Posts tagged marketing company cumming ga
5 Ways to Get Banned by Google… OVERNIGHT!
Mar 19th
Google’s algorithms may be a black box, but its Webmaster Guidelines are meant to leave little room for speculation, yet some gray area remains. While the guidelines are written in easy-to-use language and outline some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the Google index or otherwise impacted by an algorithmic or manual spam action, there are no real-word examples, albeit for good reason.
Here are past and present examples of how to get your website banned by Google overnight.
1. Participate in Link Schemes
Any links intended to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered a link scheme, as was the case in 2011, when the New York Times uncovered a link-building scheme by J.C. Penney. The retailer ranked number one for bedding, dresses, area rugs, and other vague and specific keywords, with “uncanny regularity” for several months. After consulting with an industry expert, the New York Times found 2,015 pages with phrases like “casual dresses,” “evening dresses,” “little black dress” or “cocktail dress,” which all bounced directly to the main page for dresses on JCPenney.com.
NYT excerpt: There are links to JCPenney.com’s dresses page on sites about diseases, cameras, cars, dogs, aluminum sheets, travel, snoring, diamond drills, bathroom tiles, hotel furniture, online games, commodities, fishing, Adobe Flash, glass shower doors, jokes and dentists — and the list goes on.
J.C. Penney said they did not authorize and were not involved or aware of the posting of links that the New York Times sent to them. J.C. Penney immediately fired their SEO agency, but not before Google took manual action against the brand for violating its guidelines. Overnight, J.C. Penney was vanished from search results for anything other than branded keywords (a.k.a. direct searches for J.C. Penney). It took about three months for J.C. Penney to move up the rankings and regain lost rankings.
The Lesson – build links the right way. Link to reputable sites, and submit manual links – not automated.
2. Include Doorway Pages
Google defines doorway pages as those that are large sets of poor-quality pages where each page is optimized for a specific keyword or phrase. Google always frowns upon manipulating search engines and deceiving users. In 2006, BMW suffered Google’s wrath for setting up doorway pages to attract search engines and redirect traffic to its German website, BMW.de. BMW’s page rank was reduced to zero. While BMW stated it did not intend to deceive users, the company added, “However, if Google says all doorway pages are illegal we have to take this into consideration.”
3. Sell Links that Pass PageRank
Selling links that pass PageRank violates Google’s quality guidelines; this includes advertorial pages with embedded links that pass PageRank. Google recently penalized Interflora, even removing it from branded search results, for using advertorials to solely influence search rankings. An example of this, is that Interflora reportedly sent bloggers floral arrangements in exchange for links. This was once considered a gray area, but is clearly black hat now.
Google’s Matt Cutts responded, indirectly, to this incident with this blog.
4. Scrape Content
In 2012, Google blacklisted a network of websites run by the family of U.K. Parliament member Grant Shapps after the search giant found the sites breached rules on copyright infringement and that they were based on scraped content. This latter black-hat tactic is typically when webmasters use content from other sites to try to increase credibility and the volume of pages.
According to Shapps’s spokesman (as reported by the Guardian UK), the Parliament member “is quite simply not involved in this business.” Certainly, it was avoidable bad press nonetheless.
5. Use a “Bad” Blog Network
If your site belongs to a blog network whose purpose is to create backlinks, Google will de-index them and penalize you. In 2012, this happened to Build My Rank, which ultimately closed down and relaunched as HP Backlinks. The relaunch, however, has many people wondering if (and when) Google will go after the network again.
Bonus: Start Cloaking — If you want to get on Google’s bad side, present different content or URLs to human users and search engines. Google bans this practice, because it provides users with different results than they expected. Unfortunately, some sites unknowingly use cloaking. For example, if your site is compromised, hackers may use cloaking to make the hack harder for the site owner to detect.

Attention Small Business Owners… Can SEO Make Your Head Explode?
Oct 15th
Or better yet – is SEO harder for smaller businesses?
First off – is SEO easier for a bigger business? Well… it does seem that way. But – for everyone… small and large businesses alike – SEO is getting harder.
Here is a TOP 9.5 LIST of STRUGGLE-POINTS.
If you’re a small business – see how many of these you can relate to.
1. LESS MONEY – This is the #1 reason SEO – and everything else! – is harder for small businesses. It’s an old saw but it’s true: You have to spend money to make money. SEO isn’t a magic pill, nor is it a wave of our magic wand. It’s work. Sometimes very tedious, repetitive work… that frankly you don’t have the time to do. If you can devote more money to your search engine optimization efforts, you’ll see better returns. Bigger companies have bigger budgets they can allocate towards hiring more employees, bringing in top-notch consultants, investing in “big content” and great web design, and so on.
2. NO TIME- Time is money, and if you have less money you also have less time or no time at all. Fewer heads on the marketing team means that everyone is juggling multiple tasks and nobody can focus 100% of their time on SEO Relate to this: most small businesses typically have a few strong people doing the job of 10. When most entrepreneurs think about running their business – marketing, unfortunately is often an after thought. And finding the time to do quality SEO work is virtually impossible. Real SEO takes a lot of time. Creating worthwhile content, optimizing your web pages, promoting your assets and securing links, running A/B tests – none of this is easy. Small businesses end up doing a rush job or neglecting it altogether, resulting in under optimized
sites with poor rankings.
3. SEO is always the last thing people think about – When you’re short on resources, SEO-related tasks always seem to get pushed to the bottom of the list. Blogging and other forms of content creation are a prime example – everyone’s got the best of intentions, promises are made (“I’ll get you that blog post by the end of the week!”) but nothing ever really gets written and published. Bottom line – big companies hire someone to do this.
4. It’s harder to keep up with changes – LIke #3, if your resources are tight – then forget about keeping up with change. In most cases – you’re just happy to have a website up and running… :-) But we all know that just isn’t enough. Rent your shop – throw up a sign outside and people will beat a path to your door… right? Nope. An SEO specialist who lives and breathes search has time (and incentive) to follow industry publications and keep up with the rapidly changing search landscape. They’ll know if Google has released a big algorithm change or other significant update that could affect your rankings and strategy. They’ll hear about new techniques and be better able to judge what’s worth trying and what isn’t. WE KEEP UP WITH SEARCH. You keep up with what you do. Time is money – and your time is best spent on running the daily activities of your business.
5. Uncle Google favors brands. The reality is that big brands get more clicks and Google likes more clicks. So if you want to compete on a keyword that bigger brands are also going after, you’ll have to work that much harder to prove your content is relevant and worth the user’s time. For a lot of branded keywords, you’ll never be able to beat the bigger companies A 4-point domination strategy is just what the doctor ordered if your coming up against a Godzilla in your industry.
6. Bigger businesses have been at it longer. And so – they typically have not only been online longer, but their domain name is older. Other sites have been linking to them longer. If you’ve been operating as a small business, doing well but staying small, for many years, that’s great – you’ll have an advantage. But lots of small businesses haven’t been around that long, and it’s tougher for them to rank because their younger websites haven’t accrued authority and a great link profile yet. This is why it’s harder for new websites to rank on competitive keywords. Aside from the fact that Google likes older domains, big brands have simply been doing SEO longer, so they’ve more things and they know what works and what doesn’t.
7. Your website is smaller. Is that actually a true statement? Probably not – if I really thought about it, but here’s the point. Most small businesses have less content and fewer pages on their websites. This also means that you have less keywords to to rank for and potentially less traffic as a result. The simple formula is that Google and Bing love content. So if your goal is to rank higher – you need to publish more content. But not just any content… quality, useful, keyword optimized content. Content that you can rank for on the web. Really big websites get more traffic in part because the sea of search queries they have the potential to rank for is so much bigger. And big brands have bigger websites because (you guessed it) they have more resources to funnel toward creating content, and because they offer more products and services. Think of Amazon and all the individual pages they have for each and every product they offer!
8. You have fewer tools and less powerful software. Small marketing budgets – typically yield cheap web and SEO software. Large businesses can afford to invest in great software to build a website, run SEO and publish. OR they just hire an expert. The in-house SEO at a big company has tools at his disposal that automate away some of the time-consuming tasks involved with search marketing. They can afford to buy up for better analytics, better keyword research, better reporting tools, better conversion optimization tools, etc., etc. Small companies are often stuck with free, which makes it harder to gain a competitive advantage. More manual work also takes more time.
9. You have less clout to leverage for link building and media coverage. Where you build links and how you build links does cost money. If you’re brand is big… you can garner more attention. Most small businesses, however don’t have that luxury.
9.5 Half way through this list your mind exploded. When your mind explodes you can’t do SEO. Big businesses typically have backup for when one of their marketer’s blows their minds. Unfortunately – you don’t.
Where to go from here? SEO? Link-building? Pay Per Click advertising? Writing articles and blog posts? Shooting and posting videos? The trick for small businesses is figuring out what you can accomplish given your limited resources. AND THEN… hiring an SEO specialist who can help with a plan that fits your budget. If you want different results – get as far away from what your currently doing – and make a change.

The Magic of Ranking Your Website With Long Tail Keywords
Aug 8th
Long Tail Keywords…
How do I find out what these keywords are?
…and why are they so important?
Long Tail keywords are those 3 and 4-keyword phrases which are very, very specific to whatever you are selling.
You see, whenever a customer uses a highly specific search phrase, they tend to be looking for exactly what they are actually going to buy.
In virtually every case, such very specific searches are far more likely to convert to sales than general generic searches which tend to be geared more toward the type and depth of research that consumers typically do prior to making a buying decision.
Here are the typical steps (on average) a consumer goes through when seeking a service or product to purchase on the web:
- Consumer becomes aware of a product.
- Consumer seeks information about that product in preparation for possible purchase.
- Consumer evaluates alternatives to product (features, pricing, etc…).
- Consumer makes their purchase decision.
- Consumer pulls out their credit card and completes the transaction.
- Consumer then evaluates the product after buying it and decides if they want to keep or return it.
Using the above six step process as our model, you can probably already see that you want to target the consumer who is somewhere around step 4…
Consumer makes their purchase decision.
…because once they have made their decision to buy something, that’s when they start using very specific search phrases to seek out their target purchase.
Now for the GOOD news…
Highly specific multi-word phrases tend to be far easier to rank well for than the more generic single keyword or double keyword phrases. That’s because most businesses tend to target the high traffic keywords, without paying attention to how well they convert.
Here’s a specific example. Let’s say your site sells guided mountain climbing tours in North Georgia. At first, you might consider targeting a generic phrase like travel. After all, an adventure tour is generally the type of excursion people like to participate in while traveling on vacation.
However, if you tried to go after that phrase, you’d be facing direct competition from big sites like Expedia.com, Priceline.com and Travelocity.com. It’s unlikely you’d be able to knock any of those sites out of the top 10 unless you’re willing to invest a pile of money and a mountain of time.
But, even more important, travel isn’t the best phrase for you to target anyway. That’s because many people who search using that phrase are looking for items such as plane tickets, ocean cruises or just doing very general research on where they might like to go. They’re probably not saying to themselves…
“I’m looking for someone who sells guided tours for beginners to climb the Blue Ridge mountains so I can take my family on a fun trip this summer.”
If they were, they’d be entering something different than travel.
Even if you were to target a more specific phrase like mountain climbing you’d still be up against heavy hitters like About.com, Wikipedia.org, and the USDA forest service. And, unless you sell everything related to mountain climbing for every mountain around the world, the traffic you’d get for that keyword isn’t likely to convert to many sales.
So let’s look at some of the keywords that are specific to what you’re selling—keywords that you can start ranking for and generating traffic and sales right away.
Here are a few highly specific keyphrases that relate to customers who are much later in the buying cycle—at least at step 3, probably at step 4 and possibly step 5:
- North Georgia mountain climbing tours
- Beginner mountain climbing in North Georgia (or Georgia)
- Guided mountain climbing tours
- Blue Ridge Mountains family climbing tours
Of course, these are just a few examples. I’m sure you could think of many more. However, the point is twofold:
- The long tail keywords are much easier to rank for.
- People who search by using long tail keywords are far more likely to become buyers!
More Good News…
Of course this suggests that you should be creating pages that zero-in on snagging searchers who use long tail keywords. And, since there are potentially so many different long tail combinations that searchers may use to buy what you offer, this means you’ll likely be creating more content.
A 5 Step Audit to Help Recover from the Google Penguin Slap!
Jul 9th
We’ve spoken with new clients who suffered as a result of Penguin. We’ve stayed in the know, aligned with top-notch SEO faculty and have a 5 step audit checklist to use to help you get back on track. Unfortunately – there is no guarantee, but these steps are pretty powerful and should help.
In truth – hang in there. You may not see any results or change or recover… until after SEVERAL updates (refreshes). Our best advice – be patient and diligent.
- Build Quality Links – the vast majority of Penguin-affected sites share a large number of anchor text exact match keywords from low-quality “splogs” (Spam Blogs), unrelated niche sites and links pages in the form of in-content links, blogrolls and footer links.
- Conduct an Internal Site Audit – look for duplicate content issues, missing on-page optimization issues, high bounce rates, low page speed scores, excessive over-optimization of page titles and descriptions, etc.,
- Duplicate/Low-Quality Content Issues. On-site content issues range from insufficient content being placed on the home page and larger category pages, to large article sections that have dragged down the entire domain, to the use manufacturer or supplier provided information on individual product pages. Off-site content issues range from cross-domain duplicated content to the use of “doorway” affiliate sites that contain a custom look and feel but contain nothing but direct links back to the main Penguin-afflicted domain.
- Lack of Social Signals – No Twitter, Facebook, Blog, etc., no social media signs.
- Ask for Help – If you are reading this and you are still suffering under Penguin, get a professional site audit template from our team
According to our friends at Planet Ocean… an expert SEO academy – one of the biggest lessons from Penguin that most SEOs haven’t communicated to their clients is the understanding that Penguin is NOT a real-time algorithm. This means that if you encourage clients to add NEW content and pages to their sites (say around repressed keyword phrases) that content is NOT going to be caught in any “Penguin filter” until the next data refresh.
Chrome Takes the Title as Most Popular Browser
Jun 4th
Google Chrome has finally surpassed Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) as the world’s most popular Web browser. In mid May Chrome managed to get a boost in users to propel it past Internet Explorer.
It isn’t the first time Chrome has done this, but this is the first time that it finally held the lead for more than a few days. So far it’s been more than 2 weeks and Chrome has continued to hold the lead, probably for good now.
Globally Chrome is only ahead by .7% over Internet Explorer, which is about 6% ahead of Firefox. This is pretty amazing progress considering that Google launched Chrome back in 2008 when Internet Explorer had almost 70% of the Web browser share. In just over 3 years Google has taken over as the market leader while Internet Explorer continues to decline in usage.
You MUST Use Your Keywords to Link Back to Your Website – No Questions Asked!
May 3rd
You have heard that doing keyword research is essential to website, video, and article success. Virtually every piece of content you put out on the Internet must leverage good keywords. It’s crucial to learn how to properly use the keywords that you’ve compiled. There are two types of keywords that are in your list – the first is a shorter type that is 2-3 words long. This type of keyword phrase is one that you would like your website to get a high ranking for. In other words, when your target customers type this phrase into Google, you would like for your website to appear high up in the results list, ideally in the number one position.
The other type of keyword phrase is called a “long-tail keyword.” Those are longer phrases, usually 3-8 or more words long, and they’re ideal for using as part of your title and as the subject for your articles. These longer phrases are ones that you’d like an article, report or video to rank for (instead of your website).
The Title
Each article, blog post, video or other piece of content that you have “external” or “off-page” of your website must have an attention-getting title that must include your keyword or keyword phrase.
The Description or Resource box
Each piece of content will typically have a description or resource box, as well. Make sure your are leveraging this area with a good sentence or two that includes again… your keyword or keyword phrase. Very important. The resource box is usually the area you put in information about the author. This is also where you would feature your keyword as “anchor text” that has a link back to your website. So instead of writing something like – “for more information on “keyword”, click here” (where “click here” is the link)… you would write – “if you would like more information on “keyword”, just follow the link (and have the keyword itself linked to your site).
Body Copy
In the case of an article, blog post or special report… your body copy must also feature a few sentences about your keyword or keyword phrase. Here again you would want to have the anchor text of the link be your keyword.
Linking back to your website with your keywords is an excellent way to help Google associate your keywords with your website. When Google and the other search engines can see the association – it helps your website get a higher ranking when people do searches for that keyword term.