Another reason you need to be on Google + is the new “Search Plus Your World” algorithm (Search+), which uses data collected from user who have logged in to their Google+ account. The search results that display will be promoting people and businesses alike on Google+. The personalization of search and the growth of social marketing are 2 subjects we here at AuthoritySeo have been talking about for 4-5 years. Google is moving more and more to delivering search results based on personalization signals that include elements of user engagement. Yes, this is still relatively early-stage, but make no mistake, new patterns are being established for the long term. Now, more than ever it is important to make sure you have your online strategy in place.

 Advantages of Google+ Pages for Business

Although related changes to search results were an easy prediction several months ago, there’s now plenty more visible evidence from recent Google algorithm updates that demonstrate the importance of Google+ practices effecting search results both inside and outside the Google+ environment. It takes a lot of work to maintain status updates and community response on an active Facebook fan page. Google does not index Facebook posts, and updates and neither does Facebook. Great Facebook updates and wall posts are here today and hidden tomorrow.

Lets say you have a awesome Facebook post that stirs up hundreds of commments, great but all of that original content is lost in the ethos in a matter of days on a active Facebook page. It will soon vanish with no commonly known way for anyone to look for or happen upon it in the future. On Google Plus like Facebook, you’ll see updates from those you follow in your Circle. But here is the critical difference, unlike Facebook, the content in your Google+ posts may turn into highly ranked search results on Google. Is it fair? no. It is important yes. For those on Facebook who could careless is their post about getting new shoes gets ranked, this is meanlingless to them, but to the business owner or fan page owner who is trying to market their business or themselves this is a critical difference. Google + posts will be providing keyword and topic-relevant search engine visibility that improves based on your “Author Rank” and content-specific engagement levels.

A second key advantage relates to how you can target your messaging and more directly interact with your followers, organizing those you follow into the circles (groups) of your choosing. Google+ has done a good job of enabling a fairly intuitive way to track and engage with segments of an audience curated by you.

This is what we do.

As a client of Authority SEO.com we take the time to learn the advantages of new social and internet marketing sites. We then implement those for our clients. As a business you can spend valuable resources, money, and time on websites that will yield very little results or in the end wind up being worthless. Contact AutoritySEO.com today to set up a consulation and review of your online or offline business.

Fastest Way to Increase Traffic is Learning What Keywords Your Site Ranks for on the Second Page of Google Search Results

Fastest Car in the World - Bugatti Veyron - 0-60 in 2.5 secs

First to understand how to increase your traffic we have to take a look at Google.  If you type in any keyword into Google you see on the first page the top ten results for that given keyword.  You also see the total results and can search multiple pages of different search results.  Less than 1% of all search traffic goes to the second page so search engine ranking #11 gets about the same number of traffic as #101.

For some major keyword to your business you have probably manually searched through the Google search results pages looking for your website.  What you are missing are all sorts of other keywords you didn’t even know about that are sitting on the second page of Google that receive daily traffic.

Most website owners focus on the keywords that they personally would search for their business which excludes many of the other ways people are searching for your business right now.  For existing sites they typically have lots of keywords on the second page of Google that they didn’t even know about and the keywords are exactly the target audience they are looking for.

Authority SEO, a Phoenix Internet Marketing company, have developed tools to identify all keywords that websites rank for all on the second page of Google search results.  These keywords are the low hanging fruit that need just a little SEO effort to move to the first page and receive daily traffic to your website.  Get a free report for your website by clicking the Free Keyword Report banner to the right.

The keywords your website ranks for on the second page of Google or rankings #11-#20 are visitors so close to finding your website though who won’t unless you do something about it and learn the keywords your site ranks for.

The issue is what pages do I optimize for any given keyword.  Your primary pages may be easy as they directly relate to your products or services.  For more secondary pages the challenge can be greater to determine.  One key aspect of Internet marketing that is essential to understand is to remind you that to rank for thousands of keywords we do have to get multiple pages ranked in Google and other search engines.

Example of Why You Link Keywords

For example with Authority SEO, we want our home page to rank for Internet Marketing.  Which means not only do we optimize our home page for that keywords we also send links inside and outside our site with that keyword hyperlinked to our home page.  If you look at the first sentence of this paragraph we hyperlinked the keyword Internet Marketing to our home page.  What is essential for effective search engine optimization is that every time we link the keyword Internet Marketing we also send it to the home page.  What we are telling Google and other search engines like Yahoo and Bing is that for the term Internet Marketing are home page is the most important.

This same method is also important for other keywords that hyperlinks for each keyword are sent to the right page on your website.  How do we determine the right page?  The best answer is often let Google tell us which page it thinks is already the most important for any keyword on your site.  The method of letting Google show you allows for multiple people working on the same site to always send links to the right page and makes it faster and easier to move up in search result pages.

Why Hyperlinking the Right Keyword to the Right Page is Important

Lets say for example for Authority SEO we have the keyword Twitter we want to rank for.  If every one adding content to AuthoritySEO.com links the keyword Twitter to different pages on the site then we are telling Google that non of these pages is that important for the keyword Twitter.  If every link with the keyword Twitter always goes to one particular page then we are telling Google for the keyword Twitter that one page is very important.  This is one aspect that supports different pages ranking for keywords in search results.  Authority SEO doesn’t rank for the keyword Twitter though this method has helped us rank for different keyword varieties of “facts about twitter.”  This one page on our site generates about 200 visitors every month for people looking for information about Twitter.  That doesn’t seem that much until you do the same method for thousands of keywords and thousands of different pages.  The collaborative effort generates a tremendous amount of new visitors.

What you then need to learn is how to determine what page on your site Google has already indexed as the top page for any given keyword.

Steps to Determine Best Ranking Website Page for Google Keyword

1. Open a browser and go to Google.com
2. Type into search bar site:yourwebsite.com keyword (see photo right)
3. Google results shows your web pages in order of importance for keyword you chose
4. Link keyword to top search results for your page to support increasing Google search results for any keyword on your site

In the photo, we used the keyword Twitter for the example.  As mentioned earlier the page Facts About Twitter is the top result.  Every link on our website with keyword Twitter then links to that page to support our SEO efforts for that keyword.

If you have done very little optimization on a given page for a certain keyword you may find that the page you want is not the top ranked page.  If you start linking that keyword to the page you want you will see it move up to the top of the rankings within Google search results.

Google places each web page that it indexes into two categories based a variety of factors to allow its search engine results page to load even faster with what it hopes to be relevant content.  The primary index is what it sounds like offering the highest quality web pages as Google sees them.  The secondary index is often tertiary pages in sites that Google has determined to be less valuable.

What makes a page more valuable?  That answer has many different variables though the major ones are unique content, unique title, and enough content to have value to name a few.  One more really important one is link building.  If there are no links pointing to a certain page then you are telling Google that page is not very important.

The secondary index is basically the opposite of everything in the earlier paragraph.  If you have really good unique content then the most likely issue goes to link building.  Another issue with sites is their navigation that the design doesn’t allow search engine spiders to find the content.  This can be a huge problem for ecommerce sites that may have thousands and thousands of product pages on their site.

There is another index by Google which is called none.  Don’t laugh this happens to many websites for a variety of reasons.  As an Internet Marketing Firm, we have had real clients that thought they were doing the right thing only to find themselves left out of Google index completely.

How Do We Know How Many Pages Google Indexes

If you want to know how many pages are in Google index, open up a new window with Google.com open.  Type into the search bar site:yoursite.com and then click return.  You will see how many pages Google has indexed.  In our example of NaturesOrganicMarket.com you see there are 7,610 pages indexed by Google.

Next to find out how many are in the secondary and primary index you do the exact approach plus you add /* so it looks like site:yoursite.com/*.  You see in the example that Natures Organic Market now has 193 pages which are in primary index and the remaining are considered secondary (7,417 in example for those keeping score at home).

For this example Natures Organic Market has 193 pages in Google primary index which have the best opportunity to rank for competitive terms.  Pages in the secondary index due have the ability to rank for keywords though typically not competitive terms that generate the most content.

What do we do with this information?

You have a few options to strategize.  First, the pages that are in the primary index are the top pages to create strategy for ranking for competitive terms that are important to your site.  Second, figure out if there is an issue with your site that needs to be fixed if you have a poor showing in the primary index.  The reality for large sites you will not get every page into the primary index.  For Natures Organic Market, they are have more web pages in Google’s primary index than most websites have in total pages.  What is necessary though that if a certain page is one that you want to rank for competitive terms you better get it out of the secondary index?

For Natures Organic Market it takes a primary page to rank high for a competitive term like organic shampoo as compared to a secondary page to rank for a specific product like best deep pore wash alba.

I tell clients that is possible and it can be expensive. Especially if you are in industry that is very competitive. I often explain to them that we will work on realistic rankings now, with the possibility of long-term growth in the future.

At Authority SEO we work on universal search, which means we work on getting you traffic from a multitude of  places, whether it be Google; maps, local, ppc, video, press, Facebook, Myspace, Social Media, and of course natural organic ranking across all of the search engines.

We first work on adding content and credible pages themed around your sites objective. The more credible pages you have, means the more authority you have. More authority means there’s a greater opportunity to rank for competitive big keyword terms.

Create a Keyword Hierarchy

This is important, especially if your website has multiple areas that don’t always follow the same theme. Typically, the most general and competitive keyword words and phrases are used on the home page. This is because the home page is likely to have the most inbound links, making it the strongest page. Good inbound links pass rank, so think of it as a hierarchy and a way to pass down page rank in a focused, keyword relevant manner.

Create Relevant Powerful Content

Authority documents tend to fare much better in search engines because they provide a full picture of a subject matter. Detailed, well-linked content is one reason. Whenever you create content for a targeted keyword, focus on quality, depth, and theme. It is very hard work to rank to a popular keyword, especially if you are coming from behind, so it is important to write better quality material than your competitors othewise why would Google put you in front of them in the rankings.

Internal Linking

While we work on your keyword strategy and add new relevant content to your site we also work on internal linking inside your website. This is important to the GoogleBot and readers to lead them to other pages that share important information. If your website has 20 other pages of content about wedding dresses but is unlinked, how does this benefit the user? Simply having the content on your website isn’t enough; however, interconnecting that content creates a web of authority that can be easily understood by both users and search engines.

Be sure to assign each subpage a maximum of one or two keyphrases. Every time this phrase is used sitewide, send a link to that corresponding page using varied and keyword rich anchor text. Remember, the most valuable links are within the body of the text and above the fold.

This is just a short version of what Authoriyt SEO can do for you. These items take time, strategy, and know how. Call us to help you get your website generating more money now!

Google doubles search traffic for Yahoo and Bing combined

Top Search Engines Rankings April 2010

Google still dominates all search traffic while Yahoo search traffic was up 0.8% to 17.7% and Microsoft, which is Bing, was up 0.1% to 11.8%.  The other top search engines Ask.com comes in at 3.7% and AOL at 2.4%.  Recent inclusions of other media channels in both Yahoo and Bing have led to the small increase in their respected search traffic.  Google has released new SERP that incorporates social media, forums, blogs, and more into easy to access left navigation.

comScore Core Search Report*
April 2010 vs. March 2010
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity              Share of Searches (%)
Mar-10       Apr-10    Point Change
Apr-10 vs.
Mar-10
Total Core Search           100.0%       100.0%          N/A
Google Sites                 65.1%        64.4%         -0.7
Yahoo! Sites                 16.9%        17.7%          0.8
Microsoft Sites              11.7%        11.8%          0.1
Ask Network                   3.8%         3.7%         -0.1
———–                   —          —          —-
AOL LLC Network               2.5%         2.4%         -0.1
—————               —          —          —-

* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

Americans performed 15.5 billion searches in April, up modestly from March. Google Sites accounted for 10 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! Sites (2.8 billion), Microsoft Sites (1.8 billion), Ask Network (574 million) and AOL LLC (371 million).

comScore Core Search Report*
April 2010 vs. March 2010
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch
Core Search Entity               Search Queries (MM)
Mar-10       Apr-10       Percent
Change
Apr-10 vs.
Mar-10
Total Core Search          15,427       15,532             1%
Google Sites               10,048       10,006             0%
Yahoo! Sites                2,605        2,752             6%
Microsoft Sites             1,802        1,829             1%
Ask Network                   593          574            -3%
———–                   —          —           —
AOL LLC                       380          371            -2%
——-                       —          —           —

* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

April 2010 U.S. Detailed Search Rankings

In the April analysis of the top websites where search activity is conducted, Google Sites led the search market with 14.0 billion search queries, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 2.8 billion queries and Microsoft Sites with 1.9 billion. Amazon Sites experienced considerable growth during the month with an 8% increase to 245 million searches, concluding the top 10 ranking.

comScore Expanded Search Query Report
————————————-
April 2010 vs. March 2010
————————-
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
——————————————-
Source: comScore qSearch
————————
Search Queries (MM)
——————-
Expanded Search Entity
———————-
Percent
Mar-10       Apr-10       Change
——       ——    Apr-10 vs.

Mar-10
——
Total Internet                   23,866       23,658          -1%
————–                   ——       ——         —
Google Sites                     14,252       13,996          -2%
————                     ——       ——         —
Google                       10,547       10,556           0%
——                       ——       ——         —
YouTube/All Other             3,705        3,440          -7%
—————–             —–        —–         —
Yahoo! Sites                      2,689        2,839           6%
————                      —–        —–         —
Yahoo!                        2,676        2,827           6%
——                        —–        —–         —
All Other                        13           12          -8%
———                       —          —         —
Microsoft Sites                   1,862        1,883           1%
—————                   —–        —–         —
Bing                          1,604        1,575          -2%
—-                          —–        —–         —
Microsoft/All Other             258          308          19%
——————-             —          —         —
Ask Network                         742          719          -3%
———–                         —          —         —
ASK.COM                         332          327          -2%
——-                         —          —         —
MyWebSearch.com/ All
Other                          410          392          -4%
——————–            —          —         —
craigslist, inc.                    664          685           3%
—————-                    —          —         —
eBay                                659          641          -3%
—-                                —          —         —
Facebook.com                        647          624          -4%
————                        —          —         —
AOL LLC                             594          604           2%
——-                             —          —         —
AOL Search Network              319          302          -5%
——————              —          —         —
MapQuest/All Other              275          302          10%
——————              —          —         —
Fox Interactive Media               406          312         -23%
———————               —          —         —
MySpace                         402          309         -23%
——-                         —          —         —
All Other                         4            3         -25%
———                       —          —         —
Amazon Sites                        226          245           8%
————                        —          —         —

Until now conversions were attributed to the last click of the end user.  The issue is that marketer doesn’t know how much time passed since the first time that online visitor clicked an Adwords ad or how many other advertisements were seen during the buying process.  The Search Funnels report, generated from visitors’ conversion path data, will show how keywords and campaigns support each other to achieve sales and the funnel of ad clicks and impressions.

Now, with the new SERP for Google social media has a true ecommerce value.

The new Google search options have been available since January of this year though they have not been in easy to access options the way they are now.  If you don’t know what is new.  Type into Google any keyword that you would want to rank for and then click the “more” button in the left hand navigation.

More Ways to Search with Google

The different options include Everything (the normal SERP), Images, Videos, News, Maps, Books, Shopping, Blog, Discussion, and Updates.  The two new social media impacts are Discussion and Updates.  Discussion indexes forums and message boards where conversions are happening on which ever keyword you pick.  Updates are real time search of Twitter and Facebook profile posts.  Yahoo added a similar option and found that people started to use them at high levels.  This you can expect for Google as well that now that these different SERP options will start to get heavy traffic.

What changes now is that the company that delivers a true complete online media marketing plan will be able to maximize the new search features.  Online searchers have some many options for getting the information they want online that it is essential to have marketing efforts in each area.

Yahoo did research that found that more and more people are using social media as there way of interacting online.  Google has now made it easier for people to find the people and companies that are interacting on the subject matter they want.  One big key to social media is that it is easy to tell which companies are using real people interacting with their future customers and which ones are have things just auto-filled.

To be successful online now it is a necessity that your SEO plan includes all the media options Google is making it easy to search with.

Bing is working hard to catch up all the features that Google’s webmaster tools offers so I would check back frequently to check for updates.  Mostly likely Google and Bing will index your site differently so take advantage of this valuable resource. (http://www.bing.com/webmaster)

Having your entire team understand how they can play a role in your SEO can pay huge dividends with extra links and content for your business

5 Ecommerce Tips You Can Implement Today

1. Google Alerts: Google Alerts is a free service that sends email alerts anytime a keyword of your choosing is indexed by Google including blogs, news, and organic results.  You can use this tool in two ways.  First, you can track any reference of your company online so you know what people are saying about you.  Second, you can track major keywords that your team is working on so you will know anytime Google has indexed that keyword with reference to your website.
2. Keyword Research: Many companies don’t spend the time doing keyword research to discover all of the different keyword phrases people are using to search for your respected business.  For every major keyword relevant to your business there are at least a thousand different keyword phrases using your major keyword that people are typing into search engines right now.
3. Security: As your website grows so does your need for added security.  Do you know why Apple computers have so few viruses, because 98% of people use PCs.  Hackers go where the action is.  When you are effective with your SEO then you will become a target for hackers, so keeping up to date with all security protocols becomes vital.  Even Twitter was hacked and broke down for a few hours just a week ago.
4. Coordinate: Does your entire team know what pages on your site your SEO team is focusing on and what keywords.  Many important factors that will enhance your rankings can come from other parts of your team who can get high quality links from the relationships they are creating.  For example, your sales team understanding that links are important can work out adding a link to your website from a new vendor which can have tremendous power, and a link like that an SEO expert has no access to.
5. Promotion: Add features to your website that allow for you to easy change out promotions and upcoming events.  Many websites have static header graphics and right/ left side borders.  By making certain key areas editable for promotions you can promote specific sales instantly throughout your website including holiday specials as the season grows near.