DECEMBER MONTHLY SUMMARY
Globe Runner SEO Year in Review
Before we look ahead to the New Year, we felt it appropriate to spend a moment and review some of the successes of 2012. A banner year in many respects, some of the largest changes came internally, where three of our own were promoted to new positions, with the advancement of Cody Sharp to SEO Team Lead, Felipe Rocha to Lead Developer, and Damon Gochneaur to Director of Marketing. With strong leadership in place, Globe Runner added some core team members in Andy Odom, Account Strategist, Claire Parker, Communications Specialist, and Cameron Fergus, Web Developer.
While growing our team and client list, we were also proud to maintain a key position in the industry, with our CEO, Eric McGehearty, being re-elected to the DFWSEM Board of Directors as Vice President of Sponsorship. DFWSEM is the largest regional Search Engine Marketing professionals group in the country and helps to validate our role in both our local community as well as our professional circles
2013 SEO Trends
A study conducted at the end of 2012, has shown that SEO is increasing in recognition in importance as a part of an overall marketing strategy. This is illustrated by survey participants: 66% indicated that their marketing budgets were increased for 2013, 6 out of 10, reported that they were increasing their SEO budget for the following year, and 16% of organizations now have a dedicated Search department. Search as a marketing strategy continues to grow. At Globe Runner we are prepared for this and are staying ahead of the curve and continuing to develop our strategies to help our clients rank ahead of the competition.
Two trends that are predicted to take a major role in 2013 are link diversification and content marketing. At Globe Runner, we have always taken a diversified anchor text link strategy, believing that it was best to diversify back link profiles and have anchor text links to relevant content that our clients’ customers are searching. Globe Runner’s content marketing strategy has been focused on encouraging and assisting our clients in publishing and optimizing quality content often, keeping a company site fresh and useful for customers. We also stress the importance of publishing relevant, interesting company news as press releases.
Big Data is another important topic for 2013. More and more data is now available from search and social platforms. These platforms are no longer in their infancy and for the first time reliable data is available. The challenge will be to analyze and apply this data in data driven decision making. The statistics below illustrate just how much data is available and what the industry is describing as “Big Data.”
This data is really staggering when you think about its implications. New tools like Facebook Graph Search will help with the applications of this data.
Big Data Stats:
- 1 billion Facebook users
- 500 terabytes of data per day
- 2.7 billion “Like” actions per day
- 2.5 billion pieces of content per day
- 300 million photos per day
- 500 million Twitter users
- 400 million tweets per day
- 156 million Public Blogs
Social News
Facebook announced a new search tool on Tuesday: Facebook Graph Search. Graph Search will allow Facebook users to search for information about their friends within the platform. Searches can be done for information about people, photos, places, and interests. For example, within Graph Search, a user will be able to search for which of their friends like the show, How I Met Your Mother and are from Denton. The search results will display your friends. You will also be able to search friends of friends. The search tool will not violate Facebook privacy settings in anyway because the only information that will show up in search results is data that is normally viewable on Facebook based on users’ privacy settings.
The implications for social media strategy with the Graph Search tool are exciting. The tool is currently in beta mode, but once it is available, brands will be able to use the search data to highly target certain fans in a much more personal way. Watch the demo from Facebook.
Resources
NOVEMBER MONTHLY SUMMARY
Globe Runner SEO Updates
November has been a busy month with some internal changes including the format of our monthly and weekly reports. Do not be surprised if the reports you see in January are formatted differently than what we have previously sent out.
Continuing our season of networking events, our SEO Team Lead, Cody, went to the Dallas Digital Summit. The speakers at the Summit had a central theme around the wealth of data that is provided with digital marketing and how using this data appropriately leads to better decision making and an increased ROI. Our philosophy at Globe Runner this year has been “data driven decision making” we have seen this confirmed by our peers as a winning strategy and many of our clients have benefited from these decisions.
2013 SEO Predictions
Our CEO, Eric McGehearty, recently put together some predictions for the coming year in the online marketing space. The talk was originally given for the members of TIE. In the talk, Eric discussed likely changes in the Google algorithm, possible tech mergers and acquisitions, continued growth of mobile and upsets in the social media space. The talk also focused on opportunities for entrepreneurs to leverage online marketing to their business advantages. Here is a preview of the talk.
Social News
If you are one of the millions of Twitter and Instagram users then you have probably noticed that Instagram photos no longer show up in your Twitter feed and you will now have to click on the Instagram photo link to see the photos. This is just one of the ways the social sphere is becoming more and more cutthroat as each social media platform vies for dominance. It is becoming even more important now to have a social media strategy that customizes your messaging specifically for each platform.
Resources
HUNGRY TO TAKE OVER THE WEB? CITYSEARCH IS!
With the launch of its YouTube Channel Hungry, Citysearch is becoming a major player in the video content space. Recognizing that the web gets more local every day, Citysearch’s new channel celebrates local culture while expanding its local influence. My sister-in-law Tolly Moseley is the Austin, TX host for Hungry: Check out her latest episode to see how Hungry offers visitors a taste of Austin:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/aLJ2t1w_MMY?rel=0
CityGrid Media, the internet conglomerate that owns CitySearch, is far more than just a website. It’s a global-scale media company and publisher that understands the importance of local content. Unlike other ad networks, CityGrid publishes massive amounts of quality content through its various sites including Citysearch, Urbanspoon, and Insider Pages. Having proven the content marketing model, Citysearch and CityGrid Media now attract local and national advertisers alike.
What can small to midsize businesses learn from the CityGrid model?
First: Invest in Quality Content
Take the time to create stories worth reading and videos worth watching. Remember, the idea behind content marketing is to produce content that becomes your advertisement, rather than purchase advertising space alongside someone else’s content. Your content needs to be good enough that people seek it out.
Second: Go Local
We all love to hear about the places we live in and travel to. If you have a local presence, make a big deal about it. If not, you can still produce content and advertisements that are targeted to the cities you serve.
Finally: Be Authentic
Find your voice as a brand, and find voices that can help you make an impact in your target cities. Local talent can make a big difference. Hungry’s local hosts, for example, all have existing fan bases that the channel can leverage and build upon.
If you’re hungry to build your business online, follow the Citigrid recipe: use authentic, local ingredients and don’t skimp on quality.
THE KEY TO YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE
Customers are more tech-savvy than ever and the number of consumers who grew up interacting online is growing. Businesses have been flocking to the online world to spread their message and look for new buyers, but all too often the message is fake, forced, or just not relevant to modern customers.
Perhaps the most important orthodoxy underlying a brand’s online presence should be authenticity. Being online isn’t enough; you have to be real. It’s what people expect today, and they know the difference when it’s forced.
“I just met you, and this is crazy, but here’s my business card, so pay me maybe?”
The Internet IS the public sphere, especially in the area of social media. It’s where people gather, exchange comments and ideas, and network. But just because this is taking place online instead of face to face doesn’t mean common rules of personal etiquette don’t apply, even for a business
If you go to a dinner party or industry networking event, do you walk around introducing yourself to people, hand them your business card, and brow-beat them with information about your services and company? No. You try to have a real conversation with equal parts speaking and listening. You begin to build real relationships. And so should any authentic business looking to create a positive presence online.
Luckily, there are more tools for businesses to do this than ever. Don’t worry about being everywhere; no one belongs to every social club in town. Pick the ones that work best for your business and be real.
Authentic People Are Aware
Another key to online authenticity is awareness. Authentic people are aware of what’s going on around them. They follow up with friends and ask how their recent vacations are or how that big meeting went at work last week. Unaware people are sloppy. An unaware person forgets names. An authentic business has the same awareness about their community of online followers and the general world around them.
Unfortunately, there have been quite a few examples of brands online who haven’t made awareness, and therefore authenticity, a priority in their online presence. Take the National Rifle Association, for example. The morning after the tragic shootings in Aurora, CO, earlier this year, the NRA tweeted, “Good Morning, Happy Friday! Weekend plans?” While the NRA commented that the tweeter wasn’t aware of the shooting, the tweet stayed on their page for hours. A more aware online presence would have addressed the issue, or at least deleted the tweet, much more quickly.
Compare this with episode with Kitchen-Aid. During the first Presidential debate of 2012, the Kitchen-Aid twitter account posted: “‘Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president’.” The tweet instantly went viral, and was almost immediately deleted and followed with a swift succession of tweets explaining that a staffer posted to the wrong account, apologizing for the comment, and reaching out to press outlets offering official comments. That is an aware brand.
Now, this brings up the situation of allowing others to tweet on your company’s behalf or scheduling posts ahead of time. There’s a lot of conjecture about both of these practices, but long story short, if the underlying principal of authenticity is maintained, neither are “wrong”.
Penguin And Panda Will Get You
Thanks to Google, we’ll never look at cute penguins or cuddly pandas the same way ever again. Penguin and panda are code-names for recent updates Google made to their algorithms that return search results, with Panda targeting online content and Penguin focusing on links. Google is always working to show the most relevant and legitimate search results, so it wants to weed out spam and bad content as much as possible. That means Google is looking to reward authentic content and punish bad or unauthentic content.
Websites with weak content, content that doesn’t relate to the purpose of the website, or was copy and pasted from another source, will face the wrath of penguin and panda. However, websites that have original, thoughtful, and engaging content are rewarded.
There’s more online content being generated by businesses than ever. It’s a lot to sift through. And while most businesses won’t ever have the great viral video that the whole world sees, having an authentic presence online will help ensure that when you’re brand is found online, potential customers will want to spend time with/on what you have to say.
SEPTEMBER SEO UPDATE
September Monthly Summary
Google Updates
On September 27, Google released a Panda algorithm update and an Exact Match Domain (EMD) Update. The EMD update targets domains that exactly match the search terms they hope to be found with and devalues those domains. For example, domains such a playscrabble.net and purses.com which previously ranked #3 for their respective exact match phrases (“play scrabble” and “purses”) have now been dropped out of the top 10 search results. The following graph illustrates the effect of this update.
According to a tweet from Matt Cutts, “New exact-match domain (EMD) algo affects 0.6% of English-US queries to a noticeable degree.” This update is extremely important because exact match domains used to be a very common SEO tactic and after this update it is clear that this tactic/shortcut to rankings is no longer effective. As an agency, we are following this update closely and are continuing to use proven effective strategies like great quality content and link building for our clients.
On October 4, Google announced 65 changes to their search algorithm. As usual, we have highlighted the updates we are most interested in.
- #82862. [project “Page Quality”] This launch helped you find more high-quality content from trusted sources.
- #84394. [project “Page Quality”] This launch helped you find more high-quality content from trusted sources.
- #84010. [project “Page Quality”] We refreshed data for the “Panda” high-quality sites algorithm.
These updates are all concerned with making sure the highest quality pages are listed first in Google’s search results.
- #83761. [project “Freshness”] This change helped you find the latest content from a given site when two or more documents from the same domain are relevant for a given search query.
- Imadex. [project “Freshness”] This change updated handling of stale content and applies a more granular function based on document age.
Fresh high quality content is continuing to be extremely important to Google search results. The more relevant and interesting the content on your site is, the higher the algorithm will rank your pages. These updates should also begin to move down those old, entrenched pdfs that sometimes rank third or fourth for a keyword, even though they were written years ago.
- #82279. [project “Other Ranking Components”] We changed to fewer results for some queries to show the most relevant results as quickly as possible.
- LTS. [project “Other Ranking Components”] We improved our web ranking to determine what pages are relevant for queries containing locations.
- #84586. [project “Other Ranking Components”] This change improved how we rank documents for queries with location terms.
- #83406. [project “Query Understanding”] We improved our ability to show relevant Universal Search results by better understanding when a search has strong image intent, local intent, video intent, etc.
Last month’s summary mentioned that Google is now sometimes only displaying only 7 results for certain search queries as opposed to the usual 10. Google’s latest updates confirm that this will continue and that we can expect to see fewer results but an increased relevancy of those results.
Just For Fun
The holidays are right around the corner and if you are going to be flying to visit family this year, you might want to check out Google Flight Search. As of Sept. 28, you can now search for flights from your tablet. What is unique about using Google to search for flights instead of Expedia, Hotwire, or Priceline is you can search all airports near a city at once. For example, a search from Dallas, TX to New York, NY shows you a comparison of flights from both DAL and DFW to JFK, LGA, and EWR.
Resources
AUGUST SEO UPDATE
State of the Search Industry Update
August was another month without a published Google update list so this month’s update is more of a “state of the industry” update. According to the State of Search Marketing Report 2012, search has grown 19% since 2011 and is predicted to reach an estimated $23 billion dollars by the end of the year. This growth is expected to continue at a 13% rate through 2013.
7 is the New 10
Google did make one very important algorithm change this month. Now some search queries are only pulling seven results on the first page. These first seven results may also be less diverse and much more branded. For example a search for “pc tools” returns only seven organic results. The middle of August showed this change dramatically and SEOMOZ reported that almost one-fifth of the SERPs they tracked were showing only 7 results.
Google’s 86 June-July Updates included three updates specifically mentioning site clustering. Site clustering is showing multiple links from the same domain in the search results.
- #82541. [project codename “Other Ranking Components”] This is one of multiple projects that we’re working on to make our system for clustering web results better and simpler.
- NoPathsForClustering. [project codename “Other Ranking Components”] We’ve made our algorithm for clustering web results from the same site or same path (same URL up until the last slash) more consistent. This is one of multiple projects that we’re working on to make our clustering system better and simpler.
- bergen. [project codename “Other Ranking Components”] This is one of multiple projects that we’re working on to make our system for clustering web results better and simpler.
Google’s response to this 7 result change was:
We’re continuing to work out the best ways to show multiple results from a single site when it’s clear users are interested in that site. Separately, we’re also experimenting with varying the number of results per page, as we do periodically. Overall our goal is to provide the most relevant results for a given query as quickly as possible, whether it’s a wide variety of sources or navigation deep into a particular source. There’s always room for improvement, so we’re going to keep working on getting the mix right.
At GlobeRunnerSEO, we are watching these changes very closely and working very hard to make sure our clients continue to rank on the first page, whether there are 7 or 10 results on that first page.
Link Building—it’s about Quality and Quantity
This week we went to DFWSEM, the largest and most important search marketing professional group in the area. We discussed links and how even with the updates to Penguin being termed “jolting” in the near future, both the quality and quantity of links will remain important to rankings.
Social Rankings Devalued?
Google has devalued social signals recently because Facebook and Twitter have blocked Google from crawling their data at different times and as Matt Cutts put it, “We can’t use what we can’t see.” This does not mean that you should give up your social campaigns. Social media is extremely important in branding, reputation, and customer service. A strong brand presence on the web drives traffic and conversions. We and several of our peers at DFWSEM predict that social media will be the fourth pillar of SEO in the very near future, joining the well-established pillars: site architecture, links, and content.
Google+ and Google Authorship of articles and blog posts have not been devalued because Google can see this data. Google Authorship (linking your Google+ profile) to a blog article you have written automatically pushes your article’s rankings higher.
Bing, on the other hand, is incorporating more social results into their search results. Bing announced in September that Quora data will now be included in their search results.
Just For Fun
We don’t typically talk much about Bing and a client’s rankings on Bing; since Bing makes up only 25.3% of all organic searches (Google processes 68.8% of all organic searches). However, Microsoft is running a blind taste test to see if users prefer Google or Bing search results. Here’s the link to the test www.bingiton.com, let us know which search engine you prefer and we will tell you which engine’s results the GlobeRunner team preferred.
Resources
WHAT IS SEO?
In a world where we are so often identified by what we do as who we are, being in SEO doesn’t always help people draw the most accurate picture of what I do or who I am. So in an effort to provide a frame of reference for our own clients, as well as potential clients, I wanted to take a minute and lay out the basic framework of SEO.
SEO is Search Engine Optimization, or literally the efforts made in helping your web site to appear more prominently in Search Engine results, ie Google. The reality of our world is when people have a need, of any type, they immediately use search to begin to solve their problem. Search, and more poignantly, Google, has changed the way in which the world accesses and judges information, in so much that whatever results are returned for a particular search, are generally viewed as the best or most appropriate results. The bottom line is regardless of the product you sell, the service you offer, whether you are a business-to-business industry or a consumer facing industry, people, your potential clients and customers, are searching for your product, for information about your product, for reviews, for specifications, searching for answers. SEO helps connect your business with those customers searching for you.
SEO is not a fixed concept, nor is it an agreed upon set of rules or best practices. SEO is a dynamic and evolving industry that has seen tumultuous change and redirection nearly every year. What does not change is the fundamentals of where SEO takes place and what Google looks to in order to help “rank” your site. These ranking factors may change in weight, or how google values each factor, as well as entirely new factors arising. When we talk about SEO and ranking factors we talk about 2 main things: On-Site & Off-Site.
On-Site
When we talk about On-Site we’re referring to the actual coding and elements of your website: How your content is structured and organized, the particular elemental tags used to differentiate content on your site, from the way you tag your images to the url structure and page types you employ. Quality SEO is diving into each page, having a clear goal in mind and a coordinated effort for all elements of the page towards the particular page goal.
Off-Site
The other main factor is what is happening in reference to your site, out in the web. So in addition to how you structure your content and label it, Google also wants to see some authority on the web with regard to your content. The best way of weighting the value of a site’s content is by evaluating the number of other sites that link to that particular page and/or domain. This is the essence of backlinks, or other sites that link back to your website. The type of link and value of each type vary widely, but what remains consistent is the need for quality backlinks in order to move the needle. In recent years we’ve seen the emergence of social media as a factor, with Google going as far as creating their own Social Media Network in order to try and leverage the power of search with the power of social.
Bottom line, SEO is an evolving industry, which is here to stay. There were nearly 20 billion searches in the US alone last month, and this number is rising, not decreasing. If you’re currently engaging on SEO, kudos. If you’re not, then do a couple of quick Google searches for a keyword in your industry. Take note of whom appears at the top of those results. While you’re not making the effort, your competitor is.
Look for our next article, “What to look for in an SEO firm”, due later this week and when results matter, GlobeRunner SEO.
JULY SEO UPDATE
Google Updates
After a silent June, Google announced 86 changes/updates to their search algorithm this past Friday. As usual, we are going to highlight the changes that we are most interested in because they result directly to how we optimize and grow our clients’ web presence. No matter the changes, we are keeping up with what effects your rankings. There are several updates reinforcing that fresh, unique, and useful content is of the utmost importance to continuing to rank well. These updates include:
- Bamse. [project codename “Page Quality”] This launch helps you find more high-quality content from trusted sources.
- Bamse-17L. [project codename “Page Quality”] This launch helps you find more high-quality content from trusted sources.
- GreenLandII. [project codename “Page Quality”] We’ve incorporated new data into the Panda algorithm to better detect high-quality sites and pages.
- #82353. [project codename “Page Quality”] This change refreshes data for the Panda high-quality sites algorithm.
- #82666. [project codename “Page Quality”] This launch helps you find more high-quality content from trusted sources.
- Hamel. [project codename “Page Quality”] This change updates a model we use to help you find high-quality pages with unique content.
- Lime. [project codename “Freshness”] This change improves the interaction between various search components to improve search results for searches looking for fresh content.
Google also announced a few changes to the way they are ordering search results with this update:
- ng2. [project codename “Other Ranking Components”] Better ordering of top results using a new and improved ranking function for combining several key ranking features.
There has not been a lot of information related to this change released yet, but we will be continuing to monitor how these changes will effect rankings in the coming months.
Press Releases and Penguin and Panda
Press releases are one of the strategies that we use at Globe Runner to build links to your website. We try to write these press releases about current events in your industry and relevant to your business. Our primary goal with these press releases is to gain high quality links. In the aftermath of the Penguin and Panda algorithm updates, this is still a valid strategy, however, it is even more important now that press releases for SEO be written as normal, media focused press releases and not just stuffed with links or as promotional pieces.
Mobile Update
Mobile searches are increasingly popular and have extremely high conversion rates. A study featuring 6000 mobile users stated that 85% of users who searched for a restaurant on their smartphone purchased within 24hrs of the search. Results like these are why we at Globe Runner stress the importance of optimizing our client’s local pages like Google+Local, Yelp, Foursquare, Yahoo, and Bing local pages.
Social Media Update
Social Media is often confusing and many of our customers wonder about the effectiveness of their actions. The following graph, published by MarketingSherpa in their 2012 Social Media Benchmark Report, shows the effectiveness of each tactic to achieve objectives vs. the degree of difficulty to accomplish the task. The size of the circles represents the percentage of companies taking these actions.
At Globe Runner SEO, we specialize in social media integration with search engine optimization. Current with the industry trends our social media strategy focuses on first optimizing your business’ social sites managing your social campaigns, and encouraging blogger relationships. These strategies ultimately build your brand credibility which builds authority which in turn boosts your rankings.
One final Social update, Google+ is finally rolling out vanity urls for their Google+ and Google+Local pages. At last, Google+ pages will show the name of the place in the url. For example, our vanity url will be google.com/+globerunnerseo. Unfortunately, this is a slow rollout by Google and right now only the biggest players like Toyota, Delta, and Britney Spears have received their vanity urls. Look for this optimization in the coming weeks or months. We are monitoring this update to make sure our clients’ profiles receive their vanity urls as soon as they are available.
Just for fun
At Globe Runner we are tech junkies and love our smart phones and as you can tell, we are very much Google-groupies, following all of Google’s updates very closely. One of the more fun recent updates we were excited about was the update that lets you handwrite your search queries on your smart phone or tablet.
During the Olympics the Google Doodles have been interactive games based on the Olympic sports and these games have been a fun source of office competition before our morning meetings. However, our favorite Doodle was this one featuring our office’s favorite team building activity.
JUNE 2012 SEO UPDATE
June updates included two Panda updates, version 3.7 and 3.8, a first Penguin refresh, but there hasn’t been much chatter about those updates meaning they were probably pretty minor. Google did confirm that links still carry more weight and are more important to your core rankings than social media. Also, there are no “No Follow Penalties” from Google for including several no follow links on a site.
Other updates in the search engine blog-o-sphere included talk about how to manage multiple listings or locations on your website without having too much duplicate content. For example, many of our clients own businesses with multiple locations throughout the Metroplex. A question we are often asked is, “Can we use the same information on each of our unique location pages?” Matt Cutts, Distinguished Engineer at Google, leading the webspam team, says that rather than repeat the whole history of the company or a long pitch, it is best to just list the address and contact information for the location and 2-3 sentences about what is unique to that location. This will prevent Google from flagging your site for too much duplicate content.
Google Product Search has now become Google Shopping. Google is for the first time discontinuing their free product shopping search in exchange for a “paid inclusion model.” A paid inclusion model is “a model where companies pay to be listed, but payment does not guarantee that they rank well for any particular terms.” Product listings will now need to be created through Google AdWords in campaigns for Google Shopping. If you are already running Product Listing Ads, then you will be familiar with the process because Google Shopping campaigns will be very similar, so similar in fact, that once Google Shopping is fully released, Product Listing Ads will be phased out. Google Shopping will offer benefits of allowing merchants to advertise their special deals and offers as well as present potential customers with better quality pricing information.
One change to the shopping experience you may notice right away is Google has shifted shopping results to the top right of the page as opposed to the top of the listings. This will help keep organic results at the top of the page. See the below for an example of a search I did for “laptop computers.”
PPC Update
Online Marketing continues to be a growing and evolving space. It’s been reported that in the 1st Quarter of 2012 online advertising spend increased 12%, a healthy growth rate. This should come as no surprise, if you’re reading this summary then you’ve already made online marketing a priority in your efforts and chances are your competition has as well.
Globe Runner Update
Monthly reports will now be sent out on the 15th of the month rather than the beginning of each month.
Resources
Interview with Matt Cutts about what makes a quality site
Google Product Search to become Google Shopping
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