404 ERRORS WON’T CAUSE A GOOGLE PENALTY
In an interesting conversation on Twitter, Google’s Gary Illyes has confirmed that 404 errors will not lead to Google penalties for your website. 404 errors occur when a web page has been removed from your website or does not exist. Barry Schwartz from Search Engine Roundtable explained that there is a rumor out there that “having a site with some 404ed pages will lead to a Google Penalty.”. Google has now confirmed this.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=629672123359887361&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fgloberunner.com%2F404-errors-wont-cause-a-google-penalty%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px
Google’s @methode said 404s do not lead to Google Penalties https://t.co/WQMmZ4zEA4 pic.twitter.com/MS6sPcUPpW
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) August 7, 2015
I agree that just the existence of 404 errors on your website is not going to lead to a penalty or manual action from Google. There are perfectly legitimate reasons to have 404 errors on your website. For example, if someone is linking to a page on your website with a lot of bad links, then you can move the location of that page to another URL and serve up a 404 error. That will essentially ‘get rid of’ those bad links and not pass them onto the rest of your website. But, that’s all great if those bad links are linking to an internal page on your site: most negative SEO and low quality links I’ve seen tend to be pointed towards a site’s home page.
404s won’t lead to a penalty, but it’s not good for your site overall.
Technically speaking, 404 errors on your website won’t get you a penalty from Google. But, let’s look at it another way: if your internal linking structure is messed up and your site is linking internally to pages that don’t exist, then you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Your 404 errors are causing problems, and you’re also going to cause crawl issues.
So while 404s are not technically going to get you a penalty, you’re just shooting yourself in the foot by not fixing them.
The goes for duplicate content on your website, as well. Unless you have so much of it you’re spamming the search engines, you’re just not going to typically get a penalty from Google just because you have duplicate content on your website.
HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR WEBSITE’S USER EXPERIENCE
by Samantha Arigapudi
Would you stay on a site that’s hard to navigate? How in the world do you get to your cart? Where are the product reviews?
Failure to find what you need means the company lost your business, business that could have led them to more customers and brand ambassadors. User experience is key not only to building your brand but building your sales. If you don’t have the resources to do a complete redevelopment, you can adopt these simple and affordable steps to improve your website’s user experience on the path towards effective digital marketing.
Lead the Way: Easy-to-Use Navigation
Your website should reflect your business plan and vision for your company, meaning it should be clear and organized. Your navigation bar and menus are the landmarks of your site. Instead of burying important information and calls-to-action, provide the tools consumers need to get to where they need to go.
If you’re unsure of where customers are clicking out, run some research and follow the purchase process. Where are customers getting hung up? Maybe a friendly CTA (call-to-action) or redirect is the best way to get them back on track.
Short Attention Spans: Measure Load Speed
Vine, a six-second video feed, is the perfect example of the short attention span we’ve developed in recent years. With a world of information at our fingertips, we’re anxious to access every tidbit right away. Which means, if your page takes more than three seconds to load, you’re in trouble.
Some of the ways to fix your load speed include:
- Indexing your content database (organize content into relevant categories)
- Eliminate unnecessary tracking codes (stick to the important analytics)
- Use Google Search Console’s PageSpeed Insights Tool (get a specific look at what’s slowing down your site)
Google knows how impatient web surfers are and takes page load speed into consideration, especially when it comes to SEO rankings, so use their tools to your advantage.
Keep It Consistent
A consistent layout is reflective of your brand. Is it hodge podge with inconsistent messaging throughout? A consumer might think your brand and customer service is the same way.
Bring credibility to your company by using consistent brand images throughout and using a similar page-to-page layout. Be sure to place attention on your calls-to-action by placing them on the same area on every page.
These are just a few ways you can improve your website’s UX. Still not getting the attention you deserve? Contact us at Globe Runner for a quick, free website audit.
5 TIPS FOR DIGITAL MARKETING SUCCESS
The key to digital marketing success is to deliver a rewarding customer experience that equates to brand and profit growth for your company. Fuel your digital marketing with these 5 tips:
- Track Everything
The goal of digital marketing is to attract your target audience and this means telling them, nicely of course, what to do. You can accomplish this with a call-to-action. Help them help you by using a click-to-call extension that uses something like a tracking number so you can identify and measure which click-through’s measure best. Your focus should be on content with conversion.
- For Social Media…
Be content ready. Identify your audience and three types of buyer categories and their stages in the buying cycle. Use social media to reach your buyers and build a relationship that leads them to your site, to share your content and eventually build a following of brand ambassadors willing to do the same. They take care of the “attract and convert,” cycle for you, but first you need to appeal to who they are as people instead of buyers.
- Optimize, Optimize, Optimize
There’s a reason “O” in SEO means Optimization, and that’s because as a component of digital marketing, search engine optimization means identifying and following the rules of major search engines like Yahoo! and Google. Find the target keyword in your headlines and copy that closely matches keywords in your bid to boost your chances of standing apart from your competitors.
- Bam! Take Mobile Marketing Up a Notch
No digital marketing plan is complete without a mobile approach. First things first, see how your site and click-through’s look on your phone. “Googling” your business is important to do on your desktop but be sure to run the mobile test on your phone as well. Review your business information in search results. With organic search results, you should find the following:
- Your website
- Your social media pages
- Google Maps results
- Sites and online directories on which your business is listed
- Links to verifiable third-party content about your business
When checking on desktop and mobile, check:
- That your business name appears in organic search results
- That your information is up-to-date
- The sentiment behind your reviews
- Whether your site is as it should be when viewed via mobile
- Automate to Increase Engagement
Emails may seem like an out-of-date outreach approach but automation still helps increase engagement. When was the last time you were enticed by an email from your favorite department store only to click and click and click until you purchased a pair of shoes you don’t really need. According to SilverPop, automated emails have an average 23.6% unique open rate and 5.0 click-through rate, which is higher than manual sends.
There is a positive impact from automated emails, especially transactional emails, if you provide additional value: where can they go for help? How can they check their status? For you as the marketer, are there cross sell/upsell opportunities you can provide in the email to take advantage of an email’s shelf life?
Examine your email engagement to see your highest-performing communications and, conversely, where you are performing most poorly. During your examination, look at ways you can incorporate more personalization into your emails (back to the social media tip) to nudge your marketing into that of a top performer’s.
Still need help sailing into the marketing wind? Let us help you kick up your marketing strategy. Contact us today!
TOP 10 GEOGRAPHIC NEW GTLD EXTENSIONS
As part of Globe Runner’s efforts to watch the New gTLD extensions in regards to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and our SEO Power Rankings Index, we looked at the geographic extensions. We wanted to know which of the new domain extensions actually have live websites being developed on them. And of those developed websites, which new geographic extensions have the best websites on them. Here’s our list of the top 10 geographic New gTLD extensions.
1 .nrw
2 .scot
3 .brussels
4 .eus
5 .bzh
6 .bayern
7 .hamburg
8 .nyc
9 .paris
10 .berlin
Honorable mention:
11 .vegas
12 .quebec
13 .ruhr
How We Determined the Rankings
We looked at the top 500 new gTLD extensions based on number of registrations. Then we pulled all of the websites that have been developed on those new extensions and looked at the quality of those websites. Some of the factors we used to determine quality were the number of backlinks, the Trust of those sites, and the Trust Flow/Citation Flow of those sites. Trust Flow and Citation Flow are Majestic.com quality factors.
For our geographic-related extensions, we determined that a new gTLD domain extension was geographic-related because of the extension’s restrictions. For example, .NRW has restrictions:
— Restricted to individuals with residence in the postal code area of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia; or
— individuals that have place of business in connection with self-employment or freelance work in the postal code area of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia; or
— entities that have place of business in the postal code area of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia
A few of these extensions technically don’t have registrant restrictions (i.e., they don’t have to have an address in the region), but they sites being built on those extensions are related to the region, so we made an exception.
The top sites that we’ve identified during our review of the data include:
https://land.nrw/
http://www.gov.scot/
http://be.brussels/
http://www.eitb.eus/
Our favorite website built on a New gTLD Extension? Of course it has to be the Eiffel Tour website: https://www.toureiffel.paris/fr.
**Note: Keep in mind that this list is based on the quality websites built on these extensions. There are other geographic extensions that are popular that have a lot of registrations and websites–but they didn’t show up on this particular list. Highly trusted websites have to be built on an extension in order for it to be considered and thus show up on this list.
THE CONTENT TAKEOVER
How much content is on the web and how has it grown over the years?
In March 1989, the World Wide Web turned 26. What was once a thing of sci-fi, the web has grown from Star Trek fiction to an everyday survival tool during its 26 years of life. As newspapers become scarcer and books slowly move towards electronic versions, the web has quickly become the hub for a variety of content from all around the world. Now it’s more than just what content is on the internet, it’s also about how users are engaging the content and what they are using to get to it. Let’s take a look at how the web and its content have grown over the years by looking at when programs and other milestones that encourage content marketing came to be:
1895 – 1987 Magazines take off starting the industry for published and print advertising.
1995 Personal homepage service, Geocities, launches.
1996 Placeware starts offering web conferencing services.
1999 Blogger launches.
2001 $20 billion. The amount spent on custom content.
2003 MySpace launches. As does LinkedIn.
2004 a blog is born. Microsoft launches Channel 9, the first ever corporate blog from a big wig company.
- Also, Facebook is launched.
2006 Twitter is born.
2009 Revised FTC endorsements and testimonials guidelines go into effect impacting endorsers and bloggers.
2010 Content Marketing Institute is born.
- 25% of marketing budgets spent on content marketing.
- 88% of all brands use content marketing
2011 Importance of content is starting to take lead. Chief Content Officer Magazine launches in print and digital.
2013 33% of total budget spent by B2B marketers on content marketing initiatives.
- The most popular content marketing tactics include social media, articles, enewsletters and blogs.
2015 70% of B2B marketers are creating more content than they did one year ago, even those who say they are least effective (58%) and those without any type of strategy (56%). (Content Marketing Institute)
We’ve quickly shifted from worrying about prices and promotions to creating a true connection with consumers through content. If marketing used to be about the 4Ps (Product, Place, Price, Promotion) Socialnomics author Erik Qualman claims it’s increasingly about the 4Cs (Creating, Curating, Connecting and Culture).
As content continues to grow, evolve and take over the web, three things are certain. With content you should:
- Always provide value. It’s about building lasting relationships with brand ambassadors excited to spread the word about your product or service.
- It won’t be read because it exists. Use the content to find your audience by making targeted distribution a key component to your overall content marketing strategy—approach owned media, paid media and earned media channels for a strong three-pronged approach.
- Set specific goals. Set clear objectives and measure your success metrics so you can track, measure and optimize against branding campaigns. Instead of being a jack of all trades, create a niche for your brand and lead the way.
How has your practice evolved alongside content and it’s growth over the years?
PERHAPS THE MOST AWESOME TRADE SHOW BOOTH ON EARTH
When trade show booths turn out just perfect
Last week we got an early present from our client National Trade Shows Displays: The new Globe Runner trade show booth. It will be making its debut at this month’s Texas Restaurant Association Marketplace trade show.
For anyone who’s ordering a booth for the first time or replacing their current one, we feel your apprehension. Choosing the right structure, then the right design, and then practicing dismantling and erecting it can be an intimidating exercise. Fortunately NTSD’s David and Cherie Ostermann (here flanking Globe Runner CEO Eric McGehearty) made the process easy and enjoyable. We have to admit the booth is making us pretty excited for the show.
We chose a 10 foot Coyote curved Pop-Up and, to stand out from other exhibitors, decided to go for a whimsical illustration as the backdrop. Hence this fun cow jumping over the moon, one of several illustrations commissioned from artist, illustrator and muralist Jen Carnes of Little Cloud Design.
Thank you National Trade Show Displays, for making this awesome booth. We promise to pack it up properly and not kink it or anything.
And thank you Jen, for this fab drawing. We think it captures the spirit of Globe Runner perfectly.
Globe Runner will be at the Texas Restaurant Association Marketplace event on June 28-29, 2015. Visit us at Booth 1210 if you are attending. Eric will also be speaking at the Technology Pavilion about how to get found on Google. Plus: Check out this infographic on Texas food that we created in honor of the occasion.
A TEXAS RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION-INSPIRED INFOGRAPHIC
The Texas Restaurant Association’s annual Marketplace is one of the largest and most prominent food and beverage industry events in the Southwestern region of the United States. Over 300 exhibitors from the restaurant, food supply and food services sector will be at the trade show which will be held at the Dallas Convention Center on June 28 to 29, 2015.
Globe Runner will be exhibiting for the first time at Marketplace, and CEO Eric McGehearty will be speaking at the Technology Pavilion about how to improve your local search rankings. If you are at the event, do drop by our booth or attend Eric’s talks. We have a lot of experience in marketing, branding and SEO for the food and beverage sector, so feel free to pick our brains over these two days!
In the spirit of the occasion (and since Marketplace is making us think about food), we created this short infographic about Texan food stats and famous food brands. Feel free to share it or embed it in your own blog.
THE THREE MOST IMPORTANT CITATIONS FOR A CONSISTENT ONLINE BRAND
Dun & Bradstreet, Assumed Names & Secretary of State Records
But First, Are Citations Still Important for Search Rankings?
In regards to Local search engine optimization, citations are mentions of a business name, address and phone on an authoritative site, and they still play a role in rankings online. Search engines like Google use this data to understand where your business is located and what it is called.
In the most recent Moz study of Local SEO ranking factors, citation consistency is still a top contributor. 15.5% of the reason your business or a competitor ranks well in local results is due to a consistent business name, address and phone number online.
Brand signals are also becoming more important in 2015 and will continue to affect organic results. The number of customers searching for your business name in Google, is a widely speculated ranking factor, revealing strong brand awareness. Press and media should refer to your business name and products correctly, spelled correctly. Ideally, all online mentions of the business name and address, should match Dun & Bradstreet, Assumed Name Records and Tax Records.
These three citations in particular are often overlooked by business owners and SEO consultants, yet reveal issues in NAP (name, address and phone) and the brand, that can plague a business online and cause more headaches if ignored.
The Most Official Citations
Dun & Bradstreet, Doing Business As (DBA) or Assumed Name records and Secretary of State Listings are the most official citations, created when the business was originally started or each year during tax season. Dun & Bradstreet is the oldest business directory in existence, since 1841. That predates YELP by a few years I believe!
The first task of a local SEO campaign is to lock down the business data: the official business name, address, phone, website, pictures, categories etc. Here’s the problem, you can’t simply ask the business owner what the official name of the business is… In the same way you should check address formatting using the USPS zip code tool, it should be a mandatory step to check the legal business name on all three of these official sources.
More reasons why these three citations are important
- The NAP is indexed by Google and visible to customers
- The NAP is shared with other data aggregators, meaning inconsistency on these three citations will affect many other sites.
- The NAP is official government information and a strong signal of brand name and geolocation signals.
Ready to get started? Find out how to update and claim these citations in the following guide. As a bonus, we will even address several common questions around business names and the implications it can have online.[contact-form-7 404 “Not Found”]
TOP 20 BEST NEW GTLDS BASED ON QUALITY
As a part of Globe Runner’s New gTLD SEO Power Rankings Index, we gathered data from over 20,000 websites that have been actually built–or developed, on New gTLD domain names. From that list of over 20,000 websites, we have studied these websites’ qualities, and pulled a lot of other interested data. We were able to find the best New gTLDs based on quality.
Sure, there have been a lot of New gTLD domain names registered, but just because a domain name is registered doesn’t mean that an actual website has been built on that domain name. Globe Runner took the time to come up with an extensive list of fully developed websites–most of which are indexed in the search engines, and some actually ranking well in the search results.
One of the data points that we analyzed was related to the quality of the websites built on the New gTLD domain names. What we wanted to know is which New gTLDs have been more successful in attracting quality websites to be built on their TLD.
Based on quality–mainly the Majestic.com Trust Flow factor. Here is our list of the top 20 New gTLDs with the best domain names, based on Trust Flow.
Top 20 TLDs with Best Domains Based on Trust Flow
.nrw
.scot
.brussels
.eus
.bzh
.agency
.wiki
.foundation
.tips
.today
.bayern
.hamburg
.nyc
.digital
.farm
.domains
.london
.marketing
.beer
.guru
Trust Flow is defined by Majestic.com in this way:
Trust Flow, a trademark of Majestic, is a score based on quality, on a scale between 0-100. Majestic collated many trusted seed sites based on a manual review of the web. This process forms the foundation of Majestic Trust Flow. Sites closely linked to a trusted seed site can see higher scores, whereas sites that may have some questionable links would see a much lower score.
Globe Runner considers Trust Flow to be a very important factor when gauging the overall quality of a website, as the most trusted websites have a higher Trust Flow value.
Globe Runner also looked at the actual websites with the highest Trust Flow values assigned to them from Majestic. The following is a sample of the best New gTLD domain names that we found based on Trust Flow:
URL Trust Flow
https://land.nrw/ 71
http://www.gov.scot/ 69
http://be.brussels/ 69
http://www.eitb.eus/ 67
http://www.bretagne.bzh/ 67
http://yanntiersen.bzh/ 66
http://www.leefmilieu.brussels/ 65
http://rabbithole.agency/ 62
http://www.berria.eus/ 61
http://kodi.wiki/ 61
http://lgbt.foundation/ 61
http://www.argia.eus/ 60
http://thehub.tips/ 60
http://www.flowercarpet.brussels/ 60
http://www.kreuzfahrten24.today/ 59
http://cirb.brussels/ 59
http://www.gruenderland.bayern/ 58
https://www.medianet.hamburg/ 57
http://www.pik.bzh/ 56
http://gaycitynews.nyc/ 56
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