Our ideal customers want to get their business online, or to be found online, for both local and national results.

Maybe you own a website and is doing nothing for you. Maybe updating your website is very cumbersome so you don’t do it. You are probably not getting a single report on how your website is doing / has done in the last month, quarter, or even a year.

If you are a small business owner looking to get more traffic to your website, you have probably thought about using Google’s paid options:  Google Adwords and Google Boost. While most business owners have heard about the Adwords program, and have a very decent idea of what it is about, but the Boost Program was released only a couple of years ago, so it is still fairly new to most.

The fact that our business is mostly geared towards helping small business owners succeed with their online efforts, no matter the level of expertise in the different aspects of internet marketing they might have, got me thinking:

Which advertising program is more beneficial to small business owners: Adwords or Boost?

In order to illustrate the differences between them, we first need to know….

You Should Know Google Boost is…

1. That little marker you sometimes see in a Map, in Google searches.
2. Geared towards local search. Searches which trigger local places listings and map listings (Geo-targeted Searches).
3. Tied to your Google Places listing. It  will use your listing information to determine location and other contact info.
   1. The Headline is your Google Places Business Name
   2. Line One if your Google Places Address and Phone Number
   3. Line Two is Google’s generated description extracted from info in your Google Local Listing.
   4. Display url can be your website or your Google Places URL.
   5. On the Right side, and average star rating, number of reviews, and if you have any Google Local Listing Coupons
   6. On the left side, a blue map pin or marker denotes a paid listing
4. Displayed in Google Search and Google Maps. Again for geo-targeted searches.
5. Easy to setup. Just provide a monthly budget and other ad info and you are ready to roll.
6. A Category-Based way to advertise. You select a category you want to appear for, Google determines the keywords that are going to trigger your ad.
7. Available for US advertisers only. Although it is planned to be available in the rest of the World, as of right now it is only available for advertisers with Google Places listings with an US location.
8. Limited to the areas your Google Places listing qualifies you for. Your ad will ONLY show up in the areas surrounding your address in Google Places listing, determined by Google.
9. Comes with a FREE  Google Voice number. Used for your Google Boost ad only.
10. NOT cheap. with ease comes pay. a Google Boost Category bid will cost you up to 3 times per click, compared to a Geo-targeted Google Adwords campaign.

How does Google Adwords compare to Google Boost?

1. Adwords is controlled by the User (You), not Google. In the following ways:
   1. Locations: You can setup campaigns in places outside your Google Places Listing area. Result: More reach for your business.
   2. Days and Times: Your campaigns can run only during business days and hours, if you choose it that way.
   3. Keyword bidding: You can choose to bid or not in certain keywords, increase bids for some and lower it for other ones.
   4. Multiple Ads: You can have different Ad Copy for different Ad Groups.
2. Adwords Provides Advanced Reporting. You can know which keywords / ads / areas / bids / landing pages are working or not.
3. Cheaper Cost Per Clicks (CPC).  Again you are in control, should you decide your campaign is not working or not, you can just change your CPCs and the changes will be live within 15minutes.

Just How Much Difference there is in Cost, Between Adwords and Boost?

In order to illustrate this, let’s use some actual customers bids, from Google Boost Ad Creator:

• Category: House Cleaning. Max Exposure: $910/mo. Est Clicks: 140-235. Est CPC: $6.50- $3.87
• Category: Internet Marketing Service. Max Exposure: $1830/mo. Est Clicks: 140-235. Est CPC: $13.07- $7.79
• Category: Day Care Center. Max Exposure: $400/mo. Est Clicks: 130-215. Est CPC: $3.08- $1.86
• Category: Video Production Service. Max Exposure: $600/mo. Est Clicks: 100-165. Est CPC: $6.00- $3.64

Should You Do Google Boost or Google Adwords?

You are a perfect candidate for Google Boost if the following describes your needs:

Simple Setup, Simple Reporting, Restricted Campaign Options, Low Control, High Cost.

You are a perfect candidate for Google Adwords if the following describes your needs:

Medium to Advanced Setup, Advanced Reporting, Enhanced Campaign Options, High Control, Low – Medium – High Cost.

What if I don’t know anything about Adwords?

In my opinion, you can get better results by using Google Adwords for advertising, and having a consultant managing your PPC Campaign. The cost can be the same or less, and there is the sense of control that every business owner longs for.

Most PPC Management companies have very high minimums, and some won’t even take small budget accounts, but we do. We could manage your account on a monthly basis, or one time or periodic campagin optimizations, whatever fits your needs.

Let us know if we can help.

Google Panda was a significant algorithm change done by Google on February 2011. According to Google, the main goal of this update was to identify low quality sites that may not provide the best experience for users.
The main target was sites known as “Content Farms”, or sites that publish user-submitted content, (done mostly for link building reasons), and don’t have the appropriate quality control, therefore publishing low quality content.

Since its launching, we’ve been monitoring high traffic sites to see how this change might affected them in terms of visits and page views.

Social Media Sites

As expected with the “Social Media Boom”, social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin haven’t been struck in any way by this update, on the contrary, they have experimented increases on the number of page views during the last three months. For example, Facebook almost increase in 30% its number of page views.

Aligned with the increasing popularity of social networking sites, Yelp, the most visited user reviews site, has grown 22% in the last three months. This boost confirms that everyday consumers pay more attention to reviews and they are starting to play an important role during customers purchase decision process.

Article Directories

Article sites and content sharing sites, such as Associated Content, Ezine Articles, Buzzle or Hubpages have experienced a notable decrease in traffic. We analyzed 10 of the most visited sites in this category and the results revealed that in terms of page views, there had been an average fall of 25%.

Hence, if you rely mainly in article sites to get traffic to your website, it’s definitely the right time to start considering other sources of traffic or other marketing strategies to keep your website alive and to keep visitors coming.

Certainly, we can’t asseverate that all articles in all niches have been affected by the Google Panda update. Your business may be in a specific niche with a low or medium level of competition where your articles are still ranking and getting traffic. If so, you are in luck at least for now.

Conversely, we would like to make a particular comment about E-How since at the beginning this site wasn’t affected by the update and this fact generated a lot of controversy. As we can see in the Alexa graphic below, E-How finally got caught and there’s an important decrease in pageviews starting on April 2011.

Blog Publishing Sites

We also included in our analysis, blog sites such as, blogspot, wordpress and typepad and unlike Article Directories, they have increased in the amount of visitors and pageviews.

So, if you thought that blog marketing was an old-fashion strategy, you may be wrong. We believe that Google might be favoring blogs with good and fresh content that provide a high-quality users experience and they’re probably getting the traffic that content sharing sites lost.

So, here comes the obvious question: Has article marketing as an SEO strategy lost its efficacy?

Although Article Marketing has without a doubt lost some of its shine, we believe that it can still be an effective tool in some niches, when it’s done right.

But, what does “done right” entail?
Below we outline what we consider are the three most important points you need to consider in your article marketing plan.

1.    Relevant and high quality content with perfect grammar: Google will see your article with “better eyes” and you may have the possibility that someone re-publish it, which will mean more links to your website.

2.    Target long tail keywords: Although their search volume can be low, they can be much less competitive and you’ll have more chances to rank on the search engines and get some traffic.

3.    Quality before Quantity: Focus your efforts in high quality sites. We believe that mass distribution to sites with doubtful quality may harm your site and your credibility instead of helping it. We recommend submitting your article only to sites with high traffic volume and good reputation.

That’s it for today’s post. Hope you find this information relevant and more important helpful for your online business. We are going to continue monitoring these sites and we’ll keep you updated of any new finding.

We’d love to hear what you think or about your own experience.

Have your articles been affected by Google Panda? Have you seen a decrease in their traffic?

Since its introduction last March, Google +1 has stirred up lots of conversations around the globe. Its impact in the world of search engines and organic and paid results is still somewhat unknown. Maybe you just heard about Plus One, but are not sure what you should do with it.

Let’s start the some common questions about Google +1

What is Google +1?

+1 is Google’s version of Facebook’s like button, applied to Search Engine Result Pages. It was conceived as an easy way for users to get and give suggestions or recommendations in the search results pages.

The +1 buttons appears next to your headline on search ads and organic results. Personalized annotation (derived from +1) appear beneath your Display URL.

In Google’s words a +1 tells your friends:

“This is something you should checkout”.

Who can see My +1’s?

By default your +1’s are “public to the world”, but that doesn’t mean everybody will see your +1’s. Only your Social Connections will see them –if Google consider they will benefit from it-, as explained by Google, your Social Connections include people in your Gmail Chat List, people in your Google Contacts, people You follow in Google Reader and Google Buzz, and occasionally you might see +1’s from people you don’t know.

In order for an user to see the +1 button, they must be signed-in on Google.com.

You can choose whether or not to display your +1’s in your Google Profile.

How can Google +1 Help My Website?

Just like the like button, +1 gives your content a peer recommendation and endorsement from your social media circle and the world in general.

How is +1 different from the like?

The main difference is +1 votes will show up on Google’s SERPS, plus you can +1 webpages (and Adwords Ads) directly from the SERPS, this can potentially influence clicks directly from search pages.

Will +1 affect my Organic Search Engine Rankings?

Yes. Google consider +1 a “Ranking Signal”. In Google’s own Words:

+1′s (whatever their source — organic search, ads, or +1 buttons on publisher sites) is a signal that affects organic search ranking (link)

How Can My Website Benefit from +1

We predict that adding the ability to +1 your pages can and will benefit your website’s traffic directly from Google’s SERPS and hopefully the conversion rate of your pages as well.

How does +1 affect my Adwords ads?

The premise is “anything that can make your ads standout –especially for free- will help your click thru rate”. If we add the power of endorsement from people in your network, +1 can potentially increase both your CTR –and your spending- and potentially the conversion rate for those visitors, as the trust factor can increase as well.

Currently, in order to have a fully integrated Google Plus One experience, I had to join the Experiment, otherwise none of my test search queries in Google triggered the +1 in the Adwords Ad section here are my results for the query: Google SEO

Zooming In to Matt Cutts website:

After I +1′d, it looks like this

Do I pay if someone +1 my Adwords ad?

No, you will only pay when someone actively click on your ads.

Can I add +1 to My Website?

As of today, June 1^st, Google enabled the Google Plus One for websites.

Read this for an easy way to add +1 to your website, or if you are an experienced developer who wants to customize plus one.

For the standard +1 button, copy and paste this code

<!– Place this tag in your head or just before your close body tag –>

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js”></script>

<!– Place this tag where you want the +1 button to render –>

<g:plusone></g:plusone>

After finding out about Google’s New Ranking Signal:

Are you planing to implement plusone in your website? If so, When are you planning on implementing it? What do you think about Google Plus One?

We think Google +1 can potentially affect ranking, traffic and conversion in the mid to long term, and we would love to hear your thoughts.

Last week Google announced the out of beta testing release of their Google+ Pages for Businesses.

If you are looking to create one for your local business (which you totally should), don’t be afraid of doing it yourself: it is very fats and easy.

1.Get Started

Go to this link: https://plus.google.com/pages/create”  you will need a Google  Account. If you don’t have one yet, go here to Create Google Account

2. Pick a category

Select “Local Business or Place” if you own a local business.

3. Find Your Business

Link Your Google Place Listing with your Google + Listing by entering your Regional Location and Your Phone Number

4. No Results? Add Your Info

5. Found it? Confirm Your Info, Select Your Category

6. Customize Your Page

7. Let your friends, family and customers know

You are done!

Now you can start posting in your Google+ Business Page.

Coming next, we will be talking about what you can do to get your Google+ Business Page noticed, and other tips and tricks to make the most of Google+ for your business.

Time and time again we’ve had customer requesting us to create a membership website, where they can have recurring income by supplying information and/or products in a monthly basis, which is both user-friendly and inexpensive.

One of the fastest ways to get a membership website started, not to mention inexpensive, is by using WordPress and a Membership Plugin, such as  Wishlist Member.

Why Using WordPress (WP) as Your Content Management System (CMS)?

If you are looking to have a self-managed website in a matter of minutes, WordPress is your best choice.

Either if you are using a One-Click Install from within your hosting account (such as Hostgator) or the famous 5-minute install procedure, you will end up with a website in less than you think.

Why Using Wishlist Member as Your Prefered WP Membership Plugin?

Because of the amount of flexibility and power wishlist member provides, and the very low price, nothing will beat it.

Why would I need or want a Membership Website?

Watch this video as an introduction to the business model of a membership website.

The most recent update, called “Panda Update” by Google’s team, was targeted towards cleaning up their results, by decreasing the relevancy of pages hosted by content farms, commonly used by SEOs in marketing techniques such as Article Marketing, which works by piggybacking authority from other websites to have your content rank for your targeted search terms, this content usually contains links to your website as well. The content is then usually republished by other webmasters, which increases the number of incoming links to your website. This content is published in your own website or not, depending on your preference.

While this technique is completely legitimate, it’s major pitfall is making Google think its author / owner is the initial republishing website, lets say Ezinearticles.com. See, in Google’s eyes the first website where this content is found is the “owner”, subsequent pages found containing this content are then filtered from search engine result pages for your chosen terms. Therefore if you write an article and get it published in Ezinearticles.com before that it appears in your website, then if and when you decide to publish it in your own website, it will be filtered as a duplicate. In this particular case:

You would be building someone’s website and not your own
In the case EzineArticles its punished by Google, which happened in the Panda update, then you would also lose -if any- rankings that web page had, and be left with nothing.

A quick fix to this hypothetical situation is to publish your content in your website first, and once this page gets indexed, submit it to Ezinearticles for republishing and syndication.

But not only Article Marketing was affected by Google’s Panda Update, online retailers who rely on vendor supplied content, such as data feeds have also suffered. The easy fix? Write unique content for your product’s descriptions. This is easier said than done, especially for online retailers who have hundreds or thousands of items in their catalog, this task could be very daunting.

But what if we asked our own website visitors to help us build unique content? Well, we could do this in a subtle way. Your customers could help you by providing content in the form of:

• Comments
• Ratings and Reviews
• Recommendations
• Wish lists
• Favorites
• Supplying pictures or videos of  them using your product
• Questions and answers
• Suggestions

Be aware that user-generated content will need to be monitored by you or someone in your staff, or maybe this is a task that you could outsource.

In order to make user-generated content and efficient task, you will need to implement automated solutions that will work for you. Think twice, do once is the motto here. Depending on the platform your website was built, you will have different options available to you.

In future posts we will be reviewing some solutions and providing with best practices for their implementations.

Now, go ahead and review your website, analyze where and how you could improve the quality of the content provided, is it useful for your customers? Does it help them with their purchasing decision? When was the last time your content was updated?

Lots of websites have lost rankings due to the “Farmer Update”. Most of them will sit on it and just look for the next SEO trick to implement. Very few will act on it, audit their content and make sure it is unique, useful and updated in a consistent basis, making their website a real resource for their target consumer, gaining relevancy to Google’s eyes and therefore improving their chances of a better ranking in Google Search Engine Results.

This is the ultimate Google SEO “trick” you will have to learn.

Under the premise of making it easier for its users see what matters to them, Twitter announced its new redesign along with the introduction of its new Enhanced Profile Pages, currently available only to select Twitter profiles.

The enhanced profile pages are targeted to marketers who want to create a more compelling brand communication to its followers.

Check out how these major brands are using their brand new enhanced profile pages:

How can you tell if your Twitter profile has been “enhanced”

Unfortunately as of today, this new feature is only available to a bunch of hand-picked profiles from big corporations, and they are not accepting “requests”, there is not anything such as a “waiting list” of any sorts so, if you don’t work for one of the “chosen ones”, you will have to wait until they open it up for you.

What is the difference between an old Twitter profile and a new one?

]]> http://www.digitalsources.com/new-twitter-brand-pages-5-reasons-they-rock/feed/ 0 http://www.digitalsources.com/top-local-seo-assets-your-small-business-should-care-about/ http://www.digitalsources.com/top-local-seo-assets-your-small-business-should-care-about/#comments Mon, 18 Apr 2011 17:43:13 +0000 Rosana L http://www.digitalsources.com/?p=100 One of the biggest shifts in the Search Engine World is happening in 2011. Google has significantly changed they way it presents results, giving the Local Results much more relevancy than ever before.

Not too long ago Google “leaked” the info that at least

20% of all the Searches that they process are related to Local Search

Meaning at least 20% of users are adding location to their searches. This is no surprise to me, an avid internet researcher, but it indicates that the shift is happening.

Every time, more and more people look for Google’s recommendation on local services. This opens opportunities for businesses of all sizes to increase their visibility and therefore their customer base even if they don’t have a website yet.

The most important Local SEO Assets which will bring you the most return on investment are:

• Local Search Engine Profiles: Google Places, Yahoo Local, Bing Local
• Local Directories: Yelp, Citysearch, Superpages, MerchantCircle, and others.
• Paid Local Advertising: Google Adwords, Bing Adcenter.
• Location Based Social Networking Websites: Foursquare, Facebook Places (View a comprehensive list http://bdnooz.com/lbsn-location-based-social-networking-links/ )
• Local Coupons / Deals: Groupon.com, LivingSocial.com, Yipit.com, Slickdeals.net, Craigslist.org, etc.

Using these web properties will increase your business exposure, and a local marketing strategy that includes them will certainly increase the chances of its success.

The list above shows only a few examples websites per category, but a comprehensive list will definitely be much longer, which can make managing these assets a daunting task, but I am confident that a little organization can and will make it much easier to manage:

1. Use a separate email address for your Social Presence Profiles: This is a must, especially if you have someone else managing your social profiles: in-house  assistant, SEO firm, outsourcer, virtual assistant, intern, etc. I recommend creating a Gmail address for this task. I love the power of Gmail, it allows you to control your emails just as you like them: you can establish as many filters as you need, based on subject, from, etc. to as many emails as you want. The key here is to keep this SEO tasks in a business only email, so you don’t have to give a stranger access to your Google Docs, Email. Analytics, and so forth. You will be in control and not hostage. This is especially important as it relates to Google Places, which  -as of right now- can only be associated with one email address.
2. Keep all local profile information in a spreadsheet: By doing so, you will have everything you need in one place: I would recommend you create a Google Docs spreadsheet, as you could share it with anyone you need to, and it will only be available to you. The key in doing this is consistency: add every single detail you might need to reuse when creating  / managing all of your local profiles.

This is for now. In upcoming blog posts, I will be giving some tips on using Gmail filters and how you can use it in an efficient and secure way to manage your local SEO Assets and your online marketing activities in general.