On February 27th, Google posted an update to their official search blog announcing that they had made 40 search quality changes to the Google search engine that month, including an update to Panda, last year’s game changer.

40 updates in one month is actually a new record for Google, and there’s been some buzz about it, but don’t panic just yet. Google making changes, even numerous changes, isn’t anything new. Google is constantly tweaking, changing, improving and updating all of the products that they offer, and those changes don’t always make a huge impact.

With this latest round there’s plenty to sift through, but what likely matters most to businesses can be easily summed up in two parts.

Link Quality

Google indicated that it would be making a change to the way it evaluates links. Specifically, how they evaluate a link as a means of determining the topic of the page being linked to. Unfortunately, Google was characteristically cryptic in exactly what that change is.

Google did say that they are “turning off a method of link analysis that we used for several years.” Since we don’t know which method that is, we can only speculate for now how that will impact rankings.

So let’s speculate!

Back in January I gave a little presentation on Google and some of the big changes of the previous year, and in it I caution business owners to be on the lookout out for updates to Panda. Specifically, I stated that Google is likely to refine how it evaluates backlinks. My advice was to ensure you have plenty of backlinks from quality sites, and to taper off dependency on a high volume of low quality, low relevance links.

That strategy used to work shamefully well, and in many cases it still can, especially if your competition isn’t doing anything. But if Google is “turning off” an old method and trying to improve how it delivers results, then associating your site with low quality sites via backlinks is probably not a sustainable strategy.

Local Search

Typically, if users want local results, they might add their city in along with their search phrase, and this would likely produce relevant local search results. Recently though, Google has been working hard on improving local search functionality to produce local results for all search phrases, including those without a city or location added.

Google is able to accomplish this by using your location information and matching that with webpages that feature compatible location information and are also relevant to the search phrase used. To be clear, local search results may come in the form of a webpage with a geographically relevant address, a homepage of a local business that mentions its city, a Google Places listing, or a combination of those. Essentially, Google is working towards providing relevant local results to a user without requiring the user to explicitly state their desired location in the search phrase.

What does this mean for businesses that want to ensure they show up in local search results?

Well, as always, creating, claiming, and optimizing a Google Places listing is crucial. Beyond that, there’s plenty of optimization that should take place on-site. Add the business address, use the city name in content, or even create a location specific landing page. The latter is basically required if your business has more than one location.

Ultimately though, the specifics of how best to optimize for local results aren’t clearly defined, and they probably won’t ever be (Google wouldn’t want that). What’s important to keep in mind as a business owner, is that it’s crucial to do more things correctly than the competition.

Google wants to deliver the best results for search phrases, and will always be working towards that goal, constantly improving on how it delivers what it thinks are the most relevant results to the user. In order to rank highly and beat out the competition, your business needs to actually be the best result.

Is it?

Filed under: Articles & News, Search Engine Marketing
Tags: Google, google places, google update, link quality, local search, SEO
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In the world of SEO, there are plenty of smart, trustworthy people. They keep up on the industry, watch for Google’s next move, and provide measured advice. These people look like this, this and this.

But there are also plenty of con artists out there. These are the people who build their sales pitches around buzzwords. Who assume that reading a Wikipedia page about social media or SEO makes them an expert. Who believe they can sell ice to Eskimos, and would do so at the drop of a hat.

These, my friends, are the SEO Quacks. Sometimes, they look like this. Other times though, they look just like you and me.

So how do you know if you’re talking to a quack or a legit expert? Here are some traits that the fakers have in common:

1. They Work for a Newspaper / Radio Station / TV Station / Phone Book

Remember Kriss Kross? The 90′s kid rappers whose gimmick was wearing their pants backwards? Check out about 20 seconds into this video if you need a reminder of how dumb this looked.

Sadly, there were some kids who didn’t understand that the rearranged trousers look was just music industry hype. As a result, I bet we all knew a kid who showed up at school with his pants in a holy mess, dumbfounded that his popularity didn’t blow through the roof.

Old media playing in SEO is like this. They’re amazed at how forward thinking they are. Actual SEOs are laughing.

Smart SEO is strategic and flexible. It doesn’t come in neatly wrapped packages. Smart SEO works from a custom strategy, bespoke to a client’s individual needs.

2. They Promise Rankings

If you want guaranteed rankings, talk to Google directly. In theory, they could promise you rankings. They’re the only ones who can. And they’re not going to do it.

Google is a black box. You put a search in one end and results come out the other end. No one fully knows what happens in the middle. A good SEO has some educated guesses and research to support those guesses. But in the end, they can’t guarantee rankings.

Don’t fall for it. If you do fall for it, come talk to us next. We’re offering an incredible deal on some lovely beachfront property in the arctic circle. You’d be a great match.

3. They Only Offer Proprietary Analytics

A client of ours showed me some clickthrough reports from an ad campaign they bought from a local media source. It was a one page excel spreadsheet with no hint as to where it came from, how the numbers were calculated, or what the client might have gotten out of those clicks.

For all I know, these are propaganda stats. They came from a proprietary tracking system that I’ve never seen. Maybe they’re a good representation of the truth, but the client is powerless to challenge them.

Real tracking comes from robust analytics. If you’re sold an SEO package without access to something like Google Analytics, think twice. Heck, think four times. This will mean you are at the mercy of your vendor for success stats. And they’re able to show you any stats they like.

4. They Abuse Stats from the Google Keyword Tool

Google’s keyword tool is immensely helpful for figuring out what the best keywords are for a business to target. But if you don’t know anything about match types, you’re going to find yourself more optimistic than you should be.

I don’t want to nerd out here and talk too much about match types (this conversation pretty much covers it), but let me just say this: If a salesperson doesn’t use the correct keyword match type when they do their research, they’re going to show you numbers that are very misleading.

A word to the wise – take a few minutes to learn about match types. It could mean the difference between buying a smart SEO package and a lemon.

5. They Talk About Meta Tags

The fact that I keep hearing SEO salespeople talking about meta tags in 2011 just flat out blows my mind. The short story is this: THEY DON’T MATTER.

For the non-nerd reader, meta tags are little pieces of code that used to work like gangbusters to get your site ranked in Google.

The key phrase there is used to work. They haven’t been an impactful tactic for years, and it doesn’t look like they’re making a comeback anytime soon.

If a salesperson tells you he’s going to update your meta tags for you, smack him. Tell him 1996 called and it wants it’s silly web marketing tactic back. Then politely suggest he consider selling something else like used cars, pet rocks or snake oil.

Defend Yourself!

I bet you’ve probably been approached already by someone selling SEO. If you haven’t, it’s coming. Hopefully it’s someone like us. Not to toot our own horns but we know a thing or two about it.

Sadly, it’s more likely that you’ll be cornered by a fast-talking schmo, eager to get as many buzzwords under your nose as possible.

Don’t play dead – he’ll only talk more. Instead, use your rapier-like wit and ask the following questions. If they induce stammering, sweating, or trouser-soiling, shuffle your newly flaccid friend out the door like so many recyclables.

1. What tracking packages do you offer? Can I install my own?
2. How long has your company been performing SEO services?
3. What is your company’s main product line? How does that relate to SEO?
4. Why should I pick you instead of a company with SEO experience?
5. I want XYZ more sales each month. Will your proposal help me get there? How, specifically?

SEO is pointless if it’s not addressing your business’ goals. We small businesses don’t have huge marketing budgets, so we need to spend our money smartly. We’ve got to make sure we’re investing in ROI.

Questions? Thoughts? Want to send us ice cream sandwiches? Email sales@intellisites.com or find us on twitter @IntelliSites.

Filed under: Marketing Your Site, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media
Tags: fake, sem, SEO, Social Media
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Those deep, dark algorithms that control search engine rankings aren’t easy to understand. But there are some things that are clear about them. One of those things that isn’t a mystery is the fact that inbound links play a role in bolstering a site’s search engine rankings. If lots of websites link to yours, each of those links is like a vote that your site is somethin’ special.

This got me thinking. If links to your site are taken into consideration, why not bookmarks? When people bookmark sites, those folks are definitely impressed by those sites enough to return, so they’ve got to be decent sites. What if people’s bookmarking habits played a role in search engine rankings?

How It Might Play Out

So here’s how I see it working. Search engines could work with browsers like Firefox to get bookmarking information. They could compare people’s lists of bookmarks with information from their search behavior. Search engines could gradually grow to see everyone as some kind of expert in something. Maybe you bookmark the best computer science websites and your brother bookmarks the best websites that have to do with Cheetos, but everybody scopes out the handiest sites on some topic of interest. When somebody who bookmarks a lot of sites about paintball adds a paintball site to their list, the search engines could give that site a little boost since it was “recommended” by a “paintball expert.”

This way, everyone gets a vote on the best sites on their favorite topics. Right now, anyone with a blog or a website can help their favorite sites out by including a link, but in this bookmarking scenario, the whole internet-using population would be part of the equation. Plus, this could work well because it’s unlikely that a person would ever bookmark a sleazy, spammy site or a site that simply reposts links.

Hey, why not?

Filed under: Experiencing the Web, Search Engine Marketing
Tags: bookmarking, bookmarks, search engine rankings, search engines, SEO
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Bow. Fair. Lean. Type.

All of these words do a much better job of communicating ideas when you know their context. Thanks to the wonderful quirks of the English language, “bow” can refer to that thing a a violin player uses, the grand gesture an actor makes at the end of his performance, the pointy projectile of an archer, or none of the above. So without context clues, “bow” and other words like it could be downright confusing.

Luckily, most of the time we do get context clues. And thanks to the words that accompany tricky homographs like these, folks usually don’t have a problem understanding a good writer’s intended meaning.

People also manage to navigate through language without getting too tripped up on synonyms. We know we can use them pretty interchangeably, and that if your friend calls you a moron, he could just as easily have called you an idiot. And that you can reply by slapping / hitting / clocking him on the head. No biggie.

While the human brain is equipped to handle these conventions of the English language, imagine how tough this must all be for the super literal inner workings of computers. It’s taken them awhile to sort all these loony homonyms and synonyms out, but now they’re pretty much there.

And with that, semantic search could make its debut.

What It Is and How it Helps You Out

So semantic search engines attempt to use their knowledge of language and all its idiosyncrasies to come up with the most relevant search results for you. In order for them to work, they really have to “understand” what you’re looking for. They have to use the context of the keywords you typed to identify the correct definition for any homonym you may have included. And more importantly, they find synonyms to match the words that you typed. By doing these two things, they can rule out irrelevant pages that include the keywords you did type, and they can add pages to your search results that are on target for what you want even if they include only words you didn’t type.

For instance, semantic search engines could figure out that a site about “inexpensive shoes” would interest someone who typed in “cheap shoes,” but a site about “nuclear fusion” wouldn’t do much for someone looking for “gas mileage of a Fusion.”

The search engines you use everyday utilize this technology to some degree, but there are other search engines that actually specialize in semantic search. This article goes through the details about some of the search engines that make a name for themselves through their semantic search technology.

Is it a little creepy that computers are getting this good at thinking like people? Maybe. But semantic search can bring you the very best search results without any extra effort on your part. And the IntelliSites Albany Web Design team thinks that’s kind of neat / cool / groovy.

Filed under: Experiencing the Web, Search Engine Marketing
Tags: search engines, semantic search
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It’s no big secret that the crew at Intellisites loves the world wide web. We’ll talk your ear off about how amazing websites can be and how they can work with social media sites to help business owners bring their businesses to a new level.

But that doesn’t mean we think that once you have a website and a few Facebook fans, your marketing is done.

A well-optimized website paired with a strong social media presence is a huge part of marketing your business successfully, but as your website gurus and pals, we want to make sure you understand that the web, breathtaking as it may be, shouldn’t be the only place you show your clients who you are.

Meet Our Posse

If you really want your business to be all it can be, then it’s best to use a comprehensive marketing approach that uses different types of media to send a well-defined message about your brand. And the best way to do that is to make sure that your web design team has allies in the marketing and print world who will ensure that all of your marketing efforts jive.

Luckily, we do.

Intellisites is partnered with some of the coolest cats in marketing, in fact. The marketing magicians at Burst Marketing and the diggity design dudes at imPress have worked together with us to help many of our clients develop and implement successful marketing campaigns. Because we can all work together to carry out a solid marketing plan that incorporates the right combination of printed materials, promotional items, and web masterpieces, our clients are able to express a consistent message to both on- and off- web targets.

If you came here looking for someone to build you a super website, then you definitely came to the right place. But thanks to our comrades at Burst and imPress, this is also the right place for people looking for a marketing approach that will make their businesses take off.

Filed under: Marketing Your Site, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media, Web Design
Tags: Burst Marketing, imPress, marketing
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