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    Jim Kreinbrink

    Kick-Start Your SEO in 2015

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    The search engine optimization (SEO) industry has certainly evolved these last few years. The many Google updates – and their sometimes heavy-handed penalties – in addition to an explosion of mobile traffic have shaped the rules for SEO and online marketing. When we look at what’s working at the end of 2014, we see just how much everything has changed. Big changes in SEO will certainly continue for 2015 and beyond. Here are six things to focus your efforts on in 2015: 1. Mobile If you haven’t already, it’s time to take a mobile-first approach with responsive website design. As mentioned in last month’s blog all about mobile, Google has a new tool (and new expectations) around mobile friendliness. Test your site here:https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ 2. Rich SnippetsThese underlying webpage code elements help Google and other sites understand when to show review stars, customized descriptions, and more. All of which are vital to your site ranking and click through rate. Consider: A study last year showed an average rankings increase of 4 positions when rich snippets were implemented. In one case study, 30% more visitors clicked through from search results to a site with rich snippets. John Mueller of Google recently requested that examples of rich snippet “spam” in Google be sent directly to him. It must be working, and it must be valuable, if Google is looking for spam! There are many examples of different rich snippets at http://schema.org, a site and format created by Google, Yahoo and Bing. Some types include recipes, products, events, locations, people, ratings, etc. And other formats are also being provided by social media sites: Facebook open graph tags, LinkedIn cards, Twitter cards, and even Pinterest pincards. Consider how this tweet of a site using twitter cards looks better than the standard tweet: When twitter is given data in a twitter card format, they provide a much richer experience for viewers of that tweet. And there are many different types of twitter cards too: Galleries, large images, video players, etc. 3. Universal Analytics Google analytics is finally getting an upgrade. In the past, data about site visitors was lost if they visited several of a brand’s website properties, switched devices, or had an extended period of time between visits. Universal Analytics fixes that and even allows custom dimensions, as well as extreme customization. The system came out of beta testing in 2014, and will be a requirement at some point. Is it on your radar to transition? If not, better get to it! Google will not be providing new features to regular analytics and will eventually force webmasters to make the switch. 4. Link Disavowal Google’s Penguin penalty has made this a necessity. Do you know where your site has links? Most webmasters do not. And many links that were key in the past must now be disavowed in Google’s Webmaster Tools. That is the price we pay for Google’s ever-changing formula! Here are some possible sources of problematic links: “Site wide” footer linksAre other sites linking to you from every page or in their footer? Google no longer sees this as a positive thing. Links from 2004-2012If your SEO plan included creating links during this period, you should get a link analysis performed. Even if Google’s guidelines were being followed, it’s vital to make sure these links are still the kind Google wants to see. Low quality linksYou know these when you see them. Would you visit the site a link is on? Does Google still see any authority there? These are important considerations for your links! Links from penalized sitesSites that were once in Google’s good graces might now have switched hands or been penalized. Negative SEOSEOs used to debate whether any site’s rankings could be hurt from the outside. Now, it’s commonly accepted that negative SEO is possible and happening throughout the web. Some sites are building low quality links, links on penalized sites, etc. pointing to competitors’ websites! 5. Migrate Your Site to HTTPS Are you planning to migrate your entire site to HTTPS? Recent thoughts from Google are making this a more important consideration! A member of the Google Chrome browser team recently commented that anything less than HTTPS is like leaving the front door unlocked. On the search side, HTTPS has been identified as a minor ranking signal – and migrating your site should be considered. Be sure you don’t create duplicate content by accident though! 6. Use Content Marketing for Link Authority Content marketing is  the new link building. It’s authentic marketing that can also boost your site’s rankings (but it must be done with an emphasis on quality outreach). When done correctly, content marketing brings: social sharing brand visibility inbound links (with authority) referral traffic Search Engine Optimization will always be ever-changing: Technology is moving at breakneck speeds and search engines have ever-changing criteria and expectations. Having these six items on your radar will help carry you nicely into the new year. And then some. The year 2016 may be completely different, but these are good solid investments of time and money. Need a good interactive agency or website design firm? We’ve worked with many and partnered with the best. Talk to us about your needs, and we’ll introduce you to the right match! PSST! Need a Free Link?Get a free link for your agency: Would you like our monthly take on the changing world of SEO delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to the Hyper Dog Media SEO Newsletter HERE! When you subscribe, each newsletter will contain a link idea for your business!

    Google: All about that mobile

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    Having a good mobile experience is increasingly important for websites. Advances in technology have made it possible for many more sites to be viewed on mobile devices, but the experience is usually much less pleasurable than viewing via desktop. Google wants to change that, and is again trying to move website design in the correct direction. Google and Bing are currently locked in a battle to be the best search engine for mobile. They know users will judge them by the sites suggested during a search. When searchers encounter unusable sites from their query, they change search engines. Wouldn’t you rather have ten good sites given to you from a search than a hit-and-miss list? Mobile is growing fast: Comscore estimates that mobile usage will outpace desktop usage this year! Google has already started showing “Mobile Friendly” icons in search results – and has even tested “NOT Mobile Friendly” icons recently! So what to do? Here are some quick tips:1. View your site in mobileTry using this free testing tool from Google:https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/ Google tells you if fonts are too small, there are missing “viewport” metatags, and other mobile usability errors. 2. Easy URLsKeyword rich URLs have lost much of their power in the last few years, but are likely to lose much more: They aren’t as easy to type into a smartphone. 3. Responsive designA responsive design is usable at any size. Previous efforts to provide different sites to different kinds of devices have failed as the many types of devices have exploded and crossed over into other categories, such as 2-in-1s and giant phones. Having several versions of your website might have also meant a nightmare in keeping all of them updated, and in sync. Googlebot in all it’s wisdom couldn’t figure out which version was canonical, either – and which to return a certain user to, based on their device. Google’s new Mobile Usability reports (in Webmaster Tools) show the following issues:– Flash content,– missing viewport (a critical meta-tag for mobile pages),– tiny fonts,– fixed-width viewports,– content not sized to viewport,– clickable links/buttons too close to each other. 4. Access to site resourcesGooglebot and Bingbot both want to see into your JavaScript and CSS files. It used to be a best practice to block access, and many have. But as time has passed, bots have missed important information about user experience: Are there ads above the fold? Is the user being redirected, or shown irrelevant content? Bots need to know, all with the framework of ranking “better” sites higher. And you cannot be “better” on mobile if the experience is bad. Need a good interactive agency or website design firm? We’ve worked with many, and partnered with the best. Talk to us about your needs, and we’ll introduce you to the right match! PSST! Need a Free Link?Get a free link for your agency: Would you like our monthly take on the changing world of SEO delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to the Hyper Dog Media SEO Newsletter HERE! When you subscribe, each newsletter will contain a link idea for your business!

    Summary of Search: Who is Syndicating Who? What to know about syndicating your blog.

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    SUMMARY OF SEARCH Google released a new Panda 4.1 update this month and unique, relevant content and overall site quality has never been more vital. Syndication actually plays a large part in what Google sees as duplicate content. Done correctly, syndication can mean new visitors, brand exposure, social shares, and links to your site (which are seen as “Votes” by Google). When implemented poorly, another site may look to Google like the authoritative source for your content – and your site is seen as a spammy “scraper” site. Why does it matter? Google prefers to show a piece of content only once in the top ten results. When Google finds the same content in two places on the internet, it will typically show the most authoritative site in the higher position, and other sites on page 2 or 3 (or 20). But a site with more authority doesn’t necessarily deserve credit for all content it posts. Canonical tag A few years ago, Google helped create the “canonical tag” to provide authors a chance to specify the original source for articles that could be syndicated, scraped, or otherwise end up all over the web. It’s a tag that can be placed on other websites, but point back to yours. This could work well, but many larger sites either 1. cannot (will not) accept a canonical tag pointing back to your website – or 2. They insert their own canonical tag pointing to their own site! What does Google do when two canonical tags are encountered for the same content? Revert back to looking at authority, and the smaller site loses out. If using business2community.com or LinkedIn to syndicate your content, your own site/blog is likely to lose the authority test! Syndication used to be much easier. In the “old days”, the deal was that if you gave my site unique content, I gave you a link. In 2013, you could still get the link but it might be nofollow. In 2014, the deal is that you probably do not even get the canonical tag. What to do? Syndicating your content can provide amazing exposure for your business. Don’t walk away from syndication, but certainly use it in a way that will not harm your own rankings. 1. Ask about policies with the canonical tag Some sites, such as business2community.com and linkedin.com do indeed want to place a canonical tag pointing to their own URL as the one true source of the content. 2. Post unique summaries on syndication sites Everyone wants unique content, so give it to ’em. Just, do it in summarized form. Post the long, full version of your article on your own website, with a summary or intro on the syndication websites. Both locations should have canonical tags and unique content. In this case, linkedin.com might have a canonical tag pointing to it’s own page but it will be the only place that unique content is located. PSST! Need a Free Link? Get a free link for your agency: Would you like our monthly take on the changing world of SEO delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to the Hyper Dog Media SEO Newsletter HERE! When you subscribe, each newsletter will contain a link idea for your business!

    The Walking Dead, Google Authorship Edition

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    Summary of Search Google recently announced the end of Google Authorship, a feature the SEO community thought might become a major part of Google’s ranking formula. With Google Authorship, photos of writers were shown in Google’s search results – when rel=”author” and rel=”me” tags were embedded pointing to their Google plus profile. In December 2013, Google reduced the amount of authorship photos showing in their search results. Then photos were removed altogether in June. And finally, Google completely removed Authorship from their search results last week. Low Adoption Rates by Webmaster and AuthorsAuthorship was sometimes difficult to implement, and not appropriate for all sites. Many brands didn’t feel a person’s photo was the best representation in Google’s search results. Provided Low Value for SearchersSome studies showed an increase in click-throughs for listings with Google Authorship. But Google found users were often being distracted from the best content. Snippets that MatterGoogle’s Representative John Mueller did provide Google’s future direction: Expanding support of Schema.org: “This markup helps all search engines better understand the content and context of pages on the web, and we’ll continue to use it to show rich snippets in search results.” The rich snippets for “People” and “Organization” are certainly something to include where possible/applicable. Implications for Google PlusGoogle plus adoption is well below expectations, especially considering the tie in with popular services such as gmail and youtube. Google authorship was also tied in, and meant to improve the social rank in search results for those producing great content. With the death of Google Authorship, it looks like one more “nail in the coffin” for Google plus. Are Authors Important?Some interesting bits of information have been given away by Google. Amit Singhal, the head of Google Search, said that Author Rank was used for the “In-depth articles” section – which appears in 12% of Google’s search results. Google has also long been able to read bylines: These were used before Google patented “Author Rank” in 2007, are more naturally included where applicable, and are likely to continue being used. PSST! Need a Free Link?Get a free link for your agency: Would you like our monthly take on the changing world of SEO delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to the Hyper Dog Media SEO Newsletter HERE! When you subscribe, each newsletter will contain a link idea for your business!

    Penalized: Even Web Giants Aren’t Too Big To Fail

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    In the early days of the web, having great search engine optimization meant increased visibility for a business. Outranking the competition could lead to higher sales. Any leads that came in via the website were icing on the cake. Now, a strong web presence, leads and web-based revenue have become a vital part of business. In today’s world, the web represents a significant portion of even a brick-and-mortar’s revenue. For companies such as ebay.com and retailmenot.com, losing Google’s traffic overnight due to a rule infraction can be a killer, but that is exactly what has happened in recent months. Ebay.com lost 33% of their organic traffic after being given a “manual penalty” from Google. Retailmenot.com lost 25% of their revenue, thanks to Google’s Panda 4 Update. Other penalty stories and analysis continue rolling in after-the-fact. Only Google truly knows what eBay did wrong. Ebay employs some smart SEOs, but they may not truly know what everything to do – or undo. They can file a “reconsideration request”, and wait. But we can only guess when the penalty will be lifted. It’s unlikely that eBay will rise to its former position anytime soon, as the trick is up. Reailmenot, which is, ironically, funded in part by Google Ventures, has overall guidelines for content quality they can try to adhere to more closely. But these Panda penalties are not always cut and dry, either. SEO is becoming more and more about risk management. Could your business afford a substantial drop in rankings? Google’s formula is continually being updated and even practices that were recommended by Google in years past are now being penalized. Looking at Google’s future direction is more than a whimsical pastime for business leaders – it’s vital to ensuring future growth or survival. With arbitrary rules and swift justice, it’s important to future-proof your SEO as much as possible: Create content that your prospects will take the time to read, share, and discuss. Market your content to other sites using social media, outreach and good old fashioned business development. Don’t get clever with Google. If Google hasn’t already started penalizing a certain tactic, know that it will. Stay up to date on Google’s ever-changing rules. Our Hyper Dog Media Monthly Summary of Search is a low bandwidth newsletter to keep you in Google’s good graces. PSST! Need a Free Link?Get a free link for your agency: Would you like our monthly take on the changing world of SEO delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to the Hyper Dog Media SEO Newsletter HERE! When you subscribe, each newsletter will contain a link idea for your business!

    Make your content easily shared, linked and read

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    Technical SEO is increasingly about helping people share content from a website. After all, content should be shared, linked to, and – dare I say – read. Perhaps a more appropriate usage term is “consumed,” since content strategy increasingly includes visuals, podcasts, webinars and multimedia. Many sites are not optimized to take full advantage of new and evolving distribution channels for existing content. The “Social Sharability” and “Social Visibility” of content can be maximized by using these techniques: Share buttons: To share the specific URL being viewed. Follow buttons: To follow the website’s brand on social media networks. Facebook Open Graph tags, Twitter cards, Pinterest “Rich pins”: These social networks have specific tags that can be added to on-page website code. Once implemented, posts about your website will feature larger images and tailor-made descriptions to make posts more visible in newsfeeds when shared. Schema.org: Google has indicated that implementation of Schema.org code on your website is of high importance. Much like the other social network cards, tags and pins, URLs using Schema.org code have much better presentation, draw more attention, and are shared more often. Schema.org can also maximize your site’s presence in search results: These tags power the review stars and other features in the search results themselves. Content should be readable and consumable, especially on mobile devices. PSST! Need a Free Link? Get a free link for your agency: Would you like our monthly take on the changing world of SEO delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to the Hyper Dog Media SEO Newsletter HERE! When you subscribe, each newsletter will contain a link idea for your business!

    February 2014 Summary of Search:
    Do as I say, not as I do

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    “Do as I say, not as I do” Sometimes Google does things it warns others not to do:1. Don’t be top heavyGoogle just updated it’s “Top heavy” algorithm. For sites that show many ads at the top, or make users scroll to see content, penalties can apply. 2. Don’t scrape content from other websitesMatt Cutts of Google is actively seeking reports of what would be considered “scraper sites”. One SEO responded with a screenshot of Google scraping wikipedia. 🙂http://www.seroundtable.com/google-scraper-site-report-18184.html In other news, Google will now start showing restaurant menus for those keyword searches. But the restaurant brands do not know exactly where Google is scraping this data from, and how to update it.Read the whole scoop here: http://searchengineland.com/now-official-google-adds-restaurant-menus-search-results-185708 3. Links on user generated content sites that pass pagerankFor most sites, Google insists that links created by site visitors are “nofollow”. But Google+ allows links that are curiously “dofollow”. Other sites could indeed be penalized by this. 4. Sell LinksAlmost $17 billion of Google’s almost $17 billion in revenue from last quarter was from “selling links”. But of course, they aren’t “dofollow”. A couple more items have garnered Google’s attention:1. Rich snippets should be used for good, not evilGoogle has been levying a manual penalty against sites using rich snippets in a spammy fashion.http://www.link-assistant.com/news/rich-snippets-penalty.html 2. Don’t try to insert too many keywords with your business listingThere used to be an distinct advantage in having your keywords in your business name. Now Google wants to make sure the business name you use in your business listing matches you business name.– Your title should reflect your business’s real-world title.– In addition to your business’s real-world title, you may include a single descriptor that helps customers locate your business or understand what your business offers.– Marketing taglines, phone numbers, store codes, or URLs are not valid descriptors.– Examples of acceptable titles with descriptors (in italics for demonstration purposes) are “Starbucks Downtown” or “Joe’s Pizza Delivery”. Examples that would not be accepted would be “#1 Seattle Plumbing”, “Joe’s Pizza Best Delivery”, or “Joe’s Pizza Restaurant Dallas”.See more: https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en So what to do?Create a content generating, curating, sharing machine.1. Post full versions of your content to your site, but also Google+, linkedin, and promote your content at other relevant places around the web.2. Tag your content with rich snippets, facebook open graph, twitter cards to increase it’s “sharability” and categorization. PSST! Need a Free Link?We’d like to help you promote your own business, hoping more work for you brings more work our way! Join our newsletter for our suggestion this month: It’s a site with a pagerank of 9!

    Summary of Search Engine Optimization, June 2013

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    The world of SEO is still reeling from Google’s latest Penguin update, and many are questioning Google’s new guidelines. Having a well-known worldwide brand wasn’t enough for the Salvation Army – nor was it enough for Dish! We added on two more link building techniques Penguin 2.0 seems to penalize, for a total of 7 so far: 1. Exact match anchor text 2. Spammy links to subpages 3. Link networks / schemes 4. Links from de-indexed and banned websites, including old directories. 5. link velocity “spikes” 6. Paid Links 7. Sitewide links – especially blogroll and footer links Google updates in June: Even though Panda is now “rolled into the main Google algorithm”, there was some sort of refresh event last month. Google is being very tight-lipped about updates lately, and would not comment on at least one event this month that looked like an update. Some updates are being said to rollout over the “next 1-2 months”. Blackhat SEO – where SEOs attempt to fool search engines – are surviving these updates on some level. At a recent conference, Matt Cutts(Google’s engineer in charge of combatting webspam) mentioned specific actions against sites ranking for “Payday loans” in Google UK. A few weeks later, paydayloansfrommrcutts.blog.co.uk started ranking in the top 3! We do not recommend black hat SEO for brands, companies or sites with longterm value – but these blackhats are definitely keeping google on their toes! With Google’s upcoming (and continued) emphasis on authority links, we recommend the longterm strategies of 1. link building for business development, making connections that also build your google rankings 2. Content Marketing Link Building: Using compelling content to create brand awareness and links!

    Summary of Search, May 2013

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    Around May 22nd, there was an update to Google’s search algorithms. It’s being called Penguin 2.0 (or sometimes Penguin 4) and is a major update. Matt Cutts said in a recent video that compared to the original Penguin update, this one does go much deeper. While the impact is supposed to be 2.3% of English queries, the effect is very large considering the number of Google keyword searches! Here is the full history: Penguin 1 on April 24, 2012 (impacting ~3.1% of queries) Penguin 2 on May 26, 2012 (impacting less than 0.1%) Penguin 3 on October 5, 2012 (impacting ~0.3% of queries) Penguin 4 on May 22, 2013 (impacting 2.3% of queries) Much of the analysis of Penguin 2.0 is still in progress, but some big brands were hit, including SalvationArmy.org and even Dish.com. As far as we can tell so far, Penguin 2.0 penalized: 1. Exact match anchor text 2. Spammy links to subpages 3. Link networks / schemes 4. Links from de-indexed and banned websites, including old directories. 5. link velocity “spikes” Penguin is impacting sites with unintentional webspam. We’ve seen scraper sites (targeting adsense keywords) delivering the worst links to clients’ profiles. These sites weren’t created for a link building campaign, but instead just adsense revenue for some site owner in a distant land. While they could be ignored before, they cannot be any longer. Now their penalties are our penalties. The approach we recommend is: 1. Protect Authority link building is the only protection against both negative SEO and Penguin penalties in general. Authority links are gained primarily from great content, promotion and involvement. One authority link can beat hundreds of spammy links in the algorithm of “the new Google”. 2. Defend Find and remove as many unnatural links as you can manually before disavowing the rest. 3. Build Over the long term, these strategies will also help protect from Google penalties, and are of course great marketing initiatives: a. Great content Copy writing has gone through an evolution and cheap content is not going to cut it. Could it ever though? b. Promotion & Outreach for Social Media Marketing & Inbound Links Since the web’s inception, much content has been posted with little regard to promotion. Social, link building, and other outreach initiatives are vital to maximize dollars spent on premium content. c. Brand Name Searches Google knows big brands are searched. Their “buzz” is a signal of authority, although not yet on par with link building. d. User Engagement Once a visitor is onsite, engage them. Keep their interest and involvement. Good design and excellent content have never been so important. Google has been watching this for some time. e. Multi-tiered approaches Spread marketing dollars broadly across many initiatives. It creates a variety of signals to Google that you are legit.

    Summary of Search, February 2013

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    Some SEOs speculated a Panda update was in the works a couple of weeks ago, but none has been confirmed by Google. It’s actually been a pretty calm month in the world of Organic SEO. What does Google want these days?! Overall trends and our collaboration with other SEOs reveal four important trends: 1. Google wants content published by Brands Keyword rich domains have lost much value in the last year. Google is giving preference to brands. They expect constant publishing and distribution of content. 2. Google plus is gaining in importance Will the Google plus economy replace the link economy? It’s too soon to say. But with the increasing importance of Google plus, it is becoming more vital to have profiles built out and maintained. 3. Negative SEO is alive and well One of our Black Hat SEOs on the panel has a thriving business doing “Negative SEO” for clients. Instead of building up his client’s authority with links, he’s creating as many horrible links as possible to competitors. The process is phenomenally easy, and the results mean a scary new chapter for SEO. Building sufficient authority with good links is the only possible defense. 4. Links from authority sites are more important than ever Getting links from important sites, whether in the niche or just more important overall, is a sign of confidence affecting rankings now more than ever. Moving Forward To reiterate last month’s emphasis on the New Google, and add on a 4th item: 1. Google continues to reward branding, social signals, and links from authority websites. 2. Even larger brands have to pay ever more attention to their technical SEO. No longer can duplicate content or thin content be overlooked. 3. Google expects sites that engage users: Videos, images, animations, and other forms of engaging media are important in the new Google. And content needs to match keyword targets wherever possible. 4. The more that media can be spread and leveraged, the better. New SEO Approaches: If you have a content creation initiative (or can get one started), our Content Marketing Link Building is the best way to go. If not, see our Business Development SEO Cycle. 1. “Content Marketing” Link Building involves gaining links for clients based upon their excellent content. 2. “Business Development Link Building” gains links through regular business development activities: providing sponsorships, getting listed on resource pages/”hub pages” in a vertical, and being involved in related conversations in forums and blogs.