Have you heard about Google+ Pages for Businesses yet? Google is continuing to move steadily into the social media realm! Similar to Facebook fan pages – you can now create a page on Google to help brand your business. Add photos, links, videos and more to help promote your products and services. Although it seemed to have gotten off to a slow start, more and more companies are getting on board – here’s an example of Pepsi’s page:

Whether you’re a mom and pop store or a Fortune 500 brand, we highly suggest getting one now (and do it quick before your competitors find out about it!)

Here are the Top 6 Reasons to Get Google Plus for Business Now:

(more…)

With the latest update of Google’s algo, plenty of sites have been feeling the burn. Here’s a list of some major players that have taken hits, from http://www.sistrix.com/blog/985-google-farmer-update-quest-for-quality.html:

As an example, we looked a little closer at AmericanTowns.com on Quantcast. (more…)

The debate over White Hat vs. Black Hat SEO is in the National spotlight with an article in the NY Times entitled “The Dirty Little Secrets of Search.” The ultimate goal of any SEO, whether using White Hat or Black Hat techniques, is to get their client’ website to rise to the top of the organic results.  An added burden of the Black Hat SEO is not to get caught using their deceptive techniques for fear of Google’s consequences.

As the story goes, JCPenney  was dominating the top of Google’s search results. They were occupying the #1 position for keywords such as “dresses”, “furniture”, “area rugs”, “skinny jeans” and a myriad of others. The question came up about how they are accomplishing this amazing feat! Through some investigative reporting by Doug Pierce, it was determined that JCPenney’s SEO company was utilizing Black Hat SEO techniques described as “the most ambitious attempt to game Google’s search results that he has ever seen”. (more…)

You may have heard this phrase circulating within the SEO World … “Likes are the new links”.  Let’s explore this briefly and ultimately show you how it plays into your Search Engine Optimization campaign. It is well known that an incoming link has contributed ultimately to your rank within the search engines. A quality incoming link demonstrated that your website was “popular” or “active” or “liked” and therefore served as a recommendation to the search engines who would then determine if you were worthy to be ranked highly within their index. As part of any seo campaign, “link popularity” was a major factor. Attracting a link exchange, submitting to free and paid directories, releasing press releases or even buying a high PageRank link all had to be part of your strategy. (more…)

What will you do with the 2-5 seconds per search that Google has saved you? On a monthly basis, Google is receiving upwards of 100 million searches per month. That’s approximately 3 million searches per day. What’s your portion of that? I estimate that I probably search about 100x per day … so with 3 seconds saved per search, that is saving me 5 whole minutes. With 5 minutes I could blow dry my hair. Or I could heat up a meal in the microwave. I could also put the mail in the mailbox and water the plans on the way back. (more…)