Top Google Innovations of 2010
With the end of 2010 rapidly approaching, it seems appropriate to look at the biggest innovations for the year in the world of Google search and what they mean for search engine optimization (SEO). Google Caffeine, Google Instant, Place Search, Instant Preview; these dynamic new systems implemented by Google over the past year have changed the SEO landscape forever. Now let’s delve deeper into each one.
Google Caffeine
In response to the changing shape of the Internet over the last couple of years, Google completed a massive overhaul of their indexing system to increase the speed and freshness of its search results. Google launched Caffeine in June of this year and now updates its index in real-time as it finds new information. Google’s database stores almost 100 million gigabytes of data with over 100,000 gigabytes of new data being added every day!
So how has this affected SEO? News results and social media posts (eg Twitter updates) are now indexed and displayed instantaneously. Website updates are now indexed and displayed by Google within a matter of days rather than weeks, making the effects of website optimization much more immediate. And updates made by Google to its search algorithms now affect rankings immediately making top SEO rankings far less stable with ranking fluctuations now occurring daily, hourly and even from one minute to the next.
With the launch of Caffeine, Google now places a far greater importance on keeping your website content fresh and unique. Frequent updates and additional content are now, more than ever, essential to keep Google coming back to your website and indexing your content.
Is Social Media Right For Your Business? To ‘Tweet’ Or Not To ‘Tweet’?
Whilst many people thought that the world of social media may merely be a fad, its importance and relevance in society today is undeniable. A day does not pass without hearing some mention of Facebook or Twitter, whether it is on the news or from a friend or colleague. In only six years the site has gained more than 500 million active users worldwide. Twitter receives on average 90 millions tweets per day. And the popularity of these sites is far from dissipating; in March 2010 Facebook overtook Google in winning top place for time spent on the website by users. However, the question remains are these sites nothing more than ‘social’, or are they a viable form of ‘business’ media?
Social Media And Your Business
A recent national survey conducted by Optus found that only 28 per cent of small and medium businesses (SMBs) are currently active in social media. In the same survey Optus found that over 50 per cent of SMBs not involved in social media believe that social networking is not appropriate for their industry. The survey highlighted that SMBs owners were ‘yet to be convinced’ that social media was worth the time and investment.
Let’s cut to the chase, it would be unrealistic to say that social media marketing was right for every single business but it would also be wrong to dismiss it without proper thought. Social media is developing at an exceedingly fast pace, each week there is a new announcement or development: this week Facebook’s Zuckerberg announced a new modern messaging system, in the last month there was the big news about the partnership between Facebook and Bing that will return search results based on the Facebook “Likes” of the searcher’s friends and networks. This fast pace of development should not deter businesses from getting involved with social media, but rather view it as a challenge or adventure and get on board now whilst the majority of businesses are also still learning.
Top 3 Reasons Why Most Businesses Fail Online
Over the past year we have seen rapid changes in the online marketing arena and the rate of change doesn’t look like slowing anytime soon. In that time we have helped many businesses take their online marketing to the next level. From the sidelines, we’ve also watched many businesses fail as they set about their online marketing the wrong way.
Here are the 3 top reasons most businesses fail online…
1. Not Investing In Your Website
Probably the most misunderstood area of online marketing is the importance of your website. Most business owners don’t have an issue with spending $5,000 or $10,000 per month on advertising their business online but hesitate when it comes to spending the same amount as a one-off investment in their website design. This is simply a huge mistake. Investing in the performance of your website can double the rate it converts visitors into sales. This results in receiving twice as many sales from the same advertising budget. Put another way, achieving the same results from half the budget on an ongoing basis.
10 Ways To Use Pay Per Click Advertising In Your Business
Many businesses do not utilise the full potential of pay per click advertising (PPC). Because it is one of the fastest and most flexible ways to advertise, it can be used in many different ways. Here are 10 scenarios when using PPC advertising can help make your business more successful.
1. Launching A New Product or Service?
Pay per click advertising can drive qualified prospects to your website immediately. It is one of the fastest ways to generate targeted visitors to your new offering. With PPC you’re able to start selling your product as soon as it’s available. PPC advertising is fast and can be adjusted and optimised immediately.
2. About To Invest In SEO?
If you haven’t started SEO (search engine optimization) yet, PPC is a great way to determine which keywords generate the most sales for you and is the fastest way to find out which keywords convert best for you. This information can then be used in your SEO campaign to focus on establishing rankings for the most profitable keywords specific to your business.
3. Already Investing in SEO?
If you’re already investing in an SEO campaign, pay per click advertising can be a profitable add-on. PPC can drive qualified prospects to your website from keywords that you haven’t achieved top rankings for yet. PPC can also increase the share of traffic you are receiving from keywords you have a top ranking for – a top SEO ranking for a specific keyword might send 30% of the total available search volume to your website; pay per click advertising can increase your overall share of that targeted traffic even further.
5 Ways To Make Money With SEO
There’s no doubt that search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most profitable marketing channels available to businesses, yet why do so many companies fail to make any money from SEO? Here are 5 strategies we use on a daily basis to increase the profits we generate for our clients from SEO…
1. Focus On The Right Keywords
Seeing your website rank on the first page of Google can be very exciting but that excitement will quickly dissipate if you don’t start seeing the profits start rolling in. While SEO is all about ranking a website at the top of Google, the keywords you choose to focus on will make the difference between generating a profit or taking a loss.
Focusing on keywords that have a high search volume each month isn’t the only factor you should consider. Whether the keyword is a transactional keyword (ie a keyword that a searcher types in to buy something) or an informational keyword (ie a keyword a searcher types in to research something) will make all the difference to how much profit you make from SEO.
2. Improve The Performance of Your Website
Many business owners are happy to spend $3000 or more per month on marketing their business but hesitate when it comes to investing in their website – this is a huge mistake. Your website holds the key to unlocking the full profit potential the Internet provides… the better your website performs, the more profit you will make.
One of our recent clients hired us for both SEO and website design. After 4 months of SEO we increased their traffic by 207% from 527 to 1,620 visits per month. We also redesigned their current website, improving their website conversion rate by 327% (ie from 1.33% to 5.68%). The result? We increased the number of sales leads they were receiving to 92 leads for the month, up from 7 leads per month when we first started – an overall increase in performance of 1,214%! That’s the power of a good website.
