Can Negative SEO affect your rankings?
Negative SEO First lets define what Negative SEO is. Negative SEO is using “worst practice” SEO techniques on your competitors to create negative signals to Google. Depending on how strong these signals are you can potential cause an unsuspecting website to drop in rankings therefore freeing up new slots on the first page of Google for your website. In full disclosure I have just recently become aware of this niche industry that is sprouting up. DAGMAR Marketing has never employed these tactics against any competitors or...
read moreGoogle + to start showing ads
In a recent release from Google ‘s adwords blog it appears what we have suspected for a while will soon become a reality. Google is going to start showing their own version of Facebook ads on Google Plus. It has not launched yet but Google is saying it will be a part of their Adwords interface. I suspect this will be much like their Display Network option where you can opt to have your ads show over a different network than just text based search ads. It will be interesting what type of conversions we will see. I suspect it...
read moreDoes Domain Age and Registration Length Matter in SEO?
Straight From the Horses Mouth. I have read some difference of opinions online in regards to domain age and domain registration length effecting search rankings. Many SEO’s feel that both domain age and length of registration effect search engine rankings. I am one of them. This debate has been going on for years as Google, in a round about way, says it doesn’t effect rankings. This matter has come up recently with some of my clients so I wanted to put to rest this debate. Surely there can never be a true victor but...
read moreInside Look at a Google Search Meeting
As part of my daily reading I came across this unique video that takes the viewer behind the scenes into a Google Quality Search meeting. One thing I liked was how informal this meeting was. You can see Amit Singhal who is Senior VP at Google mixed with what looks like recent college grads in a conference room that for most multi billion dollar companies would be a storage closet. Google is known for having a very laid back corporate structure and in this video we see all levels of expertise interacting with one another regardless...
read moreHow to add hReview to your website
Rich Snippets Google has been experimenting with rich snippets for quite a while now. Rich Snippets are extra media showing up in the SERP’s such as gold star reviews and author pics. There are several other categories of Rich Snippets but these were the two I targeted as they are most relevant for my clients. Google is experimenting with sites that have these microformats marked up correctly. If done properly Google will reward you with either a star rating for hReview or an author image for rel=”author”....
read moreGoodbye Red Pins, Hello Yellow Reviews
No more Red Pins It is being widely talked about on SEO blogs about the test layout that Google is spreading around. Perhaps you have seen a version of this floating around your local searches. There are a lot of ideas as to what Google has up it’s sleave such as paying for the Red Pin to appear. I’m not sure I subscribe to that theory since Google for a while has been showing a blue pin for Adwords Express adds that appear on the map. It would make more sense to grey out the red pins so that the blue pins stand out more,...
read moreGoogle Places: 5 reviews shows stars
Star Rating not showing up in Google Places A client of mine recently asked why his Places page wasn’t showing his star rating. Most of his competitors were showing a star rating while his rating wasn’t showing at all. He had 4 reviews which Google did show but the stars were not showing. Maybe this has happened to you? My response to my client was an educated guess. I saw several businesses that had 6 or more with their star rating showing. Knowing Google likes to manage things with data I surmised that Google...
read moreLanding Pages get more weight in Quality Score
Google just announced that they have been testing for some time a change to the adwords QualityScore algorithm. It seems that if your landing page is more relevant to your adword’s campaign keywords then it will be cheaper and easier to rank higher for your Pay Per Click campaign. The quality of Landing Pages has always been a part of the Quality Score. Here is a quote directly from Google about what makes up the Quality Score. It looks like they are going to put more weight on this line item. [While we continue to refine our...
read moreWebmaster Tools meets Analytics
In a recent post from Google’s Webmaster blog it now appears that we should start seeing webmaster tools information within Google Analytics. This is a nice feature as I constantly trolled between the two for information panels. Analytics will now feature 3 reports based on webmaster information: Queries: impressions, clicks, position, and CTR info for the top 1,000 daily queries Landing Pages: impressions, clicks, position, and CTR info for the top 1,000 daily landing pages Geographical Summary: impressions, clicks, and CTR by...
read moreSmall businesses wrongfully closed in Google Places
Small businesses are learning the hard way why it’s so important to manage your online reputation. The New York Times just ran an article about Google Places pages showing up in search results as “permanently closed”. If you are not familiar with Google Places you might want to read this. Google Places is Google’s version of the yellow pages and appears on the map when a user searches for a business locally. Most businesses need only claim their listing and fill out a few sections describing their business...
read more
