What are Social Signals, and Why do I Need a Good One?

Social signals are becoming a more important factor in search.  [Good] Back links have always been, and still are, of great value in SEO.  However, popular search engines such as Google and Bing don’t believe that a site can have a thousand or more backlinks, with no social signals.

So, how do I enhance my social signal?

It’s simple.  Basically you need to start with really good web content, this includes:

  • Photos
  • Videos
  • Press Releases
  • Articles

This content needs to be relatable, and informative.  However, it’s more than that.  You also want you’re your content to be engaging enough to be shared by relevant sites (by creating back links to your content), therefor sharing your content with more readers, and by being shared on one or more of the popular social media sites such as:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google +
  • LinkedIn
  • Reddit
  • Youtube
  • Pintrest

Social Signal | Atlanta Social Media Marketing

As of late Google has really been pushing SEO in the direction of better content, instead of keyword density and placement.  This advice needs to be followed everywhere, but especially when it comes to enhancing your social signal.  You want your readers and visitors to find the content that you provide to be useful and knowledgeable.  However, it needs to capture your audience enough to be shared with their friends and readers as well.  This is what creates the social signals that all search engines are looking for.

Google, Bing, and Yahoo have all agreed that the social signal that your site generates is of great importance.  “It’s the new SEO”.  Google has confirmed that they use Facebook’s and Twitter’s links in web search rankings, and the effect that these  links have on rankings has increased since the 2011 Panda and 2012 penguin updates.

So, what is the message here?

You need to create great content that is sharable, relevant, and engaging.  Having multiple back links won’t cut it in the new age of SEO.  Create content that readers will want to share, or recommend to their friends and audience.  Social networking and media is becoming very important in the world of SEO, you want to start generating your social signal strength now, if you haven’t already.

Filed Under: Blogging, SEM, SEO, Social Media Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

What to Expect from the New Google+ Local Listings

Atlanta SEO Company, Interactive Search Marketing, knows that when Google starts playing around behind the scenes, business owners get nervous and with good reason. If you are in business right now you have spent time improving your online reputation, and becoming as prominent as possible in the search engines. It is just the cost of doing business these days and no one wants to hear about a change that might damage all their hard work.

Google+ Local | Atlanta SEO Company | Google PlacesThe good news is that there is nothing to fear just yet. Essentially Google has gotten rid of their local search pages called Google Places and replaced it with Google+ Local. They are working on taking all of the existing Places pages and converting them into Google+ Local pages so the business owner does not have to request the conversion, it is automatic.

For the moment, Google says that the change will not have an effect on local search but that doesn’t mean it won’t in the future. In fact, it is a pretty sure bet that the new pages will become a major factor in local searches. One of the biggest changes that they have made to the process is the introduction of Zagat reviews. On the previous Google Places pages everyone utilized a five star rating for a company. The new pages will use a zero to thirty Zagat rating that has been integrated directly with Google+ Local.

Business owners have a lot of questions about the recent changes and we will address a few of the most common ones below to help clarify some issues.

  1. How do you verify your Google+ Local profile? If you have already claimed your business through Google Places then you will not need to do so again under the new system. If you have not claimed your profile then you will do it the same way as you did with Places. At the moment there is no way to see if a business has been claimed or not but Google is supposed to implement a fix for that soon.
  2. What will happen if my company already has a Google+ page? Google is working to merge the Google Places pages with the existing Google+ pages so the integration is happening internally.
  3. How do we manage our Google+ Local profile? You will work through your regular Google Places interface like you always have.
Filed Under: Google, SEO Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Bing Makes Some Big changes, Here’s What to Expect

Atlanta SEO Company, Interactive Search Marketing, talks about the newest changes to Bing.  With all the changes that Google has been implementing it should come as no surprise that Bing is also trying to shake things up. For awhile now Microsoft has been trying to gain some ground on the search engine leader (Google) and they are now leveraging their investment in Facebook to offer something that Google cannot.

Bing will soon be rolling out a brand new interface that incorporates your social media contacts into your search results via a sidebar. In essence, it will operate just like the search engine always has but it will also show information from your social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

For example, if you were to run a search for information about Georgia, the search engine will gather information from:

  • The Internet ( Just like it always has)
  • Your Facebook profile ( To find any mention of the search term Georgia)
  • Your friends Facebook profiles (To find out who may live in Georgia, vacation in Georgia or have some kind of expertise in it)
  • What you and your friends have liked on Facebook
  • Facebook Photos

Once it has gathered the information, it will give you the standard search results plus a list of social media contacts in a sidebar that may have additional information about your search term. So, if you have a friend on Facebook that said they live in Georgia or posted a picture tagged with the word Georgia,  they might appear in your search sidebar.

While many people see this as a great way to integrate social networking into search results, others are not so sure. Quite a few Facebook users feel that the social media site is already too intrusive, and they do not want to give it even more control over standard online tasks.

This may be Bing’s chance to take a few users away from Google. In essence, Google is pairing a relatively unpopular social media site with the most popular search engine to date but Bing is pairing a relatively unpopular search engine with the two most popular social media sites to date. The new Bing interface is set to launch in a few weeks and anyone interested in social media or search engine optimization will be watching very closely to see what effect it may have.

Filed Under: Bing, Google, SEM, SEO

What Will a Website do for My Business?

As a Dawsonville web development company we often get asked, “Why do I need a website for my business? What will it do for me?”  The answer is actually simple, and having a great website is crucial in the expanding world of technology that we live in today.

Your Business Needs a WebsiteSo, what will a website do for your business?

  • When is the last time you looked for a phone number in a printed phone book?  Odds are it’s been a while.  Search engines like Google and Yahoo are now the main vessels of information.  Having a great Dawsonville web development team strategically build and optimize a website for your company will put you at the top of the list when consumers are looking for the products or services that you offer.
  • Once you have a website, it opens a whole new market.  It will allow customers, and potential customers or investors, to learn more about your business via web search.  That said, you can’t just throw together a website and hope for the best.  There is more to it than that.  The site needs to look professional and be optimized for search engines so that your company develops a great web presence.
  • Potential customers are looking for your services or products.  If you don’t have a website, it’s guaranteed that they will find your competitor’s site instead.  Meaning that one of your customers is now lost.
  • Having a great website will allow you to keep customers engaged in your business by allowing you to post new things about your company.  You can let customers know about sales and specials, or that you’re moving or opening a new location.

It is important to remember, however, that having no website at all is better than a poor one.  Make sure you hire a great professional Dawsonville web development team to design and maintain a great web presence for your growing business.  Don’t miss out on another customer.

Filed Under: Google, SEM, SEO, Web Development, White Hat Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Top 6 Google Updates that Positively Affect SEO

Google has a way of making SEO companies squirm with new updates and changes to their search algorithms.  This year’s updates have really made an impact on the world of SEO.  However, it’s not what you think.  Any good SEO team that creates great content that is relevant to readers will still have great rankings in Google’s search results.

Google PandaHere are six of the 50 changes that Google made in March that are the most important to SEO and marketing:

  • Update Codename: Blackboard will process autocomplete queries that include math symbols. (+, -, %, $, @, etc.)
  • Update Codename: Prof-2 allows for betting indexing of profile pages from more than 200 social network sites.
  • Update Codename: ShieldsUp allows for better handling of local intent and navigational queries, where it looks as if the user is trying to navigate to a specific site, or within a specific site that is near their current location.
  • Update Codename: Curlup is the big one that has some “black hat SEO companies” shaking.  This allows Google to crawl a webpage and rank a website based on quality, and what it brings to the user, instead of ranking for SEO alone.  This is what I mentioned before, using keywords is still best practice.  However, don’t just shove them into sentences and content that don’t fit.
  • Update Codename: Fibyen improves the algorithm that determines dates for blogs, ensuring that the newest and most relevant results are brought to users.
  • Update Codename: Lice updates the signals that Google uses related to the landing page that quality images are located on.  This means that users will find higher quality images, even if the images are on lower quality pages.

Google’s updates always seem to scare everyone on the web. Though Google isn’t setting us up for a SEOpocolypse, and as long as you have great tactics there’s nothing to worry about.  If you own a business that has a website just make sure that you have a great Atlanta SEO and web development team taking care of your web presence.  This will ensure the best rankings in Google and greater traffic overall.

Filed Under: Black Hat, Google, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Web Development, White Hat Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

8 Good Pieces of Advice for Creating Domain Names!

Choosing the right domain name is the most important step when building a website. It doesn’t matter if it’s a company website or a blog, your point is to get traffic. You want customers and readers to see you, and to take your product seriously.

9 Good Pieces of Advice for domain names!

  1. Always go with .com! It’s the most widely accepted extension for domain names.
  2. Choose a name with only one possible spelling. This makes it easier for visitors to find your site as opposed to your competitor.
  3. The shorter, the better. The shorter your domain name is the easier it is to remember.
  4. Would it look good in a commercial? Think of what your domain name that would look like in commercials or on a billboard.
  5. Absolutely-No-Hyphens. Avoid hyphens all together. It’s likely that your visitors aren’t going to remember them, let alone where they go.
  6. Buy up those other extensions! As well as your .com, buy .biz and .info. These are commercial extensions that you can redirect to your .com domain to ensure that all traffic comes to you!
  7. Pay the Price! Free servers usually are going to be ignored by search engines. Pay for your server.
  8. Keywords baby! Choose a domain name that includes keywords that are related to your site. If you sell “stone” use stone in your domain name.
  9. Avoid numbers for letters! To does not equal 2. For does not equal 4. “deliver2u4cheap.com” Looks as bad as it is hard to remember.

These certainly will help in making sure that you get visitors turned customers. You want to avoid all things silly, ridiculous, and clever. Stick to something simple and relevant to make sure that your taken seriously and traffic keeps coming in!

 

Filed Under: SEO, Web Development Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Spiders on the Web: Web Crawlers and Search Engines

What are Web Crawlers? Ever wonder how your search engine comes back with endless information when you hit the search button for just about any topic? Web Crawlers, also known as Web Spiders, Bots, and Web Roots is the answer to that one. So, what is a Web Crawler? It’s a program, or script, that methodically browses the web and gathers information from web pages and indexes all of the information on the page and drops it in a main dispensary.

Web Spiders Can…

  • Provide up-to-date data (If you were to change a phone number etc.)
  • Checking Links
  • Validating HTML Code
  • Help Market Researchers find the most up-to-date words and terms used today

Web Crawlers, and using them correctly, are a crucial method for collecting data on the ever expanding web. With so many webpages being added daily, and all of the information that is constantly changing, search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing would be all but useless without them. Search engines wouldn’t work at all in fact.

The Dark Side, Web Crawlers can be used for evil as well.

Some choose to use Web Crawlers maliciously…

  • Hacking Servers
  • Gathering Info for Spamming

So, how exactly do they work? When a Web Crawler visits a page it “reads” visible text, hyperlinks, tags, and keyword rich Meta tags. Using the info that it just “read” the Web Crawler will determine what the web page is about and index it.

This is just the simple synopsis of what Web Crawlers do, why, and how. Of course there are many details involved with making sure the Web Spiders read your web page correctly. Don’t have a 500 page website, make sure your webpage and domain name are relevant to your company or business, and hire a good SEO team. Find the right SEO team, and you’ll be set for excellent presence on the World Wide Web.

Filed Under: Google, SEM, SEO, Web Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Google Plus One

Google’s new Plus One (+1) for websites is the next big advancement by the search engine behemoth. They have had several attempts at social media fall flat on their face recently, but this one may just hang around.

Plus One allows users to effectively (to use Facebook terminology) “like” a search result. This allows others from within your Google network to see that you have already liked or “plus oned” something, therefore increasing the odds that they click on the link as well.


How does this affect SEO?

The effects of this could weigh heavily on SEO. Organic traffic is one of the most important factors in determining SE placement, so naturally if your see your friend likes one restaurant over another, more than likely you will click on that restaurant as well, therefore increasing that site’s organic traffic. Also, this is even further continuing Google’s attempt to lower the rankings of content farms. Poor guys never seen it coming.


Is this going to beat Facebook’s “Like” button?

Actually Facebook and Google’s philosophy’s aren’t much different than we think. Both companies consider themselves services and both are trying to give users content that is relevant to what they are interested in. So, with that being said, the short answer is probably no. The longer answer is that it may become a huge competitor because the button would be more generic and therefore used in more situations than a Facebook like. Also, looking back on the old Google vs. Facebook battle, we can assume that +1ing is naturally going to increase SE placement more than liking a page.

Google vs. Facebook

To sum up…

Google’s +1 will not more than likely immediately pose a huge threat to the like button. However, seeing that +1ing will have a “social feel” as well as working in the search engine, it will be more widespread and more relevant overall to the user experience.

Filed Under: Google, SEO, Social Media Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Google is Using Social Networks to Change Internet Search Marketing

Today Google is using social networks to change  internet search marketing.  Currently this leader in Internet searches is teaming up with many social networking outlets to make search engine results more comprehensive and individualized. The only site that’s not joined the team is Facebook who refuses to grant Google permission to access its members’ search data.  Yet, this hasn’t stopped Google from including practically every other social networking outlet to make Google’s function far more “social”. Google is Changing the Face of Internet Marketing.

Now, when an individual logs into their Google account to run a search on any given topic, this internet juggernaut now includes results that closely fit a member’s social networking interests. Instead of a standard, blind set of results, the ranking is influenced by ones’ interactions with:

1)      Twitter

2)      Blogger

3)      Flickr

4)      LinkedIn

5)      And more as Google expands their reach.

By doing this, Google has effectively caused internet marketing based in using keywords alone obsolete. It is no longer important to dwell on keywords because Google is cross-referencing everything with an individual’s or company’s social networking connections. What this translates into is that web results will be different from person to the next.

What will be important in any web search from here on are factors like:

1)      Place of residents

2)      Searches run previously

3)      Social networks of which they are already a member

4)      Businesses, products or services one has used before

To make the most of this new development, the best internet marketing companies are working to improve their client’s web presence by including them in such social networking groups as Twitter, Flickr and Facebook. This is not simply to put a client at the top of a search results page, but to increase their web presence as a whole.  Whether or not Google finally incorporates all social networking outlets into their sphere of influence, in today’s world adding a more comprehensive social networking presence is just good business.  Today there are few, no matter their age, that don’t actively use one or more of these sites to stay in touch with family, friends and business.  To succeed in this growing .com business trend, being increasingly visible in the social networking world is a major priority.

In the past it has been the central focus of internet marketing companies to cram as many keywords as possible into content in order to rank higher.  Now it is far more important to write interesting, relevant, and sometimes humorous blog articles or videos to get the desired results.  This includes creating quality work (not redundant quantity) and spread it out over several social networking sites.  What this means is that it’s crucial that a business, whether large or small, to hire only the best internet search marketing company who doesn’t only keep up with the curve, but stays ahead of it.

Filed Under: Google, SEO, Web Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Social Media Experts Make Facebook Work for You

Social media experts make Facebook work for you in ways many still don’t know is possible.  In the fast-paced world of business, there no time to waste on advertising that’s outdated and obsolete when much more effective tools are out there.  Websites have become perhaps the most popular new means of getting a company’s name out there, and there are excellent SEO companies to make those websites even more profitable.  Yet, professionals in the SEO business have yet to see all the advantages of using social networking tools to make the best even better.  Some of these social media tools include Flickr, Twitter and Facebook.  All of these can be included in a Facebook profile if the social networking team hired knows how to incorporate them.  SEO experts learn to use every avenue open to the public to give their clients an edge. 

Leaders in the SEO Know How Facebook Can Help Business.

Many businesses and companies now have a Facebook page, but there are features added often that those preoccupied with the daily tasks related to running a business may miss.  That’s why a social media team who make it their business to know these things is a fantastic friend to employ.  Testimonials from satisfied customers, photos of previously completed projects, and videos of the owner speaking to the public are all possible on Facebook.  These are simply free advertisements that save a bundle from going to local television stations.  In an economy where every penny counts, why not make the best of what’s even better – getting advertising for FREE!

SEO experts know that you can’t put all a company’s eggs in one basket.  A social media staff can build a Facebook page at an affordable price and can be included in packages that involve these same professionals building a website as well as all the SEO requirement to stay ranked at the top of Google, Bing, and Yahoo.  Imagine having all these benefits to increase sales, and is maintained by the same company!  This takes the confusion out of who to call for what and the ability to easily contact one person for ALL answers.  Technology doesn’t have to be scary when there is an excellent social media team out there to make Facebook bring even more profits to the front door.  So don’t miss the boat, get on board today and find out what a social media company can do with all the fantastic features found on Facebook.  Contact a leader is SEO today and find out more about how social media experts make Facebook work you.

Filed Under: Google, SEO, Web Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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