The average layperson probably doesn’t give much thought to Google’s search algorithm. As long as they can type their query into the search bar, hit a button, and get relevant results, then they’re happy! However, most business owners and professional bloggers have a vested interest in making sure that their site shows up on the first page of the Google’s search results. If you’re part of the aforementioned demographic, then it’s actually essential for you to know how Google finds and ranks pages.

Here’s the bottom line: a high ranking on a Google search can turn someone who’s never heard of your company into an interested, paying customer. So don’t let technical issues trip you up! Take the time to do things right, and your relationship with Google will be an advantageous one.

A lot of people grumble when they call a business or customer service line and wind up talking to a recording instead of a real person. But how would you feel if you spent several minutes conversing with someone on the phone and then later learned that the “person” you spoke to was actually a computer? This may sound like something straight out of science fiction, but with the advent of Google’s new technology, this scenario may become more and more common in real life!

In this video, we’ll discuss Google Duplex, a program that acts as a “virtual concierge” for consumers. Here’s how it works: if you tell your phone to make you an appointment at a local business, the program won’t just reserve one using an online scheduling interface—it will actually call the business and “speak” to an employee. And it’s so skilled at parsing language and responding in a realistic way that the employee may not realize that they’re talking to a digital application. In fact, the AI was initially so convincing that, after its debut, Google later agreed to add a forewarning of sorts to the digital calls so that people wouldn’t be fooled.

As far we’re concerned, this technology is astonishing, thought-provoking, and maybe just a little bit spooky…

By definition, ‘meta’ describes a thing that refers to itself. The word might also conjure something small. Both of these descriptors appropriately characterize the snippet that HTML tags use to summarize a page’s primary content and focus.

But these brief precursors are no small matter. They’re arguably the most significant determinant for whether or not your site gets visited or passed over by a potential customer.

And yet, in short supply these shorties are not – every second, search engines flash millions of metas in response to search queries. Here’s how to stay above the fray and increase your web traffic with compelling meta descriptions.

More about Metas

Meta descriptions are the short block of text that sits below a suggested website on the search engine results page (SERP) – see below. The space in which they appear is limited, and so are your characters.

In late 2017 Google released an algorithm update that lengthened meta descriptions to 320 characters. Since then, there’s been some debate about length. Our recommendation? Pack in the most critical elements within about 160 characters. Otherwise, you risk all that compelling content being trunked (by the search engines that be).

How do Meta Descriptions Improve your Page Rank?

“Officially” you’ll reap no explicit ranking benefits from your meta descriptions. True, they aren’t directly built into the algorithm, but they still heavily impact your site’s click-through-rate (CTR). This, in turn, tells Google whether or not you’re a good match for specific search queries and subsequently where to order you on the SERP.

Writing Magical Meta Descriptions

Google Dallas SEO agency and you’ll get an onslaught of companies vying for your business. Before a customer ever has the chance to be swayed by your company’s prestigious awards, expert web design, or testimonials, the 2-3 sentences in your meta description will form the basis of their decision.

Meta descriptions are a fantastic way to your showcase services and collect clicks, so long as you:

1. Write them like an elevator pitch. If you had just 15-seconds to make your sell, what would you say? Now’s the time to make sure your words are concentrated and direct, punchy and enticing. There’s no room for fluff. Every syllable counts.
2. Create one for each page. Unique meta descriptions are a critical element of every page on your website. The more context and clarity you can provide up front, the more clicks you can solicit. Give each page the stage for a few brief seconds to capitalize on its full potential.
3. Proofread then re-read. Give your meta copy the same level of care you would a billboard. Though the spacing may be small, the impact is substantial. Typos in your meta descriptions rob you of legitimacy and could very well cost you potential sales.
4. Include a CTA. Whether you want them to learn more about your product, try it out risk-free, or redeem a discount code, the more action-oriented perks you give, the more clicks you’ll get.
5. Make them keyword-focused. You aren’t turning up in searches by pure luck. Users are on the hunt for something specific. Make sure you target that special something with well-researched keywords. Not only does it make the search engines take notice, potential customers will, too.

Get meta with your meta descriptions and optimize them down to the smallest detail. Doing so could mean the difference between ranking on Google’s first page and being crowded out by a louder, more compelling online elevator pitch.

Want to increase your page ranking on Google SERPs? Let us give you a lift.

The Possum update. Yet another animal update from Google. This one actually wasn’t named by Google. The search industry as a whole came up with the name.

What is the Possum update? It specifically addresses the map search portion of Google. It doesn’t address the rest of search. If you are affected by Possum, it would only be the maps or the locations part of your search. I have five points I want to cover about the Possum update.

The first one is separating the maps algorithm and the organic algorithm. Possum really pushes those algorithms apart and we find a stronger differentiator between what shows in maps versus what shows in organic. Back in the day, it was pretty muddled and a little more mixed. Now with Possum, there are very distinct algorithms.

Point two is the location of the searcher. The location of where I am physically standing when I do the search plays a massive part in results. That’s gone up tremendously since Possum. Google has gotten much more sophisticated about picking up the exact location of the searcher and serving the best result based on that location.

It completely makes sense. It’s actually a really good part of this update, I would say.

Another one is outside of city limits or surrounding areas are getting included more often. Before Possum, the name of the city that you were physically in made a big impact.

If I, for instance, looked for plumbing companies in Frisco, I would get plumbing companies that physically were in Frisco. It was less likely that I’d get a plumbing company in a neighboring city, even if that plumbing company was the best result for me.

Now, Google is much more likely to pull results from surrounding cities or adjacent cities into that result if they’re physically in good proximity and have good user reviews and things like that.

Another one is stricter filtering. Stricter filtering applies to a lot of businesses that maybe were trying to game the system a little bit by having locations that maybe weren’t their headquarters or weren’t their main location.

Maybe they had a Regus office or something like that, or maybe they were using their home address as their business address. Google has gotten much better with stricter filtering.

My last point is double location. Google has gotten much better at filtering out double locations. A lot of business owners had a building that they could split into two parts and have two different addresses and try to rank twice for the same search term.

Google has gotten much better identifying that. In fact, they’re going all the way up to the business ownership information to identify facts like these.

Let’s look at an example. Maybe somebody owns two buildings on the same street. There are two different addresses but they are really the same business, even if they have completely different names. Google can identify that through the business ownership information and will now only show one result.

Your likelihood of getting two listings by naming your business two different things has gone down dramatically. Local search has gotten a little more complicated, and just managing your citations is not enough anymore.

We’ve come up with a strategy specifically for Possum to help our clients get better results with these new algorithm updates. If you’d like to learn more about our strategy and have that implemented for you, give us a call. We’d love to talk to you and come up with a strategy that fits your business needs.

We have customers that are B2B, and we also customers that are B2C. I think it’s interesting to dive into some of the differences in the way that we approach their marketing and some of the similarities between the two arts.

Today, I want to focus in on content marketing and link building for a B2B company versus a B2C company.

On the B2B side, some tactics that have been very successful are influencer outreach and guest posting in industry publications. We start the process of getting our clients involved in different industry organizations and getting links from those.

Other tactics include infographs. An infograph can be very successful in B2B marketing. Partners and vendors will commonly share or repost infographs on social media. They also can be successful in B2C, but it’s a little more targeted on the B2B side.

Now, B2C marketing is different. We’ve got to capture everybody’s attention. The content that we produce has to be very creative. Usually, it’s more fun and less serious, but that’s not always the case. It’s content that grabs people’s attention and people want to share it because they enjoy interacting with your brand.

What I’ve noticed is brands that link build using content are generally the brands that people like. People love that brand and they want to share their posts. They want to post about them on their Tumblr account. They want to show brand affiliation. On the B2C side, brand affiliation is a huge part of successful link building.

One of the most common strategies we do to get people excited about a brand is product reviews. Everyone values external validation. Reviews are great even for small brands or brands that no one’s ever heard of. A product review can validate the product and also can get links for that product and elevate your presence in search.

When you think about the two, you really have to separate your mind and go, “Who are we selling to and why are they buying?” It’s really the same question on link building. It’s “Who would link to us and why would they link to us?” Usually, it’s not always your customers.

A lot of the time on B2B, it’s your vendors or people you have business relationships with and B2C is your brand advocates. Think about that when you’re coming up with link strategies and separate in your mind what you do for B2B and B2C.

Thanks so much for reading. If you have any questions that you’d like answered in a future video, leave them in the comments. I look forward to reading them and hopefully answering those questions in a future video.

If you’re looking for a new technique to enhance your SEO, Schema is a powerful tool to boost your search engine result pages, also referred to as (SERPs). Not too many people use Schema, but it’s something that most people see and interact with on a daily basis.

Why Is It Important?

Not only does Schema enhance your general search engine results, and the way that they are displayed to users, but they can improve your click through rates on your website. Schema allows Google to show your website to a larger variety of searches, further gaining the attention of a wider audience.

Where & How To Use Schema

There are a variety of ways you can implement Schema into your own content in order to enhance your rich snippets, and expand your audience.

When you use Schema markup on your own company reviews, you can cherry pick which ones you like the most, and have those displayed to users. Keep in mind you might consider throwing in at least a 4.0 star review, over 5 star reviews to make it seem more realistic.  A 4.8 star review will make your company stand above the rest, without looking too good to be true.

Health plays an important role in our lifestyles today, and with everyone monitoring their calories (especially with the New Year just starting), restaurants will want to inform their customers of the nutrition facts for their food. If you’re a restaurant owner, or any type of food related industry, an easy way to add Schema to your business page is to use the markup to create nutritional facts for your users to read.

Other Examples

Celebrities/Public Figures

This example of Oprah Winfrey shows specific information about her life, including her birth date, zodiac sign, and educational background. This information was embedded in the code in order to produce the rich snippet and improve SERPs.

Events

When you use a site, such as Ticketmaster, it’s easy to see the Schema implemented in the search results. By incorporating Schema, they’re getting free additional links, as you can see in the sample, by providing specific dates and show times that link directly to that performance to purchase a ticket.

Movies

The next time you search for a movie, or a website, such as IMBD, you’ll find that Schema comes in handy when trying to find specific information, like ratings and genre.

Google is constantly updating to keep up with the latest in trends and digital developments, and recently they’ve made some subtle, yet important changes to the search results page layout. Although they are cosmetic, these small changes can have quite a big impact, and play a much larger role when it comes to tracking analytics for both paid and organic searches.

Below is the before and after pictures of what Google’s design was, and what it looks like today for their homepage.

Before

After

The subtle design features a much more distinct box around each item, with a drop shadow on the home page. You can find that changes were made to both the search results, as well as the search engine page.

Each search result is now more distinguished, and as you can see from the image below, the ads are more difficult to decipher from the organic results. The only thing that really separates the ads from the organics is the small green box to the left of the ad. This small separation will make it more difficult for users to identify the difference between the two, and I expect it to increase click through rates on the ads.

I first noted this change as of 01/19/17, and we’ll continue to track changes to the search results. We will be tracking to see if there’s any change in paid versus organic traffic for our clients.