What Would History Say About Google Authorship?

Image courtesy of https://plus.google.com/authorship

I know this association is going to tick off a few, but as one of the older people now in the Internet realm, my intent is to cause pause before running out and linking blogs or websites to Google Authorship profiles in order to secure better rankings on SERP’s for personal brands.  I’m a Mom, so I’m just going to say what Moms say, “If everyone were jumping off a cliff, would you jump off, too?”

Truth be told, I like Google and I’m all about being with the times.  I know it’s not going to seem that way, but I do understand the benefits of claiming your brand.  I’m just really wrestling with the herd mentality of doing something because Google says we have to do it. The industry reaction appears to be admiration and support through blog posts and conference panel discussions.  Get the writers on board and you can change the world.  If you control the content makers and their careers, you can control the content (to a degree).

I’m also old enough to know how fast what seems indestructible can change.  I have an uncle that spent his life in a nursing home after serving overseas in combat during WWII.  Forgetting history is not an option for me – really for any of us.  My (our) ancestors would be disappointed if I (we) did.

What if Google’s leadership and vision ever changed – forcibly or through death or sale?  Would you want your personal identity stored in a data base for the new owners?  Some of you are more skeptical of our current president or gun control then you are of handing over your identity and all linking to a search company’s data bases.  True, we’re already tracked in so many ways, that for most of us, our identities were compromised years ago when we first opened our Facebook accounts.  But, let’s just hand over more?

As a reminder, between 1939 and 1945, the below image was a reality.  Hitler would have really appreciated access to profiles that connected the dots to everything people did or thought, everyone they communicated with, and everything they liked or disliked.

Image courtesy of http://arnaudstecroix.weebly.com/

It’s an awful association, but profiling happened.  It’s not a new idea.  People were identified and categorized, while scared onlookers stood by, watched, and participated because if they didn’t they might lose what they have. Those who spoke up were shunned or eliminated.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia

While the hot talk is about securing your brand, just don’t forget what happened a few decades ago.  Prisoners from this era would probably shake their heads at our naivety.  I’m not so sure that I can completely dismiss their lives by saying, “Yeah, but this is a different time and place.”

I also don’t have a good answer for reconciling what was learned, while moving into today.  I’m signing this post with my first name knowing full well, that even without a profile, you can research who I am.  The best I can do is write to warn the writer, who hasn’t become public, to first carefully consider the potential consequences before publishing online.  ~Jean

Other Articles:

My 2013 SMX Conversation with Matt Cutts about Google Authorship

Ethical Guidelines When Using Social Media: An Interview with NIU’s Dr. David Gunkel

The Direction of Search – Stalking, Censorship, or Simply Great Results

 

National Brands without Physical Stores Struggle to Rank for Local and other 2013 #SMX West Insights

My Web Writers Attended #SMX 2013

By My Web Writers

How can You Rank for Local, if You’re a National Brand without Local Stores?

Good luck.  There are few alternatives to building physical stores.  When a user types in a qualifying term like “pants Toledo”, he or she is probably looking  for a Toledo clothing store that sells pants.  Often the user is located within 1.5 miles of the store at that time.  In many cases, it’s becoming the norm for national chains, that solely sell online, to fall below the local listings of brands with stores.

How do you get around the local problem if you’re a national chain without physical stores?  Some panelists suggested building local pages on your website, while others suggested empowering affiliates to drive traffic for local, long-tailed keywords. Local landing pages are required and must have phone tracking, pricing, transparency, an adoption plan, and ensured alignment with the national PPC campaign.

Balihoo.com, which offers a free download of going local ideas, suggested starting with 4 – 5 affiliates and empowering them with incentives in local markets.  My Web Writers also published a post on going local back in 2012.

For those businesses that do have physical stores, Scott Nickels of Home Depot shared a story of a map pin to a local store that ended up in the wrong place. Traffic kept flowing to a residential home before the resident finally called to complain about the headlights in her back yard. Store managers have to be aware of the postcard process required for validation of the physical addresses and Maps needs to better hone in on the locales.

Home Depot’s word for 2013 is “local.” Nickels suggests creating one page per store and localizing social, too. He somberly shook his head when an attendee asked, “Do you mean if I have 53 stores, I have to optimize 53 Facebook pages?”

“Yes, yes you do,” he replied.

2013 #SMX West Insights

There are already so many, insightful, #SMX West 2013 recaps floating around the web from various attendees, but here are a few more insights as well as a list of the recaps.

Random Notes from Watching Sites Get Critiqued:

• Put Java Script and CSS in external script.

• Don’t use disavow if possible. Don’t tell Google you have a problem unless you have a PhD in understanding linking. You don’t want to accidentally remove links that are actually working for you.

• Submit articles to Reddit.

• Canonicals- make sure all products are given credit.

• PR can build legitimate page links.

• Shopping cart pages should be optimized with what the latest coupon codes are. Remember to 301 redirect expired coupons.

• Experiment with Google Plus to get juice for search-ability.

• Don’t blog just to blog. Consider putting monies toward PR opportunities.

• Schematag.org – a plugin for WordPress

• Enrich your Google Places ranking.

Take-aways from other SMX West sessions are as follows:

• Authorship and identity will matter more over time. False identities will be found.  Do authorities and brands have rank? Individuals have their own brands and should use authorship to maintain them.  Big brands are still struggling with this, which makes it a good time for small companies to utilize Authorship.

• “Links still have many good years ahead of them.” ~Matt Cutts

• Social interaction helps to determine SERP’s.

• Mobile is going to surprise a lot of people. It’s a critical factor.  Isolate mobile in Analytics. There’s a web page test tool that @AnneCushing likes to use to watch a video of how long it takes to load a client’s page.  It helps clients to see the importance of improving site speed- http://www.webpagetest.org/.

• “SEO is no longer about tactics, but more about strategy.”

• “Keep the company focused on metrics that matter to the company and not ranking reports.”

• Duane Forrester says the most important SEO factor for next year is “usability.  It’s more important than h-tags.”

• Ann Cushing said to “focus less on keywords and more on landing pages.”

• Matt Cutts reiterated that the “global view is the same as in other years. Give the user what they want.” Annotate your web pages with ‘about of’ markup for Chrome users. You can also disavow at a domain level.

• Rae Hoffman encouraged SEO’s to “Let go of how easy it used to be.”

• Greg Bowser said, “Embrace the big data.”

Looking for additional #SMX 2013 Recaps and Insights?  Read these excellent posts:

SEO Success in 2013 & beyond: Matt Cutts & others’ insights at #SMX

Matt Cutts, Duane Forrester talk ‘Adventures in SEO’ at SMX West

SMX West 2013: Top Tips, Tools & Takeaways

Insights from a Conversation with Matt Cutts about Google Authorship

Live Blog Recap: SMX West 2013 Day Three

Live Blog Recap: SMX West 2013 Day Two

Live Blog Recap: SMX West 2013 Day One

My SMX West 2013 Takeaways- Sugar Rae’s blog

What ideas do you have for national brands that want to rank for local search terms? Is there a #SMX 2013 blog post that I missed that you like?

~Jean

Better Understand Google Analytics

by My Web Writers

Google analytics is a free tool offering numerous ways to track and optimize your E-tailer website. By playing the numbers game, you have the potential to increase your Return on Investment with minimal effort. Let common sense prevail, as you analyze the numbers and make strategic business decisions, which potentially and ultimately have the ability to magnify your web presence to a much larger audience.

Understanding Your Google Analytics Dashboard

Wow! That’s a lot of graphs and data, isn’t it? Everything including visits, pageviews, individual page visits, bounce rates, average time on site and percentage of new visitors is listed and charted for your convenience. The word “overwhelming” quickly comes to mind!

However, as an E-tailer, you want to know who your visitors are and what eye candy attracts them to your site. You also want to know what deters them, sending them running the other way all too quickly. Graphics and statistics relaying information pertaining to visitors and traffic sources make it easy to know who is frequenting your site.

If you dig a little deeper into traffic data, to discover how your site was referred to your visitors, you can maximize your referral opportunities, by increasing this avenue of pageviews. Take the path of least resistance here. Capitalize on what has already proven to be a method of securing traffic to your site.

Integrate Social Media Tracking

By integrating social media tracking, E-tailers can optimize their social media efforts. In other words, know your target audience, and respond to them accordingly. Build on what works and is already in place, while studying and improving your marketplace. This will promote higher ROI, while simultaneously expanding your networking circle.

Google Developers have created a complete Social Interaction Analytics resource, streamlining the process and making it easier to implement social media tracking on your E-tailer site.

Identify and Track Keywords

Keywords are words people use to search for something via search engines, with the prospect of landing on your E-tailer site. They are also words visitors use to search for things within your site, causing them to stay on your site longer, if those words have been optimized therein.

The goal with keywords is to know which ones attract the most traffic, initiate the best interaction and convert into sales or return visits by signing up for newsletters, e-blasts and other off-site opportunities.

Strategize to Optimize Your E-tailer Site

By utilizing everything you have in place and examining your results in Google Analytics, you can develop an effective strategy to consistently improve your numbers. Micro-manage your data to gain powerful insights into where your conversion rates come from, determining how best to serve the needs and desires of your customers.

Balance website performance against your personal and business goals, to see if it’s in sync with your specified objectives. Determine if customer leads and purchases are appropriate and efficient, and if your product campaigns, newsletters and e-blasts are being used effectively.

One of the best things about Google Analytics is that you don’t need to invest in it to expand your customer base. All you need to do is familiarize yourself with the numbers, using them to enhance traffic flow, increase conversion rates and improve ROI.

~MJ

How to Better Analyze Data and Draw Logical Conclusions

By My Web Writers

Each time you receive analytics data it is loaded with useful information. But unless you know how to interpret that information, it’s virtually worthless. Once you learn how to read and understand analytics data, it can help drive your content marketing. Whether you do the writing yourself, or you rely on the help of a copy writing service, it is imperative that you understand your analytics data.

Set Aside Time to Analyze

If you plan on flipping through an analytics report and getting anything of substance from it, you won’t learn very much. Analyzing takes time. Set aside a certain amount of time each week to really dive into your results. Analytics data does nothing for you or your business if you don’t study it and understand it.

Check for Keywords

What are the keywords that are driving people to your site? It may surprise you to find what words are and aren’t working. Experiment with keywords each week or month to see which ones are the most useful for your business. Once you know what they are, you can use them more and drive even more traffic to your website.

Take Note of the Bounce Rate

The bounce rate is a percentage of readers who visit your site on a specific page and leave without clicking to other parts of the site. This can be a huge statistic for you when trying to figure out what content is working for you and what isn’t. If you have an unusually high bounce rate for a specific page, figure out why. Was it low in key words? Did it lack good content? Check the pages with low bounce rates. What was it that kept people on your site?

However, don’t necessarily assume there must be a problem with your website or your content. There’s always the chance that the issue is with the referral traffic – what types of people are being sent to your site and why. See where those visitors who “bounce” have come from. It may give you some answers.

Email Marketing

There are very valuable statistics that come in from email marketing. Email marketing analytics can tell you how many people opened the email, how many visited your website from the email, and even which links in the email they clicked on. Over time you can analyze what your email readership found most interesting and clicked on. That way in the future, you know what will entice them.

Stay Updated

The way analytics are presented is constantly changing. Stay informed on how the information is presented and what it means for your website and what you should do with your content. Check out the video below for the latest way to read and interpret a Google Analytics report.

~Natalie