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The Case for Google PageRank: Perception vs. Economics

By David Jackson in Featured

In my previous article, Google PageRank: SEO Treasure or Fool’s Gold? What the Experts S…I argued strongly against the importance of PageRank and believing in it as a reliable metric. Among the many compelling expert opinions that I presented to bolster my argument, this statement by Google itself made the most sense to me:

“Don’t bother thinking about it [PageRank]. We only update the PageRank displayed in Google Toolbar a few times a year; this is our respectful hint for you to worry less about PageRank, which is just one of over 200 signals that can affect how your site is crawled, indexed and ranked. PageRank is an easy metric to focus on, but just because it’s easy doesn’t mean it’s useful for you as a site owner. If you’re looking for metrics, we’d encourage you to check out Analytics, think about conversion rates, ROI (return on investment), relevancy, or other metrics that actually correlate to meaningful gains for your website or business.” (Source: Google Webmaster Central FAQ)

Perception is a Metric Too

I couldn’t agree more with Google. Analytics, conversion rates and return on investment are much more important metrics than PageRank. However, the undeniable fact remains, there are a lot of individuals who strongly advocate for PageRank. And in the aftermath of my article being published, I received a lot of interesting and compelling dissenting feedback – so compelling in fact, I decided to play devil’s advocate and write this follow up article strongly making the case for PageRank.

The Power of Social Media

By Anthony Godley in Featured

What is social media, you ask? Think Facebook? Think YouTube or Twitter? Think fundamental shift in how businesses reach customers and how organizations connect with constituencies. Think outside your traditional marketing box. Web 2.0 is alive with conversations, and Internet marketing isn’t just about email blasts anymore. The social media train is leaving, and you don’t want to get left at the station.

Think you know what we’re talking about?

Social Media is a phrase being tossed around a lot these days, but it can sometimes be difficult to determine and identify how best to utilize and integrate The Power of Social Media into your personal or business strategy. However, make absolutely no mistake, Social Media, Social Networking and Social Interaction is the future of Business Marketing and should be exploited to its fullest potential.

Think about it… Facebook www.facebook.com currently has more than 700million users, a quite staggering statistic. Twitter www.twitter.com is closing in on 200million users.

IMAGINE THE POTENTIAL

Create a Social Brand and Corporate Account on Facebook, Twitter ALONE and deliver hourly, daily, weekly or monthly messages, information, content and news to tens of thousands or even millions of users all over the world in an instant. Never before has there been such a comprehensive tool in reaching out to the masses in a direct sell of your business, product or news.

Social Media has arrived and not only is it here to stay, it is the future of how WE communicate, how WE generate new interests and business opportunities and how WE market our brands to local, national and international communities.

Social Media, SEO and Google.com

Google recently announced a change in its algorithm which allows for increased visibility and SERP (Search Engine Results Page) Ranking based on Web2.0 and Social Media interaction. Google’s increased emphasis on the importance of Social Media presence means it is more important than ever to really start using Social Media in your internet marketing strategy. Social Media should already be a part of most search engine optimization strategies and almost every marketing campaign, but now it is essential to have more than a passive interest. And not just for the potential backlinks, but for all the other reasons social networking is great for business – more personal interaction, the ability to listen to and better understand your customers, and of course exposure to your potential audience where they spend most of their time.

Google will now recognize chat, hype and activity of your BRAND name, PERSONAL name or KEY SEARCH TERM directly within the Social Media sites. Google will recognize this activity as positive and will encourage a vastly improved Google Page Ranking. It is just a matter of time before the other key search engines update their algorithms to perform similar functionality.

In summary it is more important than ever to include Social Media into your marketing strategy as SEO becomes more and more integral to company performance, revenue and recognition.

What are some of the KEY Social Media Websites?

The Power of Social Media can be strategically driven to a key business marketing tool with relatively little effort but because Social Media is such a broad term, it covers a large range of websites. The one common link between these websites is that you are able to interact with the website and interact with other visitors.

Here are some examples of important Social Media websites:

Social Networking:
1. Facebook www.facebook.com Approximately 700million users
2. Twitter www.twitter.com Approximately 200million users
3. Bebo www.bebo.com Approximately 120million users
4. MySpace www.myspace.com Approximately 100million users
5. Friendster www.friendster.com Approximately 90million users
6. Hi5 www.hi5.com Approximately 80million users
7. Xanga www.xanga.com Approximately 30million users
8. LiveJournal www.livejournal.com Approximately 12million users
9. StumbleUpon www.stumbleupon.com Approximately 11million users
10. Tumblr www.tumblr.com Approximately 10million users

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Anthony is the CEO of well respected Reputation Management and Public Relations Agency, KPRS Media. At KPRS Media we understand the importance of Social Media and Web2.0 but more importantly we have the experience to integrate highly visible and successful Social Media Networks into your business or personal marketing strategy. Contact us today for a chat on what we can do to help your business: info@kprsmedia.com

Is Page Rank Still the Key to Good Link Building?

By Alex Johnson in Featured

Ever since the dawn of Google there has been a single constant of SEO and that is that we must build links. Quite simply, when you put all the other minutiae aside, links are what make the difference between a #1 ranking and search engine obscurity.

Naturally, then, when Google first pioneered this thing that we call “Page Rank,” the world of SEO quickly adopted it as the litmus against which all potential link prospects should be measured…

Today

The thing is, Google has gotten a little more sophisticated these days. Links still matter, no doubt about it, but how much each link matters has become a complex thing indeed. So, the question arises then: Is page rank still the best thing to consider when doing your own link building? I say perhaps not.

The Dreaded Panda

If you know anything at all about SEO then I will assume you have heard of the recent “Panda Update.” In simple terms Google has declared a new effort in the war against spam.

Video: http://videos.sitepronews.com/video/4652/Google-FarmerPanda-Update-Whitelists

Content farms are the primary targets, and for this reason, many big sites with less than great content have been slapped back down the rankings. But the real casualties as far as I can see are not restricted just to these “farmers”…

For every content farm that’s been all but eradicated from the index, there are probably hundreds or even thousands of links which effectively don’t even count anymore.

That’s right, if you have been overdoing it on the article submissions etc… there’s a good chance that many of your links are almost worthless now. It’s the link builders equivalent of a stock market crash.

What Google Wants

The simplest way to figure out what Google really looks for in a link is to think about what Google wants to achieve. After all, as Matt Cutts put it in one of his videos on webmaster help:

“Webmasters should be chasing after what the user wants (rather than just chasing the algorithm).”

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdmzKzuXurY

The Ideal Scenario

What Google really dreams of (I wonder if it has started to dream
yet…?) is that we, as web masters, simply focus on building better sites and focusing our marketing efforts on our users and not on what the algorithm wants.

Logically then, Google is going to try to single out the pages which are popular with the humans who are viewing them. As a corollary to this, wouldn’t it make sense that Google would also care more about links which are more important to the user too?

So if not page rank…

How can you tell then which links you should and shouldn’t bother with? If you can’t chase after that old idol of page rank, then what should you look for in a link?

The answer is simple: Imagine for a minute that Google didn’t exist (scary thought right?), and for that matter search engines in general were unheard of… How are you going to get free traffic to your website now?

That’s right, logically, shouldn’t the most important links be the ones which you would build even if you didn’t care about SEO? i.e. the ones which will bring you the most traffic?

Summary

Link building has been heading this way for a while, and OK we’re not quite there yet, but logically; if a link gets you oodles of relevant traffic, that has to be considered a good link right?

Let’s stop chasing this silly algorithm and adding more and more useless content and poor quality links to the internet. Let’s start focusing on getting more traffic and happier users – Google is bound to catch up with us before too long!

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This guest post was written by Alex from WhoIsHostingThis.com. Alex is an SEO fanatic, a coder and all round tech geek. Come visit our site for hosting reviews and other webmaster tips and tools.

What Every Company Needs on Their Website

By James McRoy in Featured

Even the best-run business is guilty of starving the media of good usable content for use by the press. When you have a small team with enormous time constraints, the problem is even worse. Just how do you let the world know how good you are?

PR is an absolute boon for small businesses; it is much more effective than pure advertising and the big bonus is – it’s free! Free in terms of cost, but not in effort.

Developing a PR strategy takes time, effort, clarity of purpose, and an amount of doggedness on the part of the company, but for the majority of companies, time is a really precious commodity that is ‘best devoted to churning out the finished product, project or service.’

Most companies have newsworthy events, things that they could really bang the drum about – if only they had the time and the resources. Lately there has been a solution to this appearing on really well thought-out websites; the virtual Press Office.

Improve Online Reputation Management with Proactive PR

By Julie Ann Ross in Featured

Practicing online reputation management is a must for any public relations professional who believes his or her company may face a corporate crisis in the future. As our news gathering and reporting moves online, online reputation management is becoming more important. Now, news stories and blogs are being indexed by search engines, and many times, if a company makes the news, that can sometimes be the first item found in the search engine rankings.

Proactive PR is important for online reputation management, because it means you are creating positive search engine results, which can keep negative search results from ever appearing. You can focus on positive content-generating activities, rather than putting out fires via reactive management.

Here are five ways to improve your online reputation management.

Start a blog. Fill it with as much positive information as you can find. News releases, product and service descriptions, customer questions, employee interviews, and anything else you can think of. The more content you can create, the better your online reputation management efforts will be, because you will have a central location you can direct people to.

Create a Twitter profile and a Facebook page. Fill your networks with customers, journalists, and anyone else who would have an interest in your company. Answer customer care questions, link to your blog posts, and be a valuable resource to anyone you interact with on these networks. An important part of your online reputation management will be to create positive relationships with people. This way, if something ever does go wrong, you’ll have a group of people who are willing to support you, or at least forgive you.

Use your own face and name on your company’s social media profiles. While this may not be possible for a large corporation, it’s crucial for a small business. An important part of your online reputation management will be to put a personal face on your corporate brand. People will be able to relate to your company more easily, which will make your online reputation management efforts much easier.

Join a niche social network for your industry. Start communicating with people on the network, especially answering questions and providing information. You can help your online reputation management by becoming a trusted resource among your industry peers and customers. Form relationships with people on the network, make referrals to people inside and outside the network, and work to become a regular, well-known presence in the group. If there is a crisis that hits the media, you may end up finding allies in your industry group who will speak favorably about you.

Good online reputation management includes effective search engine optimization. Do all of these other steps with an eye toward SEO. Your ultimate goal is to win all searches on the big three search engines; Google, Bing, and Yahoo; which will help keep negative entries off the front page. If you’re already sitting on top of the mountain, it will be harder to unseat you. But if you aren’t even on the front page when an incident blows up, you’ll have a hard time getting to the front page let alone the top of the results. And the longer you wait to begin, the harder it will be.

It’s important you begin your online reputation management efforts immediately. If you ever find yourself in a crisis, and the news results hit the search engines, it’s too late to start thinking about online reputation management. You’ll be playing catchup for days, weeks, and even months later, trying to overcome every news story, blog entry, and tweet that other people have been posting while you’re still setting up your first Twitter account.

The key to online reputation management is to do it before you ever need it, and to create a positive online brand. Follow these five steps and you’ll be ahead of the game.

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Rostin Ventures principals have extensive experience in restoring reputations online, using Reverse SEO among other tactics to provide positive Online Reputation Management Services (ORM Services). When an individual or company name is being searched in Google, Yahoo, Bing and an undesired page or website appears, they can push the negative page back in the search results where it will rarely, if ever be found. www.RostinVentures.com

How To Boost Your Traffic

By Kirsten Hendrich in Featured

Setting up a website is hard work, but many people don’t realise that the really hard bit, and sometimes most expensive, is getting traffic to visit your site. To get the most out of your website you must put time in, and continually develop and market your website to the online world. Below are a few things that you can do to help you get on your way. They can all be done completley free, they just require some time and effort.

Through experience, I have found that the most effective way to use the following tactics is to sync them all up. With minimal effort your facebook fans, twitter followers, and blog readers can be fed the same information. This will also help any SEO and or link building work that is being done for your website.

Videos

Putting together a successful video campaign can result in a very high amount of traffic and exposure for your website. Video blogs and promotional videos are easy to put together and with websites such as Youtube; publishing your videos has never been easier. The biggest decision to make is whether to host, or post your videos. I would advise that a mixture of both techniques is the best way. Hosting a good quality, informative video on your website will make it more useful, and should attract links, whilst posting a video on Youtube is a great way to increase traffic. I would advise that you put the full video on your website, and a shorter ‘promo’ version on Youtube. The idea is that, anyone who see’s your video on Youtube is given a reason to look at your website.

Twitter/Facebook

Using both twitter and facebook gives you the opportunity to reach an extremely wide audience. Both can be synced up together feeding the same information out to your online friends and fans, with each site adding momentum to the other. Popular activities on these sites include fan competitions, publishing company news, promoting new content and generally growing an ‘online community’. If your content is always of a high quality, and interesting and useful to the user, your groups should grow naturally and also gain links and traffic back to your site. The most important thing is that they are updated regularly with good content; it’s not enough to just set up some profiles and hope for the best!

Blogs

Having a regularly updated, useful and interesting blog can really help your website grow with regards to returning traffic. A well composed blog can attract a following of it’s own, thus giving you traffic that you would never have otherwise benefited from. Popular ideas for blog entries could include; top ten lists, product reviews; tips; industry news or company news. Once you have published a new blog post, make sure you promote via your facebook page and your twitter account.

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Kirsten Hendrich – Do you want to increase your traffic? Let Go Search Marketing help you. Visit their website for more details.

Does Google PageRank Count Anymore?

By Titus Hoskins in Featured

Being a full-time SEM (Search Engine Marketer) I have been conditioned like Pavlov’s dog (not a pretty picture) to jump every time Google twitches. Lately Google has been doing a lot of twitching.

Specifically, the rather startling news from Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa that Google has ditched PageRank from Webmaster Tools.

“We’ve been telling people for a long time that they shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it’s the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true,” states Moskwa. “We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it.” (Source: WebProNews)

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