Google's "Softened Panda Update" is Rolling Out Today

[caption id="attachment_3211" align="aligncenter" width="685"] Panda Update Rolling Out Today 2013[/caption]

"Grey Area or Border Zone Sites" Gets Additional Quality Signals

Hours before Google has confirmed that a Panda Update has been rolled out. On WebmasterWorld Forum there were a lot of real time discussions among webmasters that their sites are experiencing a lot more changes in terms of ranking & traffic and so this seems to be clearly a Panda recovery.

 As most of the sites were affected by the panda update last time, Google has formulated its algorithm in such a way to recover the ranking position of the affected websites. So this is said to be a softer update.

On the video released in May 13 by Matt Cutts, regarding “What should we expect in the next few months in terms of SEO for Google? ”

Matt Cutts answered that they are likely to soften the panda algorithm, to help webmasters, whose sites are in “grey area or border zone”.

Matt Cutts added that,

“If we can soften the affect a little bit, for those sites, that we believe have got some additional signals of quality, that will help sites that were previously affected - to some degree.”

Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Lands says that,

Google confirmed with us that a Panda update is being released and said:

"In the last few days we’ve been pushing out a new Panda update that incorporates new signals so it can be more finely targeted.”

After the SMX West, Google has clearly said that there won’t be any Official announcement of the algorithm update, because of the reason that the changes in algorithm would take place in a gradual way, that it may take several days for the update to complete.

So it’s the time to keep eye on forums and discussions to watch over what all are the impacts of the update. In few days or within months the results would be apparently out, to know to what extend Google has softened its update.

Video of Matt Cutss on Future SEO updates

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Calling All Local Business Owners New to SEO: Start with Google Places for Business

[caption id="attachment_3175" align="aligncenter" width="537"] Google Plus for Business[/caption]

Are you a local business owner who is eager to get into the SEO game? Good for you! Establishing a local online presence is definitely a great way to grow your business. Google Places for Business is the perfect place to start your SEO campaign — by establishing your business’ identity on Google Places, it can show up in Google searches, Google Maps and Google+ Local. The following guide will help you create your local presence.

Google Places for Business

Create an account on Places for Business and list your business’ name, address and phone number — or N.A.P. It’s free and effective!

Within Places for Business, an owner can add his business address, phone number, business category and more.

• Name: Google Quality Guidelines dictate that your business name is “exactly as it appears in the offline world.” Therefore, do not attempt to add anything else (such as keywords, marketing taglines, phone numbers, websites, etc.).


• Address: There can only be one entry per address. You must adhere to the same rules as those in the business name, i.e., no extraneous information.


• Phone Number: Google prefers businesses use a land line as opposed to a cell phone whenever possible.

After you input this data, Google will then send a postcard to the business address within two weeks. The postcard will contain a pin number that will allow you to verify you are the owner. Once you log back into your Google Places for Business account and provide the pin, your business will show up in the Local results.

In addition to your N.A.P., you can also include photos, business hours and a description (up to 4,200 characters) wherein you can link to your own site.

Learn more about the Places for Business Quality Guidelines here.

What If Your Business Isn’t Operated Out of One Location?

If you service clients from many locations, like a traveling or mobile business, you still have to register a physical address (not a P.O. box — Google does not consider P.O. boxes accurate physical locations). According to Google:

“Every business listing must have a mailing address. This is the physical address where mail can be sent to your business. If you work from home or you are a mobile-only business you can specify service areas and choose to hide your physical address later on!”

Local Results, as Seen in a Local 7-Pack

Once your business is verified with Google, it will appear in the SERP. Normally, it will appear in a Local 7-Pack. This screenshot shows the SERP after a query for “Tae Kwon Do Studio” in Simi Valley, California (the first seven results are Local results, pulled from Places for Business):

When a user mouses over a result (here, the Tigon Martial Arts is being hovered over), the rest of the business information is displayed:Local Results, as Seen in a Display Carousel

Last month, Google debuted a new look for certain Local results — currently restaurants, bars and hotels now render in a Display Carousel rather than the Local 7-pack. When conducting a search for French restaurants near Simi Valley, the following Search Engine Results Page (SERP) is rendered:

Business Photos

Whether your results show up in the Display Carousel or in the standard Local 7-pack, business owners have the option to optimize even further. Through Business Photos, you can create a 360-degree interactive tour of your location. Though there is no fee for implementing panoramic viewing in your Google listing, you are required to use a Google-approved photographer, whom you will have to pay standard photography rates.

Other Directories

The most important place to establish your business’ identity is in Google Places for Business. However, you should also establish your identity on any other notable web directories. As you begin to spread information about your business across the Internet, is absolutely essentially that you be consistent. Your business name should always appear exactly the same, as should your address and phone number.

 

Using Google Alerts for SEO Link Building - This is a MUST for SEO

[caption id="attachment_3133" align="aligncenter" width="550"] SUNDAY SEO: Internal Linking Practices in WordPress Help Page Views[/caption]

Google Alerts offers a great source of information that can be used for several purposes. It is as useful as easy to use. Automatic generated e-mails about whatever you are interested in. For instance, you want to keep updated about Real Madrid football club. Then you just type that on “Search Query” box, specify what kind of results you would be interested in (news, blogs, video, discussion, etc.) and Google will send you the alert whenever a new page with “Real Madrid” in it gets indexed.

From a marketing and business point of view, we can keep an eye on competitors and what they do. For example if we set up a search for our 3 main competitors and they go to a fair, we will be alerted by Google whenever they show up in the list of the attendees in the organization website. This will tell us that we might be willing to be there as well.

But, how could this be useful from a SEO point of view? Where does it fit in How to SEO? In this case we can use it to keep monitoring subjects where we have some to say. For example if we are a recruitment company and we have useful content in our blog it would be a good idea to keep tracking keywords like “student jobs” or “graduate jobs” specifying blogs on Result Type. This way we can comment on relevant blogs with useful information that will help us creating links back to our site. It is likely that this links are “No Follow”, this means the SEO juice from the original website is not transferred to our site, but still helps via co-citation.

Another way we can use this for SEO purposes is to find news and topics related to our business and then creating articles in our own blogs with latest news or information about the Market. We can even link to the original blogs for more relevancy. This way it will help us create useful and fresh content for visitors and for Google to keep our rankings high up.

[caption id="attachment_3123" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Using Google Alerts for SEO Link Building - This is a MUST for SEO[/caption]

How are Google Alerts good for SEO? You can:

See who’s talking about your company – and what they’re saying. This is a good way to correct misconceptions about your products, get follow-up quotes in blogs where your company was discussed, or simply ask the editor of the blog or website to provide a link to your website. Coming from a reputable website that’s relevant to your industry, that’s a link that’s worth building.

Score a guest post on someone else’s blog that has mentioned you. If a blogger likes your company, products or services enough to write about it by name, they’d probably be happy to let you submit a guest post to their blog on an industry-specific topic. You could write about breaking news relevant to your field, new technologies or trends, or tips and tricks of your trade – it depends largely on the format of the blog and what the editor is looking for. So be flexible and you could get a great opportunity for free, positive publicity as well as a backlink to your site.

Use keywords to find websites that don’t link to yours yet, but should. This is another way to get guest posts: Create a Google Alert for keywords that relate to your products, services or the problems they solve. Sometimes a website or blog will say it accepts guest posts; sometimes it won’t – it costs nothing to ask. And if you do get to submit an article or blog post that positions you as an industry leader and provides a backlink, that’s priceless. Another way to find such opportunities is to set up Google Alerts such as “bloggers wanted” <industry>, “writers wanted” <industry> or “guest post” <industry> (with your particular industry filled in, of course).

Keep up with your competitors. Find out which sites they’ve contributed content to and drop the editor a line (you already know they accept guest posts!). This is not just a good tactic for link building, it’s also great for fine-tuning the keywords you target and knowing what your competitors are up to.

Dialogue with potential customers. Find out what is being discussed and where. Robot-generated “comment spam” on forums or blogs is always a bad idea, but thoughtful and helpful replies to customer questions can certainly include a link to your website. To use Google Alerts for this, pair keywords such as your company name, product name(s) or others with words like “how,” “help” or “why.”

Setting up Google Alerts is easy. However, don’t set up too many at first or you’ll be overwhelmed with emails! Go to http://www.google.com/alerts, enter your keywords in the search query, choose the result type and frequency of emails, enter your email address, click “Create Alert” and you’re done. Then you just have to use the data to help you find the right sites to build links with.

It may not be a fast track to higher search engine rankings, but as an ongoing part of your overall SEO strategy, using Google Alerts for link building is a great idea and something you can devote a little time to each day. And you’ll be able to do a little virtual networking along the way, building relationships as well as links.

Google Latitude On It's Way To Google Heaven - Discontinued 08-09-13

[caption id="attachment_3053" align="aligncenter" width="665"] Google Latitude to be retired on August 9[/caption]

Google Latitude is about to enter the Heavens...

I’ve used Google Latitude for about four years now and have found the application really useful. For those of you who don’t know, Latitude is an app that you install on your smart phone (it supports Android, Blackberry or iOS) and it keeps track of your location. You can then use this information how you wish. You can share it with friends or family, so that they know where you are in real time, or just use it to maintain a history of where you’ve been.

Google announced Wednesday that Latitude, its location-aware application that allows users to share where they are with others, will be retired on August 9. When that day rolls around, users will no longer be able to share their location and their friends list will be deleted. Third-party applications that use Latitude will also see that feature stop working.

The news was part of a broader announcement of a major update to Google Maps which includes a new Explore feature for finding places of interest around a location and support for tablets. In anticipation of its retirement, Google Latitude was left out of the Maps update.

• You’ll no longer be able to share your location using Latitude after August 9th.


• Latitude isn’t included as a feature in the latest version of Google Maps for mobile on Android. (Our iOS brethren will get the same treatment.)


• Your list of friends on Latitude will be deleted. You won’t be able to see or manage friends. Friends will no longer see your location in Google Maps for mobile on Android, Latitude for iPhone, the public badge, the iGoogle Gadget, and the Latitude website at maps.google.com/latitude.