How to Identify Search Engine Penalties

If you’ve ever opened your website analytics account and found a significant and surprising drop in search engine referral traffic, you know just how devastating a search engine penalty can be.

But don’t panic!  Not all search engine penalties are permanent, and with a little detective work and remedial action, you should be able to restore your previous rankings and rebuild the flow of organic traffic to your site.

Here’s how to do it…

Step #1 – Check Google Webmaster Tools

Immediately after noticing a potential search engine penalty, the first thing you should do is check your Google Webmaster Tools account (assuming you have this service set up for your website).  In many cases, when an automatic or manual penalty is issued to your website, it will be accompanied by a corresponding note posted in your Webmaster Tools account, detailing the specific rationale behind the penalty.

Interestingly enough, according to Barry Schwartz, writing for Search Engine Land:

“Google has sent over 700,000 messages to webmasters via Google Webmaster Tools in January and February 2012. That is more than the total number of messages Google sent in 2011 and almost more than what Google has sent since launching Google Webmaster Tools message center.”

While this is certainly a scary prospect for webmasters who fear receiving one of Google’s “Notices of Death,” it is somewhat reassuring to know that you’ll at least be informed if a penalty is assessed to your site.

Step #2 – Check SEO News Sites for Recent Updates

Of course, these notices are often only issued when Google applies a specific, known penalty to a website based on a set of defined criteria.  But what happens when it’s simply changes to the search engine ranking algorithms that have affected your site traffic?

Indeed, there have been plenty of cases where sites received “penalties” that weren’t really penalties at all – they were simply lost rankings due to a reprioritization of the algorithms.  For example, in the case of the Panda 1.0 update, thousands of sites lost rank overnight, resulting in a significant, widespread traffic loss for many industry-leading sites.  Although Panda didn’t technically qualify as a penalty, per se, the results that many webmasters experienced were similar.

To see if an algorithm change is to blame for your diminished search results, check out your favorite SEO news sites for information about potential rollouts.  Often, whenever major changes are made to the search results ranking algorithms, webmasters gather together on sites like Search Engine Roundtable and Digital Point to discuss the impact of the updates.

Step #3 – Determine the Extent of the Penalty

At the same time that you’re combing your Google Webmaster Tools account and your favorite SEO news websites for information about what led to your search engine penalty, take the time to determine the extent of its impact as well.

There are a few things you’ll want to check:

• Is your site still indexed?  Perhaps the biggest penalty of all is to have your website removed from Google’s index entirely, though this drastic measure is typically only applied in the most serious of cases.  To check whether or not your site is still indexed, enter “site:http://www.yoursite.com” (without the quotes) into Google’s search bar.  If no results appear, it’s possible your site has been deindexed.
• Have you recently started a new link building campaign?  Often, when you start promoting your site through link building, your rankings can be caught up in what’s known as the “Google Dance.”  In these cases, the search engine is attempting to reevaluate where your site should rank, so it’s not uncommon to see your natural search rankings vary wildly for a few weeks before settling down into their rightful place.
• How old is your website?  Though Google has never officially confirmed it, there’s a widespread acceptance throughout the SEO community of the presence of a “sand box” filter that issues a dampening effect to the rankings of young sites (typically 2-6 months old).  If your website falls in this age range, it’s not uncommon to see it enter the SERPs and then fall out before it’s deemed trustworthy enough to reenter the results pages.
• To what extent has your traffic or rankings changed?  Are you seeing a decrease in rankings for all of your target keywords or just a few?  Has your traffic declined significantly or have you only lost volume slightly?  Determining the extent of your search engine penalty will tell you whether you’ve been hit with a site-wide penalty or total ban (in which case all traffic would be affected) or a smaller penalty affecting a single keyword.

One situation that’s often incorrectly regarded as a search engine penalty is the devaluation of some or all of your site’s backlinks, which would typically only affect traffic to a single keyword you’re targeting.  Essentially, what happens is that your site is enjoying unnaturally high rankings as the result of poor quality backlinks.  When the search engines devalue these links – as is the case with the many webmasters who lost rank after Google deindexed several of the most popular blog networks – your rankings plummet, though not as the result of a specifically applied penalty.

Step #4 – Review Your Site Against Search Engine TOS

Now, no matter what the size or scope of your search engine penalty, you’ll want to review your website and your backlinking practices against the Terms of Service (TOS) issued by the search engines.

For reference, the following are the locations of Google, Bing and Yahoo’s TOS statements:

• Google Webmaster Guidelines
• Bing Webmaster Tools
• Yahoo Search Content Quality Guidelines

In addition, take a look at Google engineer Amit Singhal’s list 23 questions that highlight the characteristics Google is looking to reward in the SERPs.  Check your site and your promotional practices against these guidelines- as well as against the search engine TOS policies listed above – and highlight any areas you believe may be bringing down your site’s rankings.

As an example, considering the following five questions, as pulled directly from Singhal’s list:

1. Would you trust the information presented in this article?
2. Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
3. Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
4. Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
5. Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?

Now, take a look at your website in relation to these questions, trying to be as objective as possible.  Can you really say for sure that – based on your site’s external appearance and content quality – you’d be comfortable handing over financial information or labeling your articles as “expert-level content”?  If not, attempt to remedy these flaws by building trust with your user and positioning yourself better as an authority figure within your industry.

Step #5 – Take Corrective Action

If you’ve highlighted any areas of weakness within your site or your chosen link building methods, rectify them as quickly as you’re able to and then follow Google’s rules for requesting a reconsideration of your site.  While it may take time to introduce high quality content to your site or to delete low quality backlinks you believe may be harming your natural search results placements, this effort will pay off in the long run, as Google aims to reward sites that provide the best results for their readers.

Keep in mind, though, that what initially looks like a penalty may not – in fact – be a true penalty, and that the corrective action you may need to take in these instances is less about fixing past mistakes and more about improving your own site’s SEO according to current best practices.  The SEO field is becoming more and more competitive each day, so it’s possible that the “penalty” you’re struggling to get over is actually a better educated competitor surpassing you in the rankings.

Doorway pages

Doorway pages

Doorway pages are typically large sets of poor-quality pages where each page is optimized for a specific keyword or phrase. In many cases, doorway pages are written to rank for a particular phrase and then funnel users to a single destination.

Whether deployed across many domains or established within one domain, doorway pages tend to frustrate users, and are in violation of our Webmaster Guidelines.

Google's aim is to give our users the most valuable and relevant search results. Therefore, we frown on practices that are designed to manipulate search engines and deceive users by directing them to sites other than the ones they selected, and that provide content solely for the benefit of search engines. Google may take action on doorway sites and other sites making use of these deceptive practice, including removing these sites from the Google index.

Google Penguin Update: 5 Types of Link Issues Harming Some Affected Websites

Are you angry and looking for answers about why your rankings vanished after Google released its Penguin update? One common factor thus far appears to be the signals of links that are pointing to your website, early analysis indicates.

The main purpose of the Penguin update is to put a deep freeze on web spam in Google's search results. By extension, a big piece of that web spam appears to be links from low-quality networks.

Natural Links

Before we get into the new findings, first it’s important to understand a bit about Google and links.

Above all, Google considers links as editorial "votes". So, theoretically, the sites that receive the most votes should rank higher on Google because more people find them valuable.

Google analyzes the quantity, quality, and relevance of websites that link to yours. When Google looks at your link profile, they’re looking at such things as what types of websites link to yours, how quickly you acquired these links, and the anchor text (the clickable words) used by the linking website. When Google's algorithm detects such things as a large number of new links or an imbalance in the anchor text, it raises a big red flag.

As Google and many SEOs have preached for years, you’ll attract more links by creating unique, worthwhile content that others will want to link to naturally. If you want to learn more about Google, links, and link building, definitely read our posts “Why Links Matter”, "Filthy Linking Rich", and “Introduction to Google PageRank: Myths & Facts”.

Unnatural Links

For companies that have been hit by the Penguin update, one common theme appears to be a severe lack of natural links, according to a blog post by Glenn Gabe at G-Squared Interactive. He noted five common issues these sites are all facing:

1. Paid text links using exact match anchor text: For companies that want to rank for a certain term (such as “red widgets”) one way to accomplish this is by buying links from other websites with that exact matching anchor text. This is against Google’s guidelines, as Google would consider this a paid link that exists solely to manipulate PageRank, rather than to provide any value to visitors.
2. Comment spam: Two things proved problematic for websites trying to unnaturally rank for specific keywords: signatures in comments that contained exact match anchor text; and people who used a spammy user name (e.g., Best India SEO Company) as exact match text.
3. Guest posts on questionable sites: Although guest posts are a legitimate way to earn links to your site, sites dinged by the Penguin had links pointing to their website from sites filled with low-quality articles where the focus was on the anchor text rather than the content.
4. Article marketing sites: Thin content featuring links with exact match anchor text were another common factor among affected sites.
5. Links from dangerous sites: Do you have inbound links from sites that have been flagged for malware, numerous pop-ups, or other spammy issues? This was another factor that caused websites to lose their Google rankings, so links to and from web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” are a danger.

Ultimately, the Penguin update didn’t really change anything that Google has deemed unacceptable. Google has just evolved its algorithm to catch up to those who try to loophole their way to higher Google rankings (and, to be fair, some who simply don't know any better or fully understand SEO). If any (or all) of the above are your sole link building tactic(s), you probably aren't doing enough to rank prominently long-term on Google anymore.

For those unfamiliar, Google has a section devoted to link schemes and makes no secret that such practices “can negatively impact your site's ranking in search results.”

Penguin Recovery?

So, fix all these link issues, eliminate any instances of keyword stuffing, spun content, cloaking, and other spammy tactics and you're guaranteed a Penguin recovery, right? Not necessarily. There are never any magical guarantees for gaining or regaining top search rankings and Google is notoriously tight-lipped about the exact signals it uses to detect web spam.

Additionally, Google is constantly making tweaks to its search algorithm. So check your traffic in analytics and make sure your traffic indeed was impacted starting on or after April 24. If your traffic vanished before this date, another change might be to blame – there was also a parked domain classifier issue the week prior to Penguin's launch in addition to the latest Panda refresh on April 19.

Regardless, with the new tag team of Panda and Penguin, Google can put the smack down on websites that appear to be creating or supporting spam to increase their rankings in search engines. So even if you fix all these link signals, you still must make sure you have quality content.

But even beyond that, there are hundreds of other factors at play that Google's algorithm looks at. Among them:

• Does your site have too many ads?
• Does you site have fresh content.
• Is your business on Google+?

Life After Penguin

While it’s much easier to blame Google and sign a petition begging Google to kill its Penguin update, this isn't the time to give up. Now is the time to look at your website, do a proper, careful evaluation of your inbound link profile, clean up your website, and devise a smarter marketing and business strategy that doesn't rely on Google for the majority of your traffic and income so you can escape the endless loop of Google algorithm updates:

This isn’t to say Google or any search engine results are perfect – though now might be a good time to check out alternatives like Google's closest competitor, Bing, or upstarts Blekko and DuckDuckGo. Google has created a Penguin feedback form for those who feel websites have been hit unfairly, but this update is algorithmic as opposed to a manual penalty (i.e., reviewed by a human), so don’t expect to see whatever rankings you’ve lost miraculously restored over night.

If you’re a small business, there are ways to Google-proof your marketing. And don't forget to look for non-Google-based link opportunities.

But above all, sometimes when these algorithmic changes roll out, one of the wisest moves is to be patient and carefully analyze any changes before you react blindly to the latest penalty – because by the time you do that, Google will release the latest Panda or its next iteration of Penguin, and you'll be trapped again in the endless loop of relying solely on a third party (Google) for your livelihood.

IF Your site Deranked by google

IF Your site Deranked by google, Read this

    Hi,

    Many of you might facing this problem, site deranked by google. Well here is the guide for you to identify the problem and fix it. Maybe some of you has seen this on other forum, but i think its very useful for some one that did not seen it before. Well here is it:


    1) Penalty recognition and removal:

    A) Did you got some private blog network backlinks?

    If you see a penalty some time after you got some private blog network post backlinks - even some long months later - it could meant that blog network got de-indexed (check your reports and forums for any comments about de-indexing networks).

    Penalty recognition:

    - sudden drop in rankings without any reason (sometimes it could be 3-5 spots, sometimes 100-200 spots)
    - un-explained dancing (no backlinking/onsite optimization done in last 2 weeks)

    Solution:

    If you see only dancing/small drop in rankings then it means your backlink diversity is low. Go and grab some different types of backlinks - mix of Manual Bookmarks (a lot of them from different providers) and unique article submission to article directories will help to regain your position - even stronger than before.

    B) Did you pinged your website/got some Whois posted to it?

    You can notice huge dancing (even tens of positions back and forward) or sudden drop way below top100.

    Penalty recognition:

    - sudden drop in rankings or heavy dancing
    - drop in just few keywords or group of related keywords


    The main causes could be two:

    B1) your onsite optimization is really poor
    B2) you have nasty backlinking (some really poor backlinks/spam/porn links)


    To determine which one is right - simply check what backlinks Google sees by checking Alexa backlink checker and Google search engine. If Alexa is not showing anything of ppor quality (spammed websites where you link is located) then search for your website as - domain.com (without quotes and without www or http://). If you can see any spammy links (use your common sense to determine) within first 5 pages - then go ahead with B2 solution. If not - use B1 solution.

    Solution:

    B1) Check your inner linking (for any dead ones), correct 301's, proper site map, proper coding of website (no serious errors). I would suggest getting some webmaster to check your coding (he do not need access to your hosting - he should be able to work by reading your sites code with his browser) or using IBP (expensive but extensive) or SEOmoz (less expensive but really user friendly) - I didn't tested other options so just check reviews on SEO non-affiliate forums/blogs/review sites.
    After you are done hit your site with ping services (pingomatic, feed burner) and whois sites (hit it with like 1000-10.000 sites to get your site noticed by crawlers to re-check it).

    B2) Build some high authority backlinks - perfectly 2-3 types of links.
    I would suggest high PR backlinks at first (any high PR backlinks will do really). Once you have some good number of them get them indexed at once (build SB links to them or run them by one of the indexing/crawling programs like Linklicious/Backlinks Indexer/Lindexed etc.)
    [For example - build some High PR (PR4+) forum profiles, High PR blog posts and High PR Web 2.0 properties]




    C) Did you created a lot of backlinks lately?

    You have created a lot of backlinks recently and your site is jumping around or lost a lot of rankings.

    Penalty recognition:

    - heavy dancing, moving up and down (from top position to out of top100 and backwards)
    - most of the keywords changed position right after backlinking (possibly for worst)
    - your website lost all rankings (but you can still see it in Google as top3 when you search for your own domain name without spaces etc.)

    Solution:

    C1) You are not in top3 results when you search for domain.com (where domain = your domain name, .com = your extension - do not use www/http when searching for it in Google)

    It means your website got serious penalty from Google - possibly soft one.
    DO NOT ask for reconsideration within Webmaster Tool in Google.

    Follow those steps:
    - remove Google Analitycs from your site
    - close your Google Webmaster Tools account (cancel it)
    - log out from Gmail/Youtube (from now on always log out from them before accessing Google search results or your site)
    - opt out/log out from any Google owned business that could lead to YOU or to your website

    Perform full onsite optimization - (Check step B1) but do not do Whois linking.
    Build quality backlinks to your site - Facebook, Twitter and whole group of Reputation Management business sites (Linkedin/Merchant Circle/YouTube/MySpace...). Do it manually or get a guy that can do this for you.
    Get some social backlinks (High PR Manual Bookmarks or Re-Tweets with your link in it).
    Get all links crawled (use Pingomatic or more advanced crawling service)
    After all this - wait for ~5 days and then submit your site to good list of Whois websites (minimum 1.000).

    C2) You are on position 2-3 when you search for your domain name.
    Build more diverse backlinks - create "Raw backlinks" (no anchor links) to your main page. You can use for this AMR - get some quality article from Ezine, do not spin it and submit it to article directories. As a link use your homepage url (not inner pages, just homepage).

    C3) You are on position 1 when you search for your domain name.

    This is just a dance. You can get few of crawling services (Pingomatic etc) and submit your site to them to speed up process of ranking selection.
    DO NOT submit your site to Whois sites at the beginning of dance as this can mislead you with further investigation on whats the problem.



    D) Did you maintained status Quo for last 2 months?

    You have done nothing in last 2 months but all suddenly all your keywords started to falling in rankings.

    Penalty recognition:

    - sudden drop in rankings without doing anything to the site by you
    - complete lost of rankings by all the keywords

    Solution:

    D1) Your keyword is easy/medium competition

    You lack link building - keep building backlinks on weekly or even daily basis. Try to diversify backlinks and fetch some high quality manual ones (Linkedin/Merchant Circle/YouTube/MySpace/Tumblr/Tweeter/Ezine...)
    You need to re-build your whole SEO campaign so create a plan of backlinking and start getting them in proper quantities - use your common sense on how many of them. Regular site will use 3 different backlinks provider/sources a month (for example - Manual Bookmarking, Manual Web 2.0 and Scrapebox blast with 10K links - change strategy/providers each month).

    D2) Your keyword is in high competitive niche

    You need to check your backlinks.
    Go to Alexa.com and Google.com and search for your backlinks.
    When in Google.com search for domain.com (without quotes, where domain.com is your domain name).
    Go through first 10 pages (if there is as much as that) and look for backlinks you do not recognize.

    D2-A) You found backlinks that you do not recognize (made by your competitor) - you need to make them weaker or stronger:

    D2-A1) Make them stronger - build backlinks to those bad links (do not do it if the anchors are nasty ones like - "Porn", "Fuck", "Cocaine" etc or there is more than 1.000 outgoing links from the page). Get some proper Scrapebox blasts to those links in order to create authority in them. Around 100-500 backlinks per bad link is enough. Get all the backlinks created to badlinks crawled (use Linklicious/Lindexed/BacklinksIndexer).

    D2-A2) Make them weaker - to do so you need to make your website authority one. Create high authority backlinks to your website comming from popular social sites + Wikipedia (if you can - possibly as a source link or in-article anchor) + Wiki sites (there is many service providers offering such a Wiki submission). Build few hundreds of high PR backlinks to your site without anchor ("Raw Link"). Get all the backlinks crawled using popular pinging/indexing services.
    If none happened - submit your site to Whois database after 2 weeks of creating major backlinks.
    Keep building backlinks constantly and take care of diversity so this wont happen again.


    2) Avoiding Penalty and Google reviews:


    A) Onsite Optimization
    B) Offsite SEO
    C) Overall Quality Score



    A) Onsite Optimization

    You are required to keep a very good onsite optimization.
    You need to prevent having serious coding loops or errors as Google will detect it easily. Any dead links (within a site or going to other sites) can affect your rankings and cause problems.
    List of things to look at:

    - Check your websites code for any serious errors. Your code should be W3C validated: http://validator.w3.0rg/
    - Check for dead links - Google hates them: http://www.brokenlinkcheck.c0m
    - Interlink your inner pages to main page (Inner Page linking to main page with one of your main Anchor) or other way around (main page linking through footer with Anchors to most valued inner pages - not too many though)
    - No excessive advertising - 2 ad blocks are enough, 3 is a lot, 4+ can affect your rankings
    - No linking out to Scam/Spam/Illegal sites - one link to Scam e-commerce shop can drain out your authority
    - Proper content quantity/quality for crawlers to index - 300 words article is not enough to fill whole website. Every site, even MNS should have more than 1 page and more than 300 words article
    - DO NOT post spinned content on your website - Google will index copied content as long as it is quality and related. Spinned content can get you de-indexed or penalized
    - You do not need to link to authority sites - by doing so you will pass some juice on them but also you will get more Google trust. Evaluate which option is best for you.



    B) Offsite SEO

    To impress Google you need proper diversification and constant backlinking.

    - Create different types of backlinks. There is no "Miracle Backlink". You cant dominate results with just one backlink type and hope for Status Quo. You need to diversify your campaign so Google wont see any spam attempts. Even if you are #1 keep building diverse backlinks (if #1 was achieved by blog posts from
    private network - build some quality Web 2.0 and .Edu links for diversity and security).
    - Keep constant backlink flow. You cannot create 100K Scrapebox backlinks at once and expect best. Keep building backlinks daily, weekly or even monthly to maintain your good authority and trust within Google.
    a) Monthly backlinking example - buy automatic bookmarking, 10K Scrapebox blog comments and wiki links in one month - then in next one create new "campaign"
    b) Weekly backlinking example - create 1-2 different backlink types like Private Blog Network submission and Forum Profiles first week, .Edu backlinks and Linkpushing other week.
    c) Daily backlinking example - build daily amount of backlinks like blog comments, forum profiles bookmarks and manual high PR backlinks
    - Mix quality with quantity - Scrapebox or Xrumer links are good as long as you will mix them with high authority (or high PR) backlinks. Do not worry about getting 10K Scrapebox links - but add some extra high PR Bookmarks or Articles same week you done them for fast and secure results.
    - Get high authority backlinks indexed using indexing/crawling systems - any high authority (or high PR) backlink can be artificially forced to cue for crawling by Google without any negative penalty.


    C) Overall Quality Score

    Look at your website as manual reviewer will do it.
    He have less than a minute to evaluate your website and he will look for following:
    - code/keyword report
    - relevance of content to keyword
    - ad spam/affiliate spam attempts
    - content lockers (do not use content locker if 100% of your traffic is from Google unless you are experienced in what you do)
    - misleading information/links
    thats all, hope that help. Dont forget the thanks button

Beware SEO Is down - new goggle algorithm changes very important

Google’s long anticipated over-optimization penalty is now live. Except Google called it an algorithmic update that’s targeting web spam – a.k.a., keyword stuffing and link schemes, in the process causing some big search ranking upheavals.
 

    Webspam Algorithm Update

    Google’s Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts, head of the web spam team, yesterday announced that Google had pushed out the new algorithm. Cutts said this “improvement” better identifies websites using “aggressive web spam tactics” (that have been against Google’s quality guidelines for years) for the purposes of gaming their way to top spots in Google’s rankings.

    Cutts specifically noted that websites likely to lose rankings are those that practice keyword stuffing and sites that have “unusual linking patterns,” such as links from spun content with anchor text that is completely unrelated to the actual on-page content.

    The web spam algorithm update will affect about 3.1 percent of English Google queries, but noted it would have a bigger impact in heavily-spammed languages, such as Polish.

    Additionally, Cutts emphasized the importance of “white hat” SEO in his post, as well as the importance of creating great websites filled with high-quality, compelling content that provide a good user experience. Google’s guidance on high-quality content consists of these 23 questions you should ask yourself when evaluating website content.

    SEO by the Sea has a good rundown of Google’s patents related to combating web spam.

    Early Assessment of Damages

    There are lots of theories floating around at the moment about what types of sites took the biggest hits, but it seems a bit premature to make conclusions with so many conflicting reports. It seems a few “innocents” may have be caught up in this (though, honestly, it’s easy to blame Google for not ranking your site), and some pages that shouldn’t be ranking are now, according to various reports in forums since last night.

    Some are arguing that Google’s results are worse now. If that sounds familiar, many people were saying the same thing after Panda launched last year. Pretty sure those who saw their search rankings increase aren’t complaining.

Thumbs up The 10 Great SEO tips for your site

 #1 Content
    As cliché as it sounds this is the number one for any search marketing strategy, it is impossibly important to ensure that you have content worth viewing. Without this one simply step to ensure that there is a reason for someone to be on your site, everything else is useless. There are a lot of great sites to find inspiration for writing great content that works.

    #2 Incoming Links
    A link is a link is a link, but without the simplest form you aren’t going to do well in search engines. The more links you have the more often you are going to be crawled. It is also important to make sure that you have the proper anchor text for your incoming links. The easiest way to gain quality links from other sites is to link to sites to let them know your site is there and hope for a reciprocal link. It is also important to make sure that you have content that is worth linking to on your site.

    #3 Web site title
    Making sure that you have the right web site titles for your pages is extremely important. The keywords you place in your title are important in order to ensure that your topic is understood by Google. One of the primary factors for ranking is if the title is on-topic with the search results. Not only is it important for robots to index and understand the topic of the page either. It is important for click-through rates in the search results. Pay attention to what you click on when you are searching in Google, I know that I don’t always click the first results. Using great titles and topics on your site will bring you more traffic than a number one listing. Most of the time it is within the first page, but I skim through the titles to see which looks to be more on-topic for my search query.

#4 Heading tags
When you are laying out your site’s content you have to be sure that you are creating the content flow in such a way that the heading tags are based on prominence. The most prominent of course being the h1 tag, which says “this is what this block of copy is about.” Making sure you understand heading tag structure is very important. You only want to have one (or two) h1 tags per a page. It is important to not just throw anything into an h1 tag and hope you rank for it.

#5 Internal Linking
Making sure that your internal linking helps robots (and visitors!) to find the content on your site is huge. Using relevant copy throughout your site will tell the robots (and visitors!) more effectively what to expect on the corresponding page. You do want to make sure that on pages you don’t want to rank in Google that you add a nofollow tag to ensure that the ranking flow of your site corresponds with your site’s topic and interests. No one is going to be searching Google to find out what your terms of service or privacy policy are.

#6 Keyword Density
Ensuring that you have the right keyword density for your page and sites topic is paramount. You don’t want to go overboard and use the keyword every 5th word but making sure it “comes up” often is going to help you rank better in search engines. The unspoken rule is no more then 5% of the total copy per a page. Anymore then this and it can start to look a little spammy. Granted, you aren’t shooting for 5% every time. It is really all about context and relevance— just make sure it is good, quality copy.

#7 Sitemaps
It is always a good idea to give search engines a helping hand to find the content that is on your site. Making sure that you create and maintain a sitemap for all of the pages on your site will help the search robots to find all of the pages in your site and index them. Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask all support sitemaps and most of them offer a great way to ensure that it is finding your sitemap. Most of the time you can simply name it sitemap.xml and the search robot will find the file effectively.

#8 Meta Tags
Everyone will tell you that meta tags don’t matter, they do. The biggest thing they matter for is click-through though. There will be a lot of times when Google will use your meta description as the copy that gets pulled with your search listing. This can help to attract the visitor to visit your web site if it is related to their search query. Definitely a much overlooked (as of late) ranking factor. Getting indexed by search engines and ranking well is just the first step. The next, and biggest, step is getting that visitor that searched for your keywords to want to click on your search listing.

#9 URL Structure
Ensuring that your URL structure compliments the content that is on the corresponding page is pretty important. There are various methods to make this work, such as modrewrite on apache.

#10 Domain
It can help to have keywords you are interested in ranking for within your domain, but only as much as the title, heading and content matters. One very important factor that is coming to light is that domain age is important. The older the site or domain, the better it is not spam and can do well in search results. The domain age definitely isn’t a make or break factor but it does help quite a bit.

How Do You Organize Your Online Business

 I'm finding myself getting a little overwhelmed with so many projects and tracking all of them. I'd like to know what tools you guys use to track:

        Projects
        Stats (SERPs, backlinks, etc.)
        Affiliate programs & links
        Outsourcers
        Money from various projects
        General business accounting (expenditures, taxes, etc.)


    I don't like having to use so many different systems to track so many things. Is there anything out there that tracks most of the items that an internet marketer needs in one system?

    Debating whether to focus on a narrower band of projects instead. Any suggestions and/or advice would be appreciated.

Latest Google Panda Update Starting to Take Effect

Being an SEO company we always have our finger on the pulse when it comes to the latest changes in the industry and, most importantly, from Google. Since February last year the Google Panda updates have kept the whole online industry on their toes, with each update focusing on different elements to further improve the search ranking results for their users. Previously we have seen updates regarding backlinks from poor quality directories and the quality of the content on the website itself. SEO companies and site owners have had to adjust their SEO strategies accordingly to improve these elements to avoid any negative impact on their search ranking results.

Latest Google Panda Update: Over Optimising

Over the past few days the forums have been buzzing from Webmasters complaining that their search rankings have either gone down or disappeared completely. With Google’s Matt Cutts recent announcement about clamping down on overly optimised websites, the recent shift in many rankings seems to be a result of this algorithm update. The idea behind the latest update is to “level the playing field” between companies who are creating quality against those just aggressively using SEO tactics to improve this quality. Over using keywords on each page is shown to be effected and the blatant over optimising of sites using any way of generating new backlinks will be punished.

SEO Companies Responsibility

Whenever Google starts talking about the over optimisation of websites this can obviously make SEO companies nervous as well as the companies who are employing them. This should not be the case as it’s always been the responsibility of the SEO company to improve the relevancy and keyword focus of the website without the use of black hat techniques. This has never changed and still doesn’t need to. Saying this, SEO companies need to act more intelligently to ensure that the techniques they are implementing are not in a manner that is deemed to be over aggressive and spammy. At the end of the day, the Google updates are always going to have their victims and people are right to be nervous when each update is implemented. But if you are constantly adding relevancy and authority to the site through up to date and well written content then you will have nothing to worry about.

Do You Need A Website

Many companies want to create a website for their business however, fear the cost of design and development.

When research was carried out with new UK online businesses, it revealed that there was a 37% increase in turnover with an online presence.

Many people turn to the internet to search for businesses, products or services.  Some people also like the convenience of comparing prices, booking and ordering online, as they can do it 24/7.  The more information and customer testimonials on a website can win potential customers over.

The benefits of having a company Website?

• You can trade nationally, locally or worldwide
• Trade 24/7 and 365 days a week
• You are driving business to your door even when you are asleep
• New leads/sales from a wider audience.
• Improvement of customer service

Many companies get it so wrong when designing a website, they either have a website that is so confusing it would be impossible to find anything or it hasn't been updated for so long that it looks like the cave men designed it.  Choosing a good website designer that is not going to break the bank is the first step, always get a few quotes and make sure they understand your end goal for what you want a website for.

Internet surfers, use the internet for convenience, if they land on a site that is over complicated or difficult to navigate then they will be off like a shot.  Remember your website acts as your shop window so therefore must make a lasting impression for all the right reasons.  You don't have to have the most flashy website within your industry, the most important points are:

• Looks clean and crisp.
• Potrays your brand and your business
• Easy to navigate backwards and forwards
• Has detailed information about products/service
• Testimonials are key, they build trust.
• Remember the look and feel of your website represents you as a business or a service provider, it has to create trust. 
• Social network buttons (a good website designer will offer this functionality).

Not using your website to it's full potential?

Many companies who invest in a web presence, make the big mistake that is all they have to do to start trading online.  Wrong, this is when the real investment kicks in as you need to market it, people do not get onto the first pages of Google without any effort.

Online Marketing

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - Usually outsourced to a specialist company, less cost on time and money.  A good SEO company will do your on page development for Google requirements, directory submissions, build links from relevant companies, press releases, article distribution and update website blog.

Pay per click (PPC) - You pay google to advertise on sponsored links, every time someone clicks on your advert you pay Google a cost.  This can be very expensive if not set up right or using competitive keywords.

Onlie Directories - Don't waste your money on paid directories, they are over rated and very unlikely to appear on the first pages of Google for your search terms.  Source free directories such as Dmoz, Touch Local etc...

Social Networking - Create a business page on Facebook and Twitter, then put 'like' buttons on your website and follow us on Twitter.  This will drive traffic if updated on a regualar basis, usually your SEO company will do this for you.

This is not an extensive list of online marketing however, are the most important to make your new website start to make you money.

Online marketing v's traditional marketing

A website is usually built on a customer management system (CMS) which, is easily updated, to promote new products, services, special offers or information.  If any information is incorrect, it can becorrected in seconds, that can not be said in many traditional marketing methods.

For example; if you put an advert in the Yellow Pages paper publication and your phone number is wrong, then it can not be rectified for 12 months.  Making the investment a waste of money.

Most people in this day and age will use a search engine to find a business rather than go and get a local directory.  Plus traditional advertising is usually local which, doesn't drive leads from the outside of the area as the internet does.

In conclusion

By having a good website the awareness of your brand is increased, your customers have access to information 24/7 and increased business. Using the right marketing tools available, investment in a website opens up new opportunites to drive more leads to your door.

Even the smallest webiste should be designed and structured by a good website designer who understands the end objectives - is an investment for your business and its perception when properly implemented.

6 Changes Every SEO Should Make BEFORE the Over-Optimization Penalty Hits

Having overly optimized web pages could soon get your websites in some hot water with Google and their search results. It has recently been announced that Google will start to penalize websites that engage in over-optimization practices.

In this week's Whiteboard Friday, we will be covering some changes that you should be making to your SEO practices in order to avoid this type of penalization.

Video Transcription

Howdy SEOmoz fans. Welcome to another addition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we've been hearing a lot of chatter in the SEO blogosphere and on Twitter and on the forums about this new potential Google penalty that's coming down the line around over-optimization. Now, one of Google's representatives mentioned at a conference, South by Southwest, down in Austin, Texas, about a month ago actually, that Google would be looking into penalizing over-optimized websites and folks who have engaged in over- the-top SEO.

There's been a lot of speculation around when that's coming out, whether that's coming out. There are a few things happening, actually, this week and last night about, "Hey is this already something we're seeing?" Seer Interactive, right, Wil Reynolds' fantastic SEO company out of Philadelphia had this penalty, and people were wondering whether that was related to this. Not really sure.

But before this penalty hits, for goodness sake, SEO folks, let's make these changes to our websites because we could be in real trouble if we don't impact these things beforehand. I think these are some of the most likely candidates to be hit by Google's over-optimization penalty, some of the most likely patterns they're going to try and match against in this upcoming change. So let's talk through them.

Number one, your titles need to be authentic. They need to sound real. They need to sound like a human being wrote them that was not intending necessarily simply to rank for phrase after phrase. I'll give you a good example. Bad: web design services, web design firm space brand name, whatever your brand name is, web design. What does it sound like? It sounds like all you're trying to do is rank for keywords, not show off your brand name, especially if this is your home page or those kinds of things. You're repeating keywords three times. Web design is in this title three times. Think about whether a normal human being would read that title and think, oh yeah, that sounds legitimate. No, they'd think to themselves there's something fishy here, something spammy, something's wrong, something manipulative. Try instead, probably equally effective, if not more, brand name web design Portland Spiffiest Design Services. Now look, I've got the word "design services," which you wanted to get in here. I've got the city where you are that you're trying to target, got brand name web design, right, sort of branding myself as the product and the keyword. Much, much better.

Try and look through your sites and see if this is a potential issue. I've seen tons of sites where SEO folks have just gone overboard again and again. Don't get me wrong. I used to do this too. One of the crappiest things about this is, even if your rank, your click through rates go down. So you can rank in position two or three and be getting less than the people below you, because people don't think that these are legitimate titles and they perceive them to be manipulative, especially if you're targeting more higher end, savvy or sophisticated technology customers.

Number two, manipulative internal links. I see this a lot on side bars, inside of content, where people have taken all of the instances of a particular word or repeated it throughout the side bar or in the footer, those kinds of things, and are pointing with exact match anchors to the same page over and over again. Now, we all know as SEOs that the first anchor text link counts and only one on the page is going to pass that value. Linking repeatedly to the same page with the same anchor is not helpful for SEO, and it makes our sites look really spammy and manipulative and questionable to someone who's browsing it. Why would we want to hurt our conversion rates like this, and why would we want to point out to the engines that, hey, over here, I'm trying to manipulate you? What are you thinking?

Five Ways Business Presence on Facebook can Help

These five ways business presence on Facebook can help are only the start.  There are many businesses out there that think social media websites are only for those looking for long lost friends.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Facebook now has over 500 Million members. Facebook is a well-respected website and due to its popularity, many businesses are getting online to take advantage of it.  Here are a few ideas about getting started that directly help sell goods and services.

1)   Create a great profile page.

The process is simple to get all information on the page as Facebook walks users step-by-step through the process.  Yet to make it look the best it can, hiring a social media professional to do all the work is a great idea.  Photos of work done by a company can be added so potential customers can see the projects already completed.  The company’s website can even be added so that those who want to know more can go to the business’ main website.

2)   Look for relevant groups to join.

There are many companies out there competing for businesses, but in the case that one is not serving the same area, being a part of their group can actually help.  If they get a call from a customer who is not in their service area, they now have someone they can recommend who is closer.

3)   Satisfied customers can post on the business’ Facebook page.

Many of those looking for good or services want to see completed projects and testimonials from satisfied customers.  Making “friends” with those served is an excellent idea as they can post their opinions on the page to enhance interest.  Again, Facebook can just be a “teaser” where more information is found on the main website through a direct link.

4)   Advertising on Facebook

Companies can actually create ads on Facebook that show up in the border of every page.  This is a great way to build a customer base from those who might not have known where to begin looking.  Here there can be the latest sales, areas covered, and how to contact the business.

If these five ways business presence on Facebook can help are of interest, contact a leader in SEO for more information.  If this sounds a bit too involved to do alone, there is a great team of media specialists who can not only input all the relevant information, but also design the page to look better than the competitions.  Showmanship is a cornerstone of business and shouldn’t be taken lightly.  Choose a leader to get more information and learn more about how Facebook is a great place to grow business.

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”.

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.

Why Big Brands Get All the Breaks

If you live outside of the ivory walls of the Fortune 500, it can sometimes seem like Google gives big brands all the breaks. This isn’t just sour grapes – some examples are very public. When JC Penney and Overstock got a slap on the wrist for widespread and intentional link manipulation, it was hard not to feel slighted.

There’s been a lot of debate about how Google, both manually and algorithmically, may favor big brands, but I think the debate misses something more fundamental. Since the beginning of the internet, the eventual advantage of big brands was only a matter of time. This post is about why I think that advantage was inevitable, why it’s not going away, and what you can do to compete.

The Wild West

In the early days of the public internet, building a website was like heading into the Wild West – all you needed to stake your claim was a wagon and a frontier spirit, as long as you survived the cholera, dysentery, starvation, and bear attacks (i.e. learning HTML)…

Sure, you didn’t get many visitors, but at least it was quiet and no one minded if you wallpapered your house with dancing hamsters. Then, along came the search engines. At first, it was great – the pioneers got all the visitors. With the allure of free land and free customers, though, the quiet didn’t last…

Much to the dismay of early adopters, it didn’t stop at a few neighbors. Pretty soon, people started to make real money online, and along came…

The Gold Rush

Big brands didn’t rush to the internet early on because they simply didn’t have any reason to. They let the pioneers do the hard work of drawing the maps and clearing the brush, until the first prospector discovered gold. When online-only brands started to draw sky-high IPOs and generate ad revenue, the big brands took notice, and the dot-com bubble started to inflate…

Before this becomes a history lesson, let me cut to the point. The risks in any uncharted territory are often taken by the people who have nothing to lose, and that’s not the big brands. As soon as there was gold to be had, the companies with money and power made their move to claim it. The early movers had an advantage, but it wasn’t destined to last forever.

Googling for Gold

So, what does all of this have to do with Google?  While Google probably has made changes along the way that favor big brands (like 2009’s “Vince” update), I suspect that many of the changes in the search landscape really just reflect the broader evolution of the internet. In other words, as big brands followed the gold, so did Google.

Over time, signals that favor brand-building have naturally found their way into the algorithm. Let’s step back from any specific algorithm update and look at the progression of ranking signals since the early days of search engines…

Declaring the “first” search engine is an argument waiting to happen, but I’m going to pin the launch of mainstream search around the time of Excite in 1993. The early engines relied almost exclusively on on-page ranking signals, like keywords in page titles, content, and (at the time) META tags. This leveled the playing field for a lot of small businesses, as anyone could create content that was keyword-targeted. Big brands could exert their influence by spending more money, but the direct influence of their brands on on-page signals was fairly weak.

Of course, the downside of on-page signals is that they were also easy to game, and the early search engines suffered from a lot of spam and quality issues. Then, along came Larry and Sergey and their PageRank algorithm, which relied on links to rank websites. In 1998, Google officially launched to the public…

Link-based rankings gradually gave big brands more of an advantage – their offline presence naturally led to news articles and write-ups, and they began to collect strong link profiles. I call this influence “Medium” because it was mostly indirect. Link buying was (and is) strongly discouraged, so big brands had to work through one-off channels, such as viral marketing.

What’s important to note here is that Google didn’t create PageRank and the link-graph specifically to hand big brands an advantage. They created PageRank as a response to the declining quality of search results powered only by on-page signals.

In 2009, with the success of social media sites like Twitter, Google launched real-time search. Soon after, both Google and Bing would begin to integrate social signals into the algorithm…

While the impact of social signals on ranking is still evolving, these signals are directly influenced by the power of a brand. Offline advertising drives brand awareness and mentions and this directly leads to social media activity. As social mentions begin to affect ranking more and more, brands now have a direct channel for their influence to impact SEO.

Step 1 - Get Over It

So, what can you do about the advantage that big brands have in the evolving internet landscape? First, some tough love – you have to get over it. This was inevitable, and whether or not Google was complicit to some degree doesn’t matter. The internet was destined to reflect the offline world, and in the offline world big brands are rich and powerful. We had a nice run, but it was naïve to expect that to last forever.

Step 2 - Act Like a Brand

Ok, so Step 1 wasn’t very helpful. I see too many SEO situations where people obsess about the competition and what’s “fair” – it’s time to step back and learn from the big brands. If your entire focus is on a few on-page factors and manual link-building, you’ll live and die by the algorithm. Big brands are part of the public consciousness – they bombard us on multiple channels, and don’t put all of their eggs in the Google basket.

Obviously, you can’t spend billions of dollars simply trying to implant your brand in people’s brains, but you can tap into the brand awareness you already have. Somewhere, your product or service – if it’s at all decent – has fans and evangelists. Engage with them, reward them, and start thinking about your brand as more than just Top 10 rankings. Social media is a perfect place to start – stop just Tweeting links and begging for Likes and build relationships. In other words, stop focusing on the direct SEO impact so much and start looking at the health of your brand outside of search.

Step 3 - Be a Pioneer (Again)

Search is changing faster than ever. I’ve seen too many companies recently that rely on Google for their survival and have watched their rankings slip over the past year or two. Many of these are good businesses run by good people, but they’re also businesses who made good on SEO years ago and, at some point, started to coast. Meanwhile, the internet changed, the algorithm changed, and the competition changed. If you’re resting on your laurels from 2005, you’re in for a wake-up call. It may not be tomorrow, but it will happen, and it will happen quickly and without mercy.

The early movers had an advantage on the internet because they were willing to take risks that the big brands couldn’t. You can’t live forever in the glory days of being the first person to set up shop. It’s time to branch out again – get active on social channels, including new and unproven channels. Try out new tags and on-page approaches (like Schemas). They won’t all work, but when they do, you’ll be somewhere that the big brands aren’t yet. Your greatest power as a small to mid-sized business is agility. You can set up a social profile or add a few pages to your site without a committee meeting, budget approval, and 6 months of deliberation. That’s a 6-month head-start, but to get it you have to move now.

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.

Here 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.

How to Sync Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn Social Activity

Ecommerce business owners love social media. Used correctly and this new communication channel is a great way to connect with your online customers. While Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are free to use, they do come at a cost: your time.
Ecommerce SOHO and small business owners already have a full-time job running a business, and social media can increase your daily work load and take away from time that should be spent on other business management tasks.
One way to cut down on the amount time you spend managing social activity is to use a social app that can manage social identities, simultaneously post content across Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn or even schedule posts in advance.

Caution: Think Before you Sync

Before syncing your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, look at each service and how you use it. Most businesses tend to use each social service for a different reason, so a tweet to your Twitter followers might not be the kind of message you would normally share with your LinkedIn connections.
There's a difference between sharing content between Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and auto-syncing the accounts. Syncing means you send the exact same message to all three services from a single post. This should be a short-term solution and not something you always do. To be socially successful you have to take the time to be unique and creative and syncing won't win you big points with followers.
Sharing content is a good option when you post special announcements or direct users to Web articles or blog posts. You can do this more often because the messages are suitable for all three social platforms.

5 Tools to Manage Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn Activity

The best reason to use a social management tool is because it gives you the option to share content and sync accounts when you need to. For example, if you're short on staff or if you plan to travel, you still need to maintain your social activity, but you have less time to fit it in. A social app can help you get multiple updates out on each social service faster than logging in and updating each one manually.
If you use a third-party app to manage the accounts instead of linking accounts from within the social platforms you get the best of both worlds. This lets you use the app's single dashboard to cross-post content, but you can still post unique messages directly from your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn profile.

HootSuite Social Media Dashboard

HootSuite is a social media dashboard that lets you update Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and WordPress from a single app. It features custom analytics to track follower growth, it incorporates Facebook Insights and Google analytics, plus you can schedule posts in advance and connect RSS feeds to auto-update posts. 
HootSuite offers a basic free account, but it's ad-supported and offers limited features (five social profiles and two RSS feeds). The upgraded Pro plan ($5.99 per month) offers a team collaboration function, so that a second contributor can share social profiles and activity. Additional team member pricing starts at $15 each per month.
The free account might work well for SOHO and entrepreneurs, but if you invest a lot of time in social activity for your business, the Pro Plan is more likely to meet your needs.

Seesmic Social Service Management

Seesmic is a free beta service that synchronizes and manages multiple online social accounts including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Tumblr.  Depending on the application you use (e.g. Seesmic Desktop,  Seesmic Mobile or Seesmic Web), you may have access to Klout, Zendesk and Salesforce Chatter integration as well.
New users need to create a Seesmic Profile, then add other social accounts and choose a Seesmic app to access your social dashboard. With Seesmic you can see all social profiles from one dashboard and use social features such as post scheduling, shorten URLs, search and sync accounts.

Yoono Unites Social Networks

Available as a desktop, browser or mobile app, Yoono supports a number of popular social services including Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, FriendFeed, Foursquare, LinkedIn, AIM, Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger. Yoono's single dashboard lets you connect to all the supported services and update and share your status messages across all the platforms. Yoono is currently in beta and free to use.

Manage Your Identities with DandyID

If you have profiles and identities across a number of social and online platforms, a very handy tool for ecommerce business owners is DandyID. This service is designed to "collect" all your social profiles to help customers find the verified version of your business online.
The key benefit for business owners is that you can access all of your social accounts (individually) from within DandyID, and you'll save time getting to the social sites. The free version of DandyID lets you add and manage your social profiles from many online services and share your identities and profile with DandyID tools and plug-ins.
The Pro version ($4.99 per month) offers extra features including SEO-enhanced links, personal stats and social analytics.

How to Manually Link Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn

If find yourself short on time (or staff), you can manually connect the social accounts from within each social site. This process will allow you to sync Twitter messages with Facebook and LinkedIn:
1.  Log in to Facebook and use Facebook's Twitter app to Link a Facebook Business Page with a Twitter account. Follow the step-by-step instructions and test auto-syncing by posting on Facebook and checking your Twitter account to make sure the message appears in both places.
2.  With Facebook and Twitter connected, from your LinkedIn profile choose Edit Profile, and make sure you have provided your Twitter name. You will need to choose Manage your Twitter Settings and check the box to display your Twitter account on your LinkedIn profile. Save your Twitter settings on LinkedIn.
3. Log in to Twitter (or Facebook) and post a message. You should see your message update on all three social sites.
Remember that auto-syncing from within the social platforms will send any update from Twitter or Facebook to all three social sites, and you may need to be a little more careful about the messages you send. To remove syncing, you need to manually remove the applications and change settings on all three profiles.

5 Ways to Create Effective Online Visibility

5 Ways to Create Effective Online Visibility – Social Media is Just One Part of It

Ok, so you’ve got your social media accounts set up – and you’ve gone around things the right way, by ensuring that you

1. considered your business objectives when you set them up
2. have been pragmatic, done the research and listening to understand what’s important to your audiences
3. created a content strategy so that you’re ready to create and procure an ongoing pipeline of relevant content
4. have set up social media listening / keyword tracking so that you can capture and listen in and engage where relevant in a targeted way

Getting your house in order to start off with social media, as you can see from the above, takes a bit of thinking, researching and planning.

However, even making all the right noises with social, you still have to create a great ‘space’ to be able to drive people back to.

Here are some key thing to consider that impact your online visibility?

1. Website - What does your website look like? Is it up-to-date, enticing, trust evoking? Is it flexible enough so that if you want to drive people to a specific and targeted landing page for a Twitter offer you can?
2. Blog – Do you have a blog incorporated into your website? Most website designs don’t naturally lend themselves to having the need to constantly update the site. For example – once you’ve got your services, about us, contact info, how it works sections in place – you don’t naturally keep adding pages. A blog provides you with the perfect vehicle to be able to share relevant and purposeful information consistently. And of course, you ensure that each blog post has ‘Tweet this, share on Facebook etc – share features enabled, to encourage others to share the content. Good content can really fly. So be sure to implement the processes to enable your audience to easily pass on what they are reading. And of course, your blog doesn’t just have to be written content – it can be video too.
3. SEO – Is your website well and truly keyword optimised? And of course, those keywords don’t only apply to your website – you also need to ensure that you are leveraging them across your social media accounts too. For more about Keywords see this previous blog post here.
4. PPC – Pay Per Click advertising – is another way of gaining online visibility into audiences that you haven’t touched before. Not only can you undertaken PPC advertising on Google – to be found in search results – but you can also undertaken targeted Pay Per Click advertising on Facebook and LinkedIn. The advertising here differs slightly – as rather than bid on keywords so your ads appear when someone types in those specific keywords into a search engine, with social ads, you can target a specific demographic (usually using quite rich and specific information) – so that your ad appears to that target audience when they’re in their social networks.
5. Social Nedia / Social Networks – And yes, of course, having a presence on social platforms certainly helps your online visibility. Once upon a time, all we had to do was consider our website and how great that looked – now we have a plethora of social media networks to consider too. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Google+ , FlickR – to name just a few.

Of course, enhances to your online visibility focus around

• Frequency – how often you are ‘live’ on the platforms, how often you blog and share content etc – eg: daily blogging, weekly blogging –versus- an annual newsletter.
• Recency – how recently you last posted. If a Twitter account was last updated in 2009, doesn’t evoke trust and isn’t going to get you much visibility.
• Authenticity – The more authentic and unique the content, the better. People want to hear from you – your opinions, what matters to you, your advice, your viewpoint – and so be sure that you are creating unique content , rather than content that’s ripped from other sites and isn’t very unique. Add your own viewpoint. But make it yours. Be authentic. It’s those blog posts and videos that really do engage and create advocacy.
• Creativity – Yes, that little word. So simple to say, but so difficult to implement. Get creative, think about how you can engage an audience. This is where video and images and diagrams (quick plug for mine below) come into play. Be creative – can you say it with an image or diagram or video – add that in too. Also be creative with your messaging and how you get audiences to share.

I’m sure you’ll agree that Online Visibility is about optimising the many parts of your online presence. Our advice is always to take a ‘joined up’ approach.

I liken not doing so to running a really successful direct mail campaign and the call to action is a telephone number – and when a potential customers calls that number, the sales person they gets through to doesn’t have a clue about the campaign – and takes a message. It’s a huge campaign FAIL.

Just so with doing one part of online visibility – you could run a stonking social media campaign, but if the place you are driving people to is awful and doesn’t engage and deliver on the call to action – then again, it’s a campaign fail.

Top Link Building Strategies for 2012

Link building has played a very important role in search engine optimization; it is a rampant activity practice by many today. Because of link building, other websites can easily link to your site as well. A good link building practice results quality back links, which is considered the most important and the major role of link building. Getting back links is considered the most essential task an SEO will do to promote a site in the net.

Make sure you are registered in blog directories. The best way to do it is to hire a professional to do it for you.

Participate in Press Release sites. Press Releases are delivered to news outline and that is considered one of the best ways to get links for your site.

Article submission still works. Write articles and post them on some article submission sites. This can give you traffic and back links.

Be relevant at all times by choosing quality sites where you can post your blogs or articles. Always remember that choosing the right sites helps you get quality back links. Never post articles which are not related to the domain. Make use of the search optimization tools that can help you filter out sites that are related to your topic. This also avoids you to be tagged as a spammer.

Be popular by creating profile accounts on different social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook for example. Make regular posts or share articles and information to make your visibility consistent. This will surely give you the spotlight and you will assure you to meet millions of people you would not have to meet vis-a-vis. Making accounts will simply bring you closely to the people who you want to be, an easy access and bridge you can create that will help you out in creating a platform for your site.