Is Google’s Penguin Update Turning SEO Upside Down…Again?

For those of you that do not know, Google announced recently that they would be going after over aggressive SEO tactics. On April 24th Google officially rolled up the Penguin update. This is by far one of the most aggressive stances on SEO we have seen. Forums and blogs have been alive with chatter from website owners who have been getting nasty emails from Google in their Webmaster tools accounts. Many are seeing their website traffic shrink by 50% threatening their very existence.

Now ask any seasoned SEOs and they will tell you that Google has been making these threats for years now with very little action. This has changed dramatically in the last couple years as the web spam team at Google has been hard at work adding ton’s of updates meant to clean up low quality sites and content farms. The web has been ablaze recommendations of how to avoid getting dinged with the over-optimization penalty. After last week it became painfully clear that nobody is safe from these changes after Seer Interactive received a penalty. These guys are a top-notch firm and their owner (Will Reynolds) is a constant speaker on SEO in conferences across the country. These guys are the definition of ethical SEO. Seer’s recent blog post was very humble in sharing their experiences with the rest of the SEO community. SEO professionals banded together to create awareness of the erroneous penalty and it was reversed within a day.

Although nobody can say for sure what exactly qualifies for an “over optimization penalty” several SEOs have stepped forward and proved some guidelines to follow. There are supposedly hundreds of factors that can trigger this penalty but here are a few things to look out for:

Excessive keyword usage

This is very commonly found in both title tags, meta descriptions and body content alike. Each page should target around 2-3 keywords tops and used be used appropriately throughout your website in conjunction with quality content. Write for people, not search engines and it’s important that understand that first page rankings are nothing without quality engaging content behind it.

Overused HTML elements

Overusing H1 tags as well as alt tags are an easy way for search engines to gauge over excessive tactics. Think is a how newspapers use heading on their stories. There is only one main heading used to describe the content. It should entice people to read through the article. Smaller heading attributes like H2 and H3 headings can be used sparingly to keep interest and attribute to the natural flow of the content.

Duplicate or weak content

Pulling in content from other sites, or respinning existing content is something that is pretty easy for Google to spot. Make sure your content is written to engage and convert your site visitors. Give your website a value proposition by offering unique content that gives the users something useful. Consider adding other forms of content such as video, whitepapers or visual aids like infographics. Please, Please, Please – Don’t dump a bulleting list of keywords on your page just to try and obtain a presence for these keywords. How does this help anybody?

Overaggressive internal linking structures

I see this all the time and it is so easy to avoid. Overaggressive internal linking schemes can include a singular anchor text throughout your site linking to your home page. Site-wide footer links targeting specific keywords are also a considered spammy and pretty useless to the end user. Internally link your content where it makes sense and avoid linking multiple links on a page to the same page targeting the same anchor text.

Excessive or “un-natural” backlink profile

Phew! Where do I start? Let’s start with bluntly obvious – Stay away from Paid links, links from spammy sites, blog networks, automated linking programs, link farms, reciprocal linking schemes and completely irrelevant sites. I always tell clients that link building should look like we were never there. Nothing stands out more that a backlink profile that goes from 100 links to 1000000 links in 6 months and then stops. Make link building a part of your overall web marketing campaign. Put your PR and social outlets to work for you cultivating valuable backlinks and social signals. This is the new SEO and it’s time to face the facts.

It’s important as search changes that you evaluate your SEO strategies to change with the times. Make sure you keep one eye open to the news in the industry and know when to adjust. There is also something to be said for a holistic, sustainable approach to SEO that is more about user experience and quality over cheap tricks and spammy tactics. Every situation is different and my only advise is to make sure you have a seasoned guide to walk you through the jungle that is modern SEO.

Did Home Depot Just Try to Pull A Fast One on Google?

Yes they sure did, but they got busted! The world’s largest home improvement specialty retailer recently was caught trying to solicit links from their network of nearly 2,000 service providers. However, this wasn’t another typical paid link situation like the JCPenney and Overstock cases. Home Depot deliberately provided false information to their vendors and demanded links from their sites.

 Home Depot sent out an email to their vendors who they recommend for installation projects. The email, written by a Home Depot Representative, suggested that the service partner place a link to a particular page with specific anchor text in order to “support” the Home Depot Company. Of course as the email spread, it was picked up by a few SEO experts such as Bill Hartzer and thanks to him, we have the email.

From: The Home Depot – Home Services

Sent: Monday, April 9, 2012 PM

To: [email address removed] xxxxxx

Subject: Online advertising for Installation Services

SERVICE PROVIDER COMMUNICATION

Date: April 9, 2012

To: All US Service Providers

From: Home Services Operations

Re: Online advertising for Installation Services

SUMMARY 

The Home Depot is in the process improving our online advertising efforts for our installation services. We are using our brand authority and marketing power to increase traffic to our site and convert customers. We would like to extend this benefit to all of our business partners and are requesting that you add a link on your site to relative key words that will aid our related installation page authority. Please note that the hyperlink does not have to be visually indicated.

Linking to The Home Depot website will benefit our business partners by increasing the page authority of your website.  Page Authority predicts the likelihood of a single page to rank well in search results.  Ranking high in search results will assist with driving more relevant traffic to your website.

We look forward to working with you on this mutually beneficial marketing endeavor. Please refer to “Action Required” for next steps and instructions on implementation.

ACTION REQUIRED 

*Create the link using the following format:

[Link Text]

URL:http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/ servlet/ContentView?pn=SV_HS_Home_Insulation

Link Text: “Carpet Installation” or your preferred text.  Please request the Keyword List spreadsheet for a larger sample of keywords to use for your preferred text. Below is a sample of preferred text to use for flooring:

Carpet flooring

Carpet install

Carpet installation

Below is an example of the HTML Code necessary in order for the link to appear properly on your web page:

Carpet installation 

*Ensure that the link is displayed in the correct format and located on the appropriate page related to The Home Depot’s corresponding installation category. Provide us with the URL of the page where the link will be once it is live on your site.

*Please send a confirmation email to xxxxxx at xxxxxx@homedepot.com once you have implemented the link on the appropriate page that includes the URL.

“On this mutually beneficial marketing endeavor,” yeah, I don’t think so. As you can see in the letter, Home Depot requires their vendors to place a link on their page that leads back to the Home Depot site. The company makes their vendors believe it is to their benefit by stating that they are making an effort to increase the Page Authority of all their vendors’ sites. As we know, it doesn’t work that way! If anything, Home Depot’s Page Authority would go up, not theirs. And then to say that the link doesn’t necessarily have to be visible…oh, here is where the Black Hat SEO occurs. Sneaky, sneaky!

After hearing of the situation, Google began investigating Home Depot and here’s what Google had to say…

“It’s simply untrue to tell vendors that linking to a specific page will automatically increase the vendors’ page authority. Likewise, encouraging websites to make hidden links to a website can lead to violations of our quality guidelines that result in demotion or removal of pages from our index. We will be monitoring this situation closely and taking appropriate action.”

Experts aren’t completely sure if Google will ban Home Depot from their indexes. It actually depends on whether or not the vendors implemented the links in the way Home Depot had requested. Google penalizes for hidden links, but Home Depot claims to have spoken with Google to rectify the situation and ensures that a follow-up email will be sent out to those service providers to correct the errors from the previous email. As you can see, you don’t want to try to pull a fast one on Google because sooner or later, they’ll find out. Stick to proper SEO tactics and if you want to make sure your site follows Google Webmaster Guidelines and never gets banned, hire a trustworthy search marketing firm.

The New Facebook Timeline: If You Can’t Beat Em’, Join Em’

As I am sure you are already aware, Facebook has once again forced us into a new version of the reining social media network. Thanks Mark Zuckerberg for influencing me to spend more time updating my Facebook timeline than trying to promote world peace. Facebook’s profile has now been replaced with the new layout called Facebook Timeline. Frankly, I was not thrilled about this change because I did not feel like going through the mundane task of updating my Facebook, however I have come to embrace this new concept. This new layout provides its users with a timeline of their Facebook history, from photos, events, apps, etc. arranged in the order in which they happened. Essentially making Facebook “stalking” much easier to manage.

And so it goes that with any new change, there is always hesitancy and the big question “how will this impact our business?” Well other than the fact that social media companies now need to put in the extra effort to update these changes for their clients, this new timeline proves to be advantageous for business users.

With change, come new opportunities. The new Facebook timeline gives businesses the chance to capitalize on their marketing campaigns and customize their timeline accordingly. My major hang up of this new timeline concept was what the heck I was going to use as my “cover photo”. So I chose a picture I had taken of a flower (I know, I know, so cliché). However cliché my photo might be, this cover photo in conjunction with the profile photo provides the opportunity for businesses to really advertise their brand and logo. As a billboard would show off the main product and point of the advertisement, so should your businesses cover photo. Make sure the photo grabs your follower’s attention and showcases what you are all about!

Captain Morgan has melded their logo into their cover photo to make one cohesive piece that clearly represents the product they are marketing for.

Another advantage to this new layout is it enables businesses to highlight the milestones of their business in an easy to view timeline. Photos now appear larger on the timeline, essentially overshadowing the text info. This can yield huge reward for businesses with catchy photos, because lets face it, people would rather look at a picture to sum something up than read a paragraph.  So promote away via your most market worthy photos!

Designer, Kate Spade, has also capitalized on showcasing their brand in the cover photo along with their tail tale logo.

Now to touch on posting, status updates and more goodies. The timeline displays the top 4 most used apps front and center beside the “about me” section. So choose the apps most important and essential to your customers, however the photos app will always appear first. One of the new features of Facebook, is the ability to post a story to your timeline. This story can be “starred” and made to either stay at the top of your page or it can be displayed along the width of your page, essentially making it pretty darn hard to miss. This is something businesses should take advantage of if they want their followers to acknowledge a new event or product.

So now you can sleep at night knowing your business is not in jeopardy from the new Facebook timeline. It’s here to stay (well at least for the next 6 months until they figure out a new way to frustrate us all over again) so embrace it and use it to your businesses advantage!

Google Adwords Updates – Better Than A Stick In The Eye

Recently Google has gone out of its way to make usability updates to the Adwords interface. If you are a frequent user of Adwords, you know that this is uncommon. More often than not, either no updates are made for months, or Google acts like a nanny dealing with a 3-year-old drawing pictures in sharpie on the living room wall. This means that mostly Google just likes taking away things I use every day. Like custom shapes in geo-targeting. I’m not saying it was a bad move, Google, but it certainly wasn’t to increase usability. And if I have to add cities in one at a time every time I need to target a custom area, I may make like an unemployed, middle-class white girl with dreadlocks, and occupy your corporate office.

On a positive note, the updates Google has released within the last month have actually made the interface easier to use, which is a fun and interesting surprise.

1. Location Targeting – Ok, so yes, they took away the most useful tool they had in specific geo-targeting, and yes this ticks me off beyond belief due to the cluster-F of errors my campaigns went through after that change rolled out. How can you make it up to me, Google? Well a new car would be nice, but I will be momentarily satisfied with the following update to location targeting.

In days of yore, you can to whip out a dictionary and your thesis paper from Philosophy 201 to figure out what Google meant when it asked if you wanted to target based on location or search intent. The wording was confusing, to say the least, and I was never really sure if I picked the right answer. If chosen incorrectly, my clients in Philadelphia could be getting phone calls from Columbus, OH, and this makes me look like a schmuck. I really hate looking like a schmuck. So Google thought, “hey, you know what would help people use our amazing advertising platform? Wording that makes SENSE!”. I applaud you, Google. But just this once, so don’t let it go to your head.

2. Display Advertising – Google snuck a mini-update in there without me noticing. I stumbled upon this little gem while checking on a client’s managed placements, and then immediately became enraged that only one client had this update. I have one client who has 20 display campaigns. TWENTY. That is a lot of campaigns spending money without any way of optimizing for keywords.

In this newest update, I can view what keywords are causing my ads to show, and within the same Display Network tab, I can look at the managed placements that are receiving those clicks. Brilliant! If you don’t think that this will change the way you manage display campaigns, well, you’re a moron. It’s the one thing your campaign needed, you know, KEYWORDS. I am so happy I might cry.

3. Quality Scores – the most recent update seems to be more in-depth thought on the topic of quality scores. Nevermind the fact that the factors that determine a quality score are vague and inexplicable. According to Google, much like a wafer-thin fashion model, you’ve either got it, or you don’t. This update allows Google more opportunities to tell you whether or not you’ve got “it”.

apparently I shock Google with my above average click-through-rates.

I cant be the only search marketer in the world completely frustrated with Google’s quality scores. Or maybe I am.

I will continue to hope that future updates in Adwords are as forward thinking as the previous three. Maybe they will come up with an acceptable and reasonable alternative to custom-shape geo-targeting (You see what I did there? It’s called bitterness). Until then Google, I’ve got my eye (just one) on you.

Followerwonk – The Social Analytics Tool for Twitter

I came across a really cool social tool the other day that I can’t believe more people are not using. It’s called Followerwonk and is a miracle tool for cultivating influential bloggers, guest blogging opportunities, and socially authoritative websites. The tool has both a free and paid version based on usage and can be accessed by using your twitter account. The tool has four main purposes and allows you to export your findings to a CSV file and saves your recent searches.

One of my very favorite parts of this tool is the ability to search for twitter users by keyword and compare them based on different metrics (influence, followers, following, age, etc). In practice, if you were looking to connect with authoritative social media bloggers to  promote your content, this tool will let your search, sort, and download them based on the keywords you selected. You can also follow them on Twitter right from the application. Followerwonk also shows you if your account is following the selected twitter profiles or if they are following you.

Once you have selected a short-list of highly authoritative and relevant bloggers, or websites, you can dive deeper into their twitter statistics and then start to analyze their followers (or whom they are following) to help narrow down cream of the crop. There are a ton of metrics to take into account such as the average age, language of their followers, and how active and authoritative they are.

Lastly, Followerwonk offers user twitter analytics to help monitor the progress (or struggles) of your growing, authoritative followers. Using this feature within the tool can provide a closer look at your twitter account’s followers. It can also identify your most influential followers which is a vital aspect to any social media campaign since they are your lowest hanging fruit. You can also identify followers that are recent additions or recent loses. My suggestion would be to periodically pull up your followers that have chosen to unfollow you, identify authoritative users, and then attempt to retain.

For a social media consultant like me, Followerwonk is a great addition to the social media tools we are currently usiong at Web Talent Marketing. Of course no tool has ever created a winning social media campaign. A custom stratagy and solid reporting metrics often work hand in hand to help acheive long term success within social media – but tools like this help out a whole lot!

The Changing Faces of Google Analytics

By Lorianna Sprague, SEO Specialist

Some of you may have noticed, beginning in May of this year, that Google Analytics began changing the look and feel of their user interface. They ran a series of webinars to introduce both website owners and agencies to the new layout. Check them out for a seriously detailed tutorial (seriously means 6 videos at an hour a piece).

So, what’s changed? Here’s a quick list of the most obvious differences in the analytics interface:

• Visitor and Goal Flow Visualization – using Sankey diagrams
• Multi-Channel Funnels – to see what channels your customers interacted with in the 30 days prior to converting
• Real Time Reporting – updates your site’s activity continuously so you can see the results of your campaigns unfold in real time
• Mobile Reporting – gives you a more detailed look at how mobile users are interacting with your site so you can optimize for those users and improve conversions over time
• Integration with Webmaster Tools – which gives website owners and agencies access to the top 1000 keywords that landed people on a website over a 30 day period; this is the work around for the lack of access to keyword data through the Traffic Sources section of Analytics (see below)
• Limited Display of Keyword Traffic Sources – (based Google users who are logged in while searching) the good news is that what you lost in “keyword’ Traffic Sources, you have gained back in Webmaster Tools; if you have not integrated your Webmaster Tools account with your Analytics, now’s the time
• Advanced Segmentation – and the ability to define your own segments based on what matters, such as removing brand terms, or creating a segment to view traffic for only visitors who know about your company or brand
• Site Speed
• Social Interactions
• Better reports, and so much more.

Web Talent’s Lancaster, PA SEO Meet Up will be discussing the New Google Analytics in 2012. Join the Meet Up and comment here to let us know what parts of the new Google Analytics you would like us to explore.

Google Split Testing – NOT!

Recently, while perusing the performance of a client, who shall for my own job security remain nameless, I noticed that all of a sudden quite a few of my text ads were disapproved in Google Search. What the sweet Jolly Green Giant is going on here, I thought. I hovered my cursor over the thought bubble next to my Disapproved status and it very helpfully told me that all the display URLs within the ad group must be the same.

Identical, like creepy little PPC minions.

Fair enough, I thought, and I went to look through my active ads. To my not-at-all-surprise, all my active ads had identical display URLs. I figured it probably was an older disapproval and maybe I just needed to make a small edit and resubmit it. I can always go back later and put the display URL back the way I want it, all properly capitalized and looking adorable and useful. Then I clicked on the ads tab at the campaign level, and lo and behold, ALL the ad groups had disapproved ads. Mother of Pearl! I went through and edited every single one of those suckers until after about ten minutes I realized that I have edited myself into a circle, and have started re-editing ads that within the last few minutes have been disapproved AGAIN.

This looks like a job for Annoying Girl! Annoying Girl calls Adwords Support hotline (which is 866-2-GOOGLE, for any of you that do not have the secret weapon) and complains about the hypocrisy inherent within the system at length to the (I’m sure very lovely) girl on the other end of the phone. Despite my gratitude that she spoke perfectly clear and easily understandable English, the fact remains that there are built-in flaws within the Adwords system, and if I cared half as much about politics as I do about getting Google to improve this program, I would have mastered the art of making protest signs and have an arrest record the length of my leg.

Give me split testing or give me DEATH!

Here is what I was told by said lovely girl, and here is why I still don’t want to make friends with her: The display URL of all the ads that are paused and DELETED within an ad group will affect the approval of the active ads. Therefore, if you decided that you didn’t like the display URL you used last year, and wanted to revamp your company image, you would have to create an entirely new ad group to change it. Even so much as a change from mygreatcompany.com/rock-on to something more like MyGreatCompany.com will get your ads disapproved.

The whole rule about identical display URLs, to me, goes against the entire point of having multiple ads. Why can I split test everything under the sun, but not my display URLs? I know some of you are thinking that this really shouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. No, seriously it is! How can I explain the statistical reasoning behind a “best practices” of building adwords ads to a client when I cant even show them the difference in performance between their www.reallylongandobnoxiousurl.com/subdomain and my super sweet ShortURL.com/Yea. Maybe this is the lament of just one species of marketer. But I say if I deleted something, that means I no longer own it, and like wiping a misdemeanor off a minor’s record, you should not be able to hold past performance against me.

In order to remedy this situation, I had to go through all paused ads and edit them, thus losing my historical data. To find the data that once was, I have to go through deleted ads and guess which one it was. Google, if you could possibly, I would really love it if you could make my job a little harder. Kthnx. So, I’m sorry Very Lovely Adwords girl, whose name I cannot remember, I don’t think I will be adding you as a friend on Facebook, and please tell your employer I think they smell.

Link Ninjas Top Secret Strategies

Writen by Miki Dehevan and Ray Carboni.

Here’s the story. You already work in Search Marketing and you are aware that this elusive thing called Link Building exists, and not only do your clients now know about it, but you actually have to do it for them. Not an easy, or time efficient feat. You probably know by now that not all link building is created equal and that to get the longterm effects you seek, you have to do the dirty work. Today we are going to talk about what to do when you are already in there, elbows deep in the muck of link building, so grab your rubber gloves ladies, we are going in.

squeaky clean link building

Evaluating Websites For Link Building

This is the first line of defense when considering what websites you should reach out to during the “cherry picking” stage of your link excursion. First you want to check out some of the website information to determine whether or not it’s a good fit for your client or product, and whether or not they have enough authority to be worth your time.

Page Rank – Ah, page rank. Like the mythical Yetti, we know it exists out there but who can tell me the migratory patterns and feeding habits? Page rank is the total authority that Google ascribes to a website based on how useful the provided information is and how many people link to it with relevant information. But searchers beware, the mighty Page Rank can be misleading, so please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times, and do not use this as your sole basis for choosing a site for link building.  Page Rank can change quickly based on a variety of factors, and you want to be sure that the site as a whole is quality, not just their PR7.

Hide Yo Kids, Hide Yo Wife!

Now, Site PR is a little bit different. If Google ranks an inner-lying page, deep within the dark recesses of the Yetti cave, this is a great sign that the website is authoritative and worthwhile. Feel free to feed it peanuts and that stale bag of candy corn you have left over from Halloween.

 Site Age – This is another indicator that the site you are looking at is worth those precious billable link building hours. The age of a site shows longevity in a field, trustworthiness in relation to a reliable source of quality information, and seniority on a topic. If that blog you are looking at just popped up in the last three months, Google sees that as either a micro-blogger, who creates and runs multiple blogs for the sole purpose of SEO-ing the bejesus out of it, or as someone new to the field and less authoritative on the subject.

If you think that a site is worth your efforts to gain a link but aren’t certain, keep your eye on it and give it time. If it is still around 6 months from now and has done some link building of its own then you can take joy in the knowledge that you were right. And then go home and rub it in your wife’s face. If its no longer an active website, then be glad you didn’t request that link to begin with because you would be doing that work all over again to make up for the loss of link juice when the site went down.

In Yo Face! Now stop telling your mother I am worthless.

 Cache Date – This lets you know the last time Google crawled the website, which happens every time the webmaster adds new content (that is, of course, correctly indexed within their own sitemap and linked to from other pages on their website). Regular-to-frequent updates are a good sign and mean that if the site DOES deign you worthy of their coveted links, Google will crawl it promptly, giving you a faster boost in your own rankings.

 Relevance and Content – This is your numero uno, most important factor to determining whether or not you should reach out to a website to request a link. The subject of a website should closely relate to the subject or industry that your client is within. If your client sells bicycles, no point in targeting websites that promote the benefits of filing for bankruptcy, no matter how indebted their deadbeat “occupied” customers are.

"The 99% buy their bikes at Walmart... I mean we stole them before stealing was cool."

Think of relevance like a tree. Your client’s industry is the trunk, and related industries are the branches. Bicycles may be the main topic, but branching off of that are physical fitness, health, cardiovascular health, fitness apparel, and fitness diet plans. These are all items someone who is interested in purchasing those bikes will also be looking at.

 Sites to Avoid:

Spam may be considered a delicacy by the Hawaiian culture, but musubi aside, spam on the internet is bad bad bad. Sites stuffed with Google Adsense exist simply to make money from showing ads, not by creating quality content. Avoid these sites, as they are often short-lived and quickly identified by the search engines as low-authority sites. These will pass on very little link juice, and since the end goal is to fill up that link cup, choose wisely!

Sites with porn or gambling are certainly entertaining, but will post links to absolutely anything. They are more hurtful to your client’s business than helpful unless your client sells assless chaps or poker tables. Or assless chaps AND poker tables. Despite your personal fashion and recreational tastes, these sites devalue your website’s credibility and should be avoided at all costs.

Wee doggy! Backless AND frontless!

Sites with a ton of outbound links are less than desirable as well. A site has only so much link juice to give. If a page has more than 10 links, Google will frown its giant Big Brother frown and give you less juice. Juuuuice give me juiiiice.

 Good Tip: If you have to think twice about whether or not a site is relevant or morally appropriate, pass it up. Your client may not thank you, but they also would never have to know you considered getting a link from HotGuysInTopHats.com.

Stay tuned for Part Two, coming soon!

Google’s Brand New “+1” Feature: The Like Button’s Latest Rival

Our recent post about the Facebook Like button touched on how social networking and search engine results are becoming more and more related to one another. Google has now created its own rival to the Like button, which it calls the “+1” button. This new Google feature allows you to “+1″ (plus one) any Google search results or ads that you like. And to truly rival the Like button, Google plans on making this button available to place on websites in the next upcoming months.

If you are logged into you Google account, go ahead and search for something. You will see a +1 button to the right of each search result listing. After clicking on this button, you’ve “+1′d” it, giving it your stamp of approval. You have also made your support visible to anyone within your Google social network (that is, people in your Gmail and Google Talk chat list, people in your Google Contacts, and people that you follow in Google Reader or Google Buzz). Everyone within this network will be able to see what you have +1’d and, likewise, they can see what you have +1’d as well. Clicked the +1 button by mistake or changed your mind about a site? Google gives you the option to undo your +1 if you so choose.

+1’d Websites Your Friends Love, At Your Disposal

Your search results are greatly affected if your friends within your Google social network have +1’d pages that fall within what you are searching for. When you search for something while logged into your Google account, any results that you’ve +1′d — or which have been +1′d by those in your network — will rank superior to other search results:

In the above example, look at the names listed under the search result. The two names are two members of the searcher’s Google network, in addition to the 16 others within their network who also like it. Google also will show the amount of +1’s if a search result has gained a large amount but not from people in your network (however, Google will withhold the names of these individuals, just revealing the quantity of +1’s). This allows the search to understand how admired or relevant the page may be for +1 users.

There are some definite benefits to this new Google feature. If you’re searching, it’s nice to see if there are any answers that are recommended by your friends. Google anticipates that advertisers will love this, expecting click-through rates on +1′d advertisements to go up, assuming that less people will accidentally click an ad’s link (costing the advertiser money) but rather click the +1 button. All ads will have these buttons, and there is no way for the advertiser to turn this feature off. However, the button does not cost as a paid ad click in the advertiser’s PPC campaign. The button can also help advertisers they can see which of their ad campaigns are the most popular (whichever have the most +1’s). For organic search results, anyone registered in Google Webmaster Central will be able to see +1 statistics for their non-paid or “organic” search listings. Google expects that soon, there will be a Google +1 button for websites, that will sit right next to your site’s Like button and Tweet button.

So what hasn’t Google thought of, at this point? Well, what’s missing in the +1 button is some connection to the people you are connected to via non-Google services, such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr or Linkedin. That’s something that will come in the future, Google says.

‘Likes’: Now Part of the Search Ranking Currency

With more than 500 million users (30% in the United States), Facebook is rapidly becoming the primary platform for social networking. This is the direct result of its ability to further expand relationships across the globe. Facebook puts the user at the center of their own web experience, changing the world of SEO as links become superseded by ‘Likes’.

The Like Button’s Function and Value

We’re halfway through the year 2011, and already in its infancy the Facebook Like button has proved to be paramount in the world of website promotion. The year began with most websites featuring a Facebook Share option, and maybe a Like button. Facebook has recently discontinued the development of the Share feature, and has chosen instead to highlight the Like button as the sole way for websites to expose their content on Facebook. If a user Likes a company’s page, posts from that page will appear on the user’s personal newsfeed with a link back to the company’s page. This feature allows websites to gain more responses from their advertising because they can more frequently inform users who have Liked their content. The feature also shows which of the user’s friends have Liked the same content page. The Like button is quickly becoming one of the most important features to have on your website because Likes have an effect on search engine rankings, and the content page your button links to is also crawled by the search engines which adds greater authority to your site. Like buttons give website owners the chance to enhance traffic and improve engagement with recurring visitors as well as referred new users—as it becomes more and more popular, most company’s would even consider the Like button as a requirement for their website.

Since the Like button is still very new, it’s hard to calculate just how much quantifiable value it provides for a company. Analysts do suggest that a Like’s worth usually weighs more in comparison to that of a Tweet. Eventbrite.com, an event-ticketing website, has published that an average Like brought in $1.34 in revenue as opposed to $.80 that an average Tweet does, and that the value of the Like is still rising as the Facebook network and Like button acceptance expands. Eventbrite has also provided the statistic that a Facebook user who Likes a page via its Like button visits 5.3 times more Web URLs to engage with content and on average has 2.4 times more friends than users who do not Like pages. This just goes to show that not only are the Likes important in that users who choose to Like your page will engage with your content, but also that their friend-base is double the size of the non-Like user and they can refer their friends to Like your page as well. A like button is a direct connection between website owners and more socially interactive customers, and those customers have a good chance of referring their own friend base to your page if you’re lucky!

Where SEO Comes In

Search marketing and social media networking are becoming more and more interrelated because the amount of Likes and Tweets pointing to a particular website can increase the site’s rankings in the top search engines. As the value of a Like increases not only in the business aspect but in search engine rankings as well, Facebook Pages are becoming simultaneously more competitive in obtaining the attention of Facebook’s 500 million users. Facebook’s in-house search option is a great tool for gaining new prospective Likes from users searching for your company or services. There are certain ways to optimize your Facebook Page so that users can easily find it, Like it, and stay informed.

The first thing you should do is to name your page something simple and directly related to your brand without making it overly descriptive. This is because the Facebook search option is based upon results that are an exact match to the topic searched. If you try to combine words when naming your page (like CompanyOne rather than Company One), you have a lower chance of appearing under the results section because this is not your company’s true name and only the exact wording that the user typed into the search box will appear as results. Its also important to be clear and brand the page with your company’s title because this name is also the Facebook Page’s title tag, which is the linked section that will appear in outside search engines as well as Facebook’s internal search. Make sure to describe your business in the ‘About Us’ box and ‘Info’ tab. These are fields that contain content more easily indexed by search engines.

Lastly, remember to keep your wall as lively as possible. Keeping your Page vibrant with new and significant content that is updated a few times a week keeps the page active, and it keeps both search engines and your friend-base coming back. Your ultimate goal for optimizing your Facebook page is to create content that makes the page functional enough for people to Like it and talk about it with Friends. This makes an effect on not only Facebook’s search engine, but Google and Bing also notice high activity on Facebook Pages and considers this in their rankings.

One Tip You May Want To Consider

Since your main goal is user engagement when it comes to your Facebook Page, a great idea you may want to consider to boost community/user involvement is to host a sweepstakes, contest or giveaway. It’s an effective and easy way to track your conversion goal!

• Have a contest where users who enter will be selected at random to win a prize, for example X amount of gift cards and varying prices.
• Be sure to offer prizes that people actually would want or need. Be interesting; don’t endorse an unknown or confusing item (or service) that may only intrigue a few prospects.
• Be original, there are other contests out there that your customer may find more appealing and enter instead, so try to stand out by being straightforward, interesting, and beneficial to the largest client-base possible.