Google’s announcement of their “Instant” search results sent ripples through the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) community. With search results showing up so much faster, and updating so quickly, they almost seem to become irrelevant. The user is connected to the destination website with almost no time spent on search results, meaning little time for them to see other sites and go there. The idea behind Google Instant is that the user can instantly find whatever they are looking for, while wasting as little time as possible looking through irrelevant search results. Many SEO professionals initially feared the outcome – if users were going only to the sites they wanted to see, and not taking the time to look at any other sites that may have appeared in the search results, then SEO might become obsolete.
Fortunately, it is evident that SEO will stay around for a long time, despite the initial panic. Legitimate SEO is the practice of taking good content and making it more visible. With Google Instant, it is less likely that irrelevant sites which rely purely on SEO spam will be seen at all in search results, but quality sites which people legitimately want to visit will still be seen and get traffic.
Google instant drives users to the content they are looking for faster. Since they can see the search results for their query as they type, they are more likely to type a search query that reflects what they are actually looking for. Misspellings or broad queries can instantly be refined to narrow down search results, without having to retype and resubmit the whole search query. It is expected that Adwords – Pay Per Click advertisers will notice and increased amount of impressions with a lower click through rate (CTR). SEO spammers who relied on misdirected users to come to their site will see a decrease in traffic as well.
A site that has legitimate content which visitors may actually want to see should still expect good quality visitors. Small business SEO practices will still remain relevant – if you offer a good product or service, then people will want it and search for it, and you can use SEO for small business to make sure that your site ranks well.
Google Instant also makes it more important to rank well. For small business SEO, this means that you should still use the same methods and best practices to optimize your site to make it visible. In this way, it makes SEO all the more important – potential visitors take even less time deciding what site to visit, defining the importance of ensuring your sites visibility. Using SEO for small business can help your site to get lots of visitors, regardless of Google Instant. Will Google’s investment pay-off is yet to be seen…. SEO LIVES!
If you are looking for ways to increase your online visibility contact us today.
Google’s announcement of their “Instant” search results sent ripples through the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) community. With search results showing up so much faster, and updating so quickly, they almost seem to become irrelevant. The user is connected to the destination website with almost no time spent on search results, meaning little time for them to see other sites and go there. The idea behind Google Instant is that the user can instantly find whatever they are looking for, while wasting as little time as possible looking through irrelevant search results. Many SEO professionals initially feared the outcome – if users were going only to the sites they wanted to see, and not taking the time to look at any other sites that may have appeared in the search results, then SEO might become obsolete.
Fortunately, it is evident that SEO will stay around for a long time, despite the initial panic. Legitimate SEO is the practice of taking good content and making it more visible. With Google Instant, it is less likely that irrelevant sites which rely purely on SEO spam will be seen at all in search results, but quality sites which people legitimately want to visit will still be seen and get traffic.
Google instant drives users to the content they are looking for faster. Since they can see the search results for their query as they type, they are more likely to type a search query that reflects what they are actually looking for. Misspellings or broad queries can instantly be refined to narrow down search results, without having to retype and resubmit the whole search query. It is expected that Adwords – Pay Per Click advertisers will notice and increased amount of impressions with a lower click through rate (CTR). SEO spammers who relied on misdirected users to come to their site will see a decrease in traffic as well.
A site that has legitimate content which visitors may actually want to see should still expect good quality visitors. Small business SEO practices will still remain relevant – if you offer a good product or service, then people will want it and search for it, and you can use SEO for small business to make sure that your site ranks well.
Google Instant also makes it more important to rank well. For small business SEO, this means that you should still use the same methods and best practices to optimize your site to make it visible. In this way, it makes SEO all the more important – potential visitors take even less time deciding what site to visit, defining the importance of ensuring your sites visibility. Using SEO for small business can help your site to get lots of visitors, regardless of Google Instant. Will Google’s investment pay-off is yet to be seen…. SEO LIVES!
If you are looking for ways to increase your online visibility contact us today.
Tags: Google, Google Adwords, Google Instant, Internet Marketing, Online Visibility, Pay Per Click, SEO for Small Business, small business seo
Why a credible web presence is essential for small businesses
~ By Anthony Howard, HowardSEMGroup.comAs a small business competing for customers in your local market area, you may still think an ad in the yellow pages or local newspaper will be enough to attract new customers, but these days – especially in this economy – it is absolutely essential to be found online. In fact, most potential customers will look online before they look anywhere else. Just having a web site is not enough. You will also need to market your site in such a way that lets customers find your business first.
According to a study by the Kelsey Group, 97% of consumers use the Internet to search for products and services within their local area. Which tools do they typically use? 90 percent use general search engines; 42 percent use comparison shopping web sites; 48 percent use online yellow pages services; and 24 percent use vertical search engines.
The growing fragmentation of the Internet means businesses need a strategic approach to being found online on various channels, including directories, industry-specific blogs and social networking sites. A diverse online presence can make a big difference to your bottom line. Small Business SEO is a very powerful tool that provides a very high ROI.
Pay-per-click advertising, also known as paid search, allows you to target your advertising messages to a local audience as they search for products and services like yours. While this type of advertising can help drive immediate and targeted traffic to your web site, that traffic only comes as long as you are willing to pay for each click. Search engine optimization (SEO) may take a little longer to get your site listed on page one of the Google results, but you will continue to get high rankings long after your SEO efforts are done. Google research shows that up to 80 percent of their users will click on organic listings before a sponsored message, but the best results come when a site appears in both places. In order to truly succeed with search engine marketing, it makes sense to use both pay-per-click and SEO.
Major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo all understand the power of localized search, delivering dramatically accurate results for users. Thanks to their ability to track a computer’s IP address, search engines like Google usually know where your customers live, and will provide search results that are based on that specific location. For example, if a customer types “plumber” into a search engine, they are likely to see a list of local plumbers’ web sites come up as the first result, along with their locations plotted on a local map. Just think of the impact a listing like this could have on your local business!
As you read this, you may be asking yourself, “If online marketing is so important, then why are most of my sales coming in ‘offline’?” If you are like most brick and mortar businesses, only about 5 percent of your sales will occur online; but that doesn’t mean that your customer’s buying decision was not made on the Internet. Most people start their research online, and they expect to get the information they need from your web site. When your business has a professionally designed web site, it levels the playing field in your industry, allowing you to compete against much larger enterprises in your area.
With more cell phone companies offering smart phones with Internet access, customers are able to find local businesses instantly through voice-activated Google searches that return relevant results based on their GPS location. This recent surge in mobile search volume has been a real windfall for local business owners who are positioned well on the search engines.
All of these developments point to one thing: the Internet has changed the way we do almost everything, including the way we conduct business. Today’s customers have the tools to find out if they are making the right buying decision before they ever pick up the phone or stop by your place of business. At one time, it was easy to differentiate between an online business and brick-and-mortar store, but now it’s becoming more and more difficult to draw that line.
Instead of trusting in a company’s advertising claims, customers now look to a growing variety of consumer review sites, search engines and social media to find out what their peers think. How well a business is positioned online really counts. In fact, the Internet has become a natural extension and evolution of how most businesses operate. With this knowledge, many more small businesses realize that they can no longer afford to ignore the power of the Internet.
Anthony Howard is an SEO Expert/Search Engine Strategist and the owner of Howard SEM Group helping businesses succeed on the Internet. To find out how Internet Marketing can help your business visit HowardSEMGroup.com or call 1-877-4EZ-RANK (1-877-439-7265)
Tags: Benefits of SEO, Local Internet Marketing, Local SEO, small business seo
What is Link Building?
Link building or the skill of attaining back links is essentially working to gain website links from other websites pointing to your site. Understanding there are many that are somewhat new to SEO and they are not quite aware of the importance of building a good backlinks structure, I am going to dip into it a bit here today.
There are a few names you might have heard like; backlinks, link building, linking, inbound links, one way linking, reciprocal linking, 3-way linking, etc. For the most part they are all talking about getting a website link from someone else’s site pointing to yours. The reason for the popularity of this is for some search engines the more important one being Google, they look at the amount & quality of links pointing to your website and that helps them determine how popular and relevant your site is for certain terms and helps them rank your site accordingly. Though this is only one of the many ways they determine your relevance and ranking for a term, it is a very important one. Please don’t smack me on my phrasing as I am trying to put this in layman’s terms for those that are not fluent in SEO and link building.
One of the more important aspects of link building and achieving backlinks is the way the links are produced. If you have a site that places a link to your site that looks like this http://www.HowardSEMGroup.com it will work just find and even push a little authority or link juice your way though it doesn’t show the search engines what your site is really relevant for. Now if you have a link from a site pointing to yours that looks like this Small Business SEO this is the way that will give you the most relevance for your terms as this link is essentially telling the search engines that Small Business SEO = http://www.HowardSEMGroup.com essentially giving you a popularity point as well.
With that said remember this is the very watered down explanation…When it comes to one-way linking and reciprocal linking, one-way linking coming from another site to yours is always better, though much harder to achieve. If the search engines are giving you let’s say a popularity point for getting a link, when you give the linking site a link back (reciprocal) you are essentially giving them half of your earned point. Hopefully that makes sense.
One of the most important things to remember is that theme related relevance does matter when you are receiving links from other sites. When the search engines notice you’re getting a link from 2 different sites (using Howard SEM Group as an example), if you get a link from Mikes Donuts, and California SEO Services which do you think the search engines are going to give more value and credit to?
Unfortunately like all things many have tried to manipulate rankings by using black hat and unethical linking techniques. These techniques might produce great results as for your ranking in the short term, but can get your website banned or penalized in the long term. The search engines all have their own guidelines, but for the most part it’s pretty simple to understand. If you play by the rules you will succeed if you don’t, you won’t!
Effective link building and attaining backlinks can be very time consuming, and many in the industry struggle with this aspect of SEO. This is something you can learn as there is a lot of information on the Internet, though we always recommend using a professional SEO Firm or SEO Consultant to aid in your success. (Did you catch those? Ha!)
Tags: backlinks, effective link building service, link building, SEO, small business seo
