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.
