing again. As Google's social network grows beyond 90 million users with 60% engaging daily, its influence on personalised search is growing fast and will bring new dimensions to SEO.
Dave Chaffey covered off the initial launch of Google Search plus Your World here if you're looking for an introduction on how it integrates communities, relationships and people into its mainstream search results.
Recommended posts on how to harness Google Search plus Your World
Since its launch, how companies should respond based on the implications for SEO and PPC have been a hot topic. There's been a lot of great advice, so…
A roundup of what the experts say
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It's the end of the first week January and most of the influential bloggers / "experts" have published their predictions for what will change in the world of SEO in 2012. Rather than add to the noise and because most of the authors are far more knowledgable than I am I have decided to filter the predictions and give you the 3 most likely predictions of 2012 (in my opinion)
These are four best SEO 2012 roundups if you missed them:
Econsultancy
Search Engine Land
Search Engine Journal
SEOMOZ
1. Social Media Influence Will Impact Search Results
It will come as no surprise to most, indeed looking back, it's over a year since I reported "Official: Facebook and Twitter do influence rankings". Still, in 2012, precisely how metrics and engagement…
And the 3 you need to action
Value/Importance: [rating=4]
Recommended link: Official Google Post from Matt Cutts
Our commentary
With the sheer volume of search engine algorithm updates that take place on Google alone its difficult to keep a track on amends you need to make to your tactics / strategy. This recent post from Matt Cutts (Google Engineer) highlights 10 of the more significant changes Google has made recently, well worth you taking the time to ready through them! The top 3 most actionable / useful for me are:
This change helps us choose more relevant text to use in snippets. As we improve our understanding of web page structure, we are now more likely to pick text from the actual page content, and less likely to use text that is part of a header or menu.
Extending application rich snippets: We recently announced rich snippets…
It's not simply a case of black hat or white hat
Ethics in SEO is, as in other cases, divided into two categories: the right way and the wrong way to do things. In SEO this shades from good (White Hat) to evil (Black hat) as explained in this classic article on Shades of SEO:
In SEO, the right way means following the guidelines set down as the “bible” of the Industry, the Google Webmaster Quality Guidelines. Although all full time SEOs will know these and often discuss ethics, I’m summarising these since not all marketers are aware of them and it’s useful to know about them when discussing what is ethical and what isn’t with agencies - it’s a discussion all clients should have with their agencies, particularly when selecting them.
The Google Quality guidelines are designed to maximise the…
Implications of the new Google update focussing on Fresh Content
Value/Importance: [rating=5]
Source: Official Google Blog
Our Commentary
This latest update from Google is aimed at promoting fresh content (where relevant). The example they use on their blog I think summarises the update perfectly:
If I search for [olympics], I probably want information about next summer’s upcoming Olympics, not the 1900 Summer Olympics (the only time my favorite sport, cricket, was played). Google Search uses a freshness algorithm, designed to give you the most up-to-date results, so even when I just type [olympics] without specifying 2012, I still find what I’m looking for.
Google has been working on indexing content as fast as possible since its release of the Caffeine update last year. The update has serious ramifications on search results, as mentioned on the Google Blog it will affect 35%…
21 practical ideas to improve your search rankings
Although everyone is looking, there are no silver bullets for SEO. For me, successful SEO is about consistently applying some well-known approaches. It's not rocket science, but it is hard graft using a range of techniques which different people in a company and their agencies need to work on together. I've written a lot in the past about "best practices" and on Smart Insights we have summarised the basics of SEO and also the latest SEO ranking factors with which many online marketers are aware of.
On their own, the ranking factors aren't so useful, context is needed to illustrate how they can be applied in practice through being creative, so I thought it would be interesting and different to create a series of posts looking at simple SEO approaches with examples. They're relevant for all companies from small to large, but…
Before we get to the infographic, I recommend checking out the SearchEngineJournal blog post which originally shared this infographic in contains much more information than the graphic displays, you can check out the post here.
When it comes to auditing SEO this infographic helps remind us of how complex the SEO channel can be, but at the same time it can be actioned as a list of things to do.
When proactively trying to grow your reach through SEO I think it is much easier to simplify the channel. I am surprised tools such as Google Webmaster tools, Xenu / Screaming frog didn't appear more as ways to easily complete / check significant parts of the audit but other than that, this is a well written guide you should definitely checkout.
…
Yahoo now using Bing search results in UK and Europe
Importance: [rating=3] (Given the dominance of Google)
Recommended link: Summary of countries affected
Our commentary
The Yahoo & Bing alliance is old news from this time last year, but it is only recently that the affects of the alliance has started to make its way to the UK and Europe.
Advertisers & search businesses alike in the US have been using Bing to market on Yahoo for some time now. Any search on Yahoo UK will now display results powered by Bing.
Marketing implications - what does this mean for your SEM strategy?
It all depends. If you are a UK focussed business this shouldn't change your strategy too much, according to the latest hitwise data Yahoo & Bing between them only account for…
5 questions you should be asking about your SEO agency
At some-point most business have explored outsourcing "SEO", although recently more businesses I speak to are bringing it back in house. A recent guide from Hub Spot sparked this blog post as they have created a short guide to identifying a "Bad SEO Service" you may be interested in. You can check it out here.
While their guide is good, I think it can be distilled down even further & I would even say you should even question whether you need an SEO agency at all!
Identifying a poor SEO Agency:
Here are the questions prompted by the guide:
Q1. Do you they make unrealistic promises - "Guaranteed number one spots". Against which phrases?
Q2. Are they delivering HUGE keyword lists rather than telling you the ones to focus on. The 80-20 rule holds…
How do you act on the different SEO ranking factors?
Did you see the recent guide to SEO ranking factors from Search Engine Land? It prompted me to think of search slightly differently & highlighted 3 areas that business often get wrong. Checkout the graphic below and overlay your own thoughts, experiences & how your SEO plan relates. Are you on-top of the +3 (highest rated factors) and avoiding any negatives or violations?
* Click image for larger version
Mistake # 1 - Not enough emphasis on Content
This is the biggest mistake I see in the running of search engine optimisation by far. Obsession about all the data & myriad of tools usually end means quality content generation is forgotten or taken on half heartedly. Out of the 30 factors (positive & negative) mentioned above, content relates to all of them in…
