I like this article’s coverage of the Google Panda algorithm, because, while many SEOs moan on and on about Panda, very few give readers any actionable steps to determine if their site has a problem or not. 

The takeaway from this article?  “Google Panda doesn’t fix itself, you have to fix it.”

See the charts provided in this article that represent both Panda penalties, and Panda recoveries.  There’s no doubt that action pays off in not only full recovery but possibly setting ones self up to soar afterwards.

Read the full article here: How to identify and fix Google Panda in 2012

This company is a retailer in the home decorating niche, and is located in the US.  They have been in business for 15 years. They have a retail store in addition to selling their products through their E-Commerce website.

The Challenge:

Increase Market Share:  The company already had a fairly successful Ecommerce business and had implemented a Pay Per Click marketing campaign in the year previous to increase their online sales.  They felt that there was a lot of market share for them to gain, yet, but it seemed that they had tapped out PPC.

The Solution:

Increase visibility by investing in SEO: Make SEO improvements to increase search traffic to key revenue areas. Page1Pros worked with the client to improve their organic presence. We conducted extensive keyword research to select keyword targets, optimized product pages, and performed off-page SEO.

Three months of SEO work began the first of November, 2011, and concluded the first of February, 2012.  The holidays are traditionally a low time for the home decorating industry, therefore, we determined that our success would be determined by the results obtained during the first full month after our work was complete — February, 2012.

The Result:

Search traffic increased nearly 40% in only 3 months:

In addition, the following results were obtained.

At the end of this month (February 2012) a new release, Panda 3.3 was implemented. While this release does not seem to introduce any big changes to the Panda formula, it is designed to refresh the data in the system, which will inevitably create ranking fluctuations for many sites.

In addition, Google announced  more than 40 changes to their search algorithm this month alone, a new record! We’re sure this record will be broken as they continue to rapidly refine how we find things on the web. Many of these changes are not relevant to our work, but we found several of them applicable to our clients.

1)      Improvements to freshness. [launch codename “iotfreshweb”, project codename “Freshness”] We’ve applied new signals which help us surface fresh content in our results even more quickly than before.

Google is creating changes that allow content to be posted and indexed to the web at a lightning fast rate. People are looking for the latest news and information and Google is trying to give access to that. This means the more fresh content you can add to your site, the more it will be featured in the search results.

2)      More locally relevant predictions in YouTube. [project codename “Suggest”] We’ve improved the ranking for predictions in YouTube to provide more locally relevant queries. For example, for the query [lady gaga in ] performed on the US version of YouTube, we might predict [lady gaga in times square], but for the same search performed on the Indian version of YouTube, we might predict [lady gaga in India].

Youtube is taking local search more into consideration – so if you are creating videos on youtube for your business, the odds of someone local viewing it are higher than someone in another area. This is good news for local businesses and makes video a more appealing promotional tool.

3)      Improvements to ranking for local search results. [launch codename “Venice”] This improvement improves the triggering of Local Universal results by relying more on the ranking of our main search results as a signal. 

Again Google is looking to factors like unique content on your site as a ranking signal for Google places. If you have a vibrant site with good quality content, this will help your google local rankings as well.

This Panda update and others to come seem to be focusing on rewarding sites with fresh, applicable content.   If you have a chance, be sure to add a couple of articles to your site this month, or make some changes to your current content to keep things fresh!

While most of our clients don’t run adsense or ads at the tops of the pages, some graphic heavy sites or sites with flash banners or large banners at the top may be adversely effected by these changes. Also pages that have very little written content, but just video or images are sometimes being penalized in search rankings.

If adding video to your site, make sure to include some relevant content on the page as well – worst case you can just summarize the video on the page.  Also, it may be useful to reduce the size of your graphical banner at the top if that is taking up too much vertical space.

Along with this change, and many others that Google is implementing, comes the potential for higher rankings for sites with fresh content. Each time the Googlebot crawls your page it is looking for any new, relevant content. As new quality content increases on your site, your site becomes more of an authority in Google’s eyes, which improves search ranking.

In a recent blogpost (linked below), Google’s Matt Cutts mentions that the search engine giant is anticipating making over 500 changes to the search algorithm this year alone. Many of these will be related to rewarding sites that have relevant, useful and fresh content, and devaluing those that are static sites without useful content. If possible, make it a priority to add some content to your site this month. Posting a simple blog post or article on a regular basis signals to google that your site is active and relevant, and deserves a higher rank.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html

• More local search engine results displayed for different types of queries (an assumption that location is a driving force in search results).
• More ads and larger ads at the top of the results page, thus dropping the organic results further down.
• Different display features like google+ author pictures being added, integration of google+1 recommendations and google places undergoing several cosmetic overhauls.
• Multiple listings combined into 1 listing (whereas it used to be much easier to get several pages ranked on page1, it is now unusual and short lived).
• Duplicate content penalties that affected a lot of websites.

It was a busy year for Google and for those of us who are trying to stay one step ahead of them…and 2012 looks to be another year of significant changes.   On page optimization is more important than ever (Heading tags with keywords and descriptions around 140 characters) and local search continues to change the way we see organic rankings, especially with more users searching by location from their mobile devices.

However, the biggest factor related to continued top ranking in search engines is…….you may have guessed it…….UNIQUE CONTENT!

Why Unique Content?

As ads start to squeeze out results for short keyphrases, long tail search results (results that comes from people typing in very specific phrases) are bringing in more traffic for individuals who aren’t paying a ton of money for pay per click ads.

For example, let’s say you are a lawyer in Des Moines, and you write and optimize a blog post called “How to Choose the Right Lawyer in Des Moines” and someone searches for that string of keywords. The odds are that your article will pop up and they will read it and have the opportunity to contact you. If you hadn’t written that article, you most likely would not have captured that search opportunity – and that search is very specific, targeted traffic.

Imagine if your site had 50 articles or 100 articles that each captured one of these results per month. That is a decent amount of targeted traffic for a local business. Not to mention that Google gives your site more authority based the amount of content and pages, which helps with short phrase results as well, and new and fresh content is often favored in results.

New Content in 2012

To help your business grow in 2012, consider a New Year’s Resolution to add more new content. When you add it, make sure that it is optimized (title tags, description – keep around 140 characters, keywords) and throw in some media like a picture or video. Keep this unique content on your site (don’t share it with other sites) and see the results that come from it. Adding content on a regular basis will be the #1 factor that will help your site continue to rank through the changes that 2012 and beyond will bring.

I have a significant new client, in large part thanks to your SEO efforts — HOORAY! They Googled my keywords and up popped my website.
In addition, at least two conference organizers I didn’t know found me using the same terms.
Thought you’d like to hear the good feedback.
Many thanks.” — John

Online video consumption continues to grow, and more and more people want to view content via video.  Fortunately it is easier and cheaper to create video content than ever. Now is the time to start incorporating some video onto your site!

Where do I start?

A simple introductory video, or a video of you explaining a simple concept can be filmed with a smartphone, webcam or a cheap digital video camera such as a flip camera. Most smartphones now have functionality which allow you to upload your video to youtube seamlessly, which is where you want your video to land.

Another way to include content from your articles and blog (and the kind of informational content that people are searching for) is to create a simple powerpoint with the main points from your article, then create a video of you discussing that presentation. Free desktop software from Jing can be used to film this presentation and upload the video to youtube. Jing has a 5 minute time limit, which is usually enough to cover the main concepts. If you have other software, it is still preferable to keep your video under 10 minutes for youtube.

If you have an inspirational message or more of a promotional video you can use a free service called animoto to create up to a 2 minute video with images and phrases. We use this service to create videos for local places listings, and it can also be used to create videos for your youtube channel.

Uploading to Youtube

Of course this post needs a video! This 4 minute 59 second video is a little rushed at the end due to the 5 minute Jing limit. It covers the basics of uploading a video and adding title, keywords, description and mapping. It also show you where to access the embed code. Once you copy this code, you will paste it into your website. If using wordpress, you will paste into the html view rather than the visual view, or use a wordpress plugin like vipers video to embed easily.

Google purchased youtube several years ago, and you can use your google login to create a youtube channel. This is where your uploaded videos will go (more information on creating and customizing your youtube channel is available here). Once your videos are uploaded it is important to use keyword rich titles and description (related to the video topic) so youtube users as well as the search engines can find your video.

Incorporating on your site(s)

After you have uploaded and optimized your video it is time to share it with the world! If you click on the embed code you will get some code you can paste directly into your site.  If the video is a companion to an article, you can paste in where it makes sense. If it is stand alone, you will want to create some text on the page taken from the video. This is helpful for the search engines.

Once it is on your site, you can share the link on your facebook page and twitter accountt if you are using those services.  There are also other video sharing sites such as Vimeo, Blip.tv and Viddler and  where you can upload your video and create more links back to your website and potentially reach a larger audience.

If you have questions about video creation or promotion, contact us today!

“Since working with Page1Pros for just 6 months, our new patient flow is way up, and we finally have the consistent patient flow that we have wanted! Page1Pros knows the SEO world better than anyone we have ever worked with. Thank you so much for your expertise!” — Mary Shackelton, MPH, ND

This fresh content can provide us not only with the latest information but also with great ideas for content for our own site. If it is new research, then we can quickly write an article that will be timely and attract visitors.  We can also write a response type article and link to the original article. This can serve to build credibility in the field.

Another way to use Google Alerts is to find new blog posts that are relevant to our sites and leave comments on them.  Let’s say you’re an attorney and you want to rank for the keyword “criminal defense lawyer”.  When google flags a new blog post with that phrase, you can be immediately notified, and then can be one of the first to leave a timely comment with a link back to your site.

Not only does this create a great backlink, which helps with SEO, it may also start a conversation with another professional in your line of work, and gives readers of that blog a chance to see an intelligent comment and perhaps visit your site as well.

How you can set up an alert

Setting up an alert is quite easy. To start, go to http://www.google.com/alerts

Here you will need to login to google and then enter some basic information. For your keyword phrase, be sure to include it in quotation marks so only exact phrase matches come back, for example “criminal defense lawyer”.

If you would like to leave comments on others articles, select “blogs” in the type field.

For the how often field you can decide if you want to receive alerts right away or on a daily or weekly basis. If you choose a popular phrase and select “as it happens” you may receive a lot of email! Usually once a day or even once a week is enough to keep current.

Some people prefer to receive updates in an rss feed instead of by email. You can set this up after you create an alert, by clicking on “manage your alerts”, selecting the edit button for each alert, and in the “deliver to” field selecting feed instead of your email address.

That’s it, you will now start receiving alerts in your email or rss feed reader. This is a great way to keep current in your field, build relationships with others, and improve your search rankings all at the same time!

For many small businesses, a local online presence is key to success. When someone types in what they are searching for locally, for example “criminal attorney austin”, a list of local lawyers comes up on the page. If you are a criminal defense lawyer in Austin, you want to come up on page 1 for this search if you are interested in getting clients from the internet!

To establish your business as a local authority (and rank on page 1 for key terms related to your business), many different factors come into play. Website optimization, fresh content, incoming links and reviews all play a significant role in your rankings. Another factor, which is often overlooked, is local visibility.

Local visibility basically means that your website is tied in with other local websites and resources. It is thought that Google employs algorithms that look for these types of local relationships. If websites in your community are linking to your site, this signals that your site is important in this location for the services that you offer.

Local visibility is not as important as adding quality content or getting reviews of your business (reviews of your site on google places and other directories like yelp), so start there if you are looking to raise your internet profile. However, if you are already doing these things and want to take another step towards becoming a local authority site, here are some ways to increase your local visibility.

Get listed:

Your local Chamber of Commerce website for your area is a great place to get listed. Also search for local directories that may allow you to list for free. You can do a google search for “your city name + your business + directory” to find these resources (for example “Austin + Lawyer + Directory” )

Get the word out:

Contact your local newspaper about writing a free article for them. Most local papers are online now and your article will be available there. If possible, make sure the byline links back to your website, preferably with keyword rich text (you can ask them to link the phrase “Austin Defense Attorney” back to your site).

Speaking at a local campus can bring your message to a new audience as well as provide a link on the campus website back to your site. This is also useful because it will be a .edu backlink, which google regards very highly.

Connect with other Locals:

Leaving comments on other local blogs can provide links back to your site. If you build a relationship with the blogger you may also be able to write a guest post on their blog, bringing you more exposure and an opportunity for a high quality link.

Offering to write testimonials for your colleagues or other local businesses can also be a great way to get a link back to your site. They get a great testimonial and you get a great local link. While you are at it, offer to trade reviews in google places with the same testimonial.

These are just a few strategies to increase your local on-line visibility. Doing these things alone won’t get you high rankings, but combined with other techniques you will be pleasantly surprised at how they can help solidify high local rankings.