Google’s Small Business Blog gives the details.

Let’s see how it progresses and how Groupon responds!

There are alot of details and information in the article so I’ll let you read it for yourself but the synopsis is that JCPenney hired a search engine consulting firm, SearchDex (no sense in linking to them and giving them any credit) and apparently they purchased hundreds or thousands of links on other websites all pointing back to JCPenney. These links used keyword phrases such as “casual dresses”, “samsonite luggage”, etc.

The reason it was even discovered is because it worked. For months during the holiday season, it seemed that any search for any product that JCPenney might sell, that company came up in the top positions. It didn’t matter if the search was for Area Rugs or for bedding. JCPenney kept coming up at the top.

The New York Times decided to investigate the issue and the investigation resulted in these black hat techniques. The results were sent to Google and the end result is that the rankings for JCPenney have gone down, considerably (as you’ll read in the article).

So, was it worth it for JCPenney? Did they make alot of money during the holiday season? Probably, I’m sure they did. But will it be worth all the upcoming seasons? I mean, from now on, JCPenney is on the list at Google’s spam control center. How long before they get off that list? How much harder will they have to work to get higher rankings? If they made 5 million dollars during the 2010 holiday season, how much will they lose during the 2011 year, 2012 year, 2013 year? Was it worth it?

As business owners, you must understand the game on the Internet. The search engines WANT to give their users the most relevant results, advertisers must “advertise” in that fashion. You don’t just put stuff up on a website page and expect others to see it. You have to put up “relevant”, “important”, stuff up on those website pages. Otherwise, why is your website any better than the other person’s?

Hope you enjoy the article!

Here’s a great video on how to best use Google Webmaster Tools.

“As you type, Google’s algorithm predicts and displays search queries based on other users’ search activities. These searches are algorithmically determined based on a number of purely objective factors (including popularity of search terms) without human intervention. All of the predicted queries shown have been typed previously by other Google users. The autocomplete dataset is updated frequently to offer fresh and rising search queries. In addition, if you’re signed in to your Google Account and have Web History enabled, you may see search queries from relevant searches that you’ve done in the past.”

So, basically, this means that the phrases that you see popping up are popular.

So what?

Well, I’m telling you that you can use it to tap into what the general public is thinking about (as far as Google knows).  Here are some experiments…

1) Type in – I need help with

You’ll get an autocomplete results of what people are typing in to Google.  Because  it’s in real time, it’ll change, constantly and give you the most up to date information available.

Here are some other phrases you can type in:

2) I need the answer
3) When is the best time
4) Where do I
5) How can I

General phrases like this give you very broad answers, of course.

So, if you want something more specific type in either that phrase or the first letter.

Example:  Let’s say you’re a caterer, you might type in something like…

1) help with dinner party
2) catering services
3) wedding caterer

Want even more phrases then the initial list?  That’s easy – just add a single letter after the phrase.

1) help with dinner party a
2) catering services a
3) wedding caterer a
(Change from a to b to c, etc. all the way down the alphabet – you’ll get more phrases)

I have no way of knowing if this is actually true or not but I do know that the websites, for the most part are in no way optimized or prepared for the search engines.  Some aren’t even ready for the public, but that’s another story!

After speaking and consulting with multiple designers over the years I do believe that there’s a sense of  “it’s not important” – from the designers’ perspective.  Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m writing this post to once again emphasize how important every SEO factor truly is.

It’s Not Just Me Saying This

Here’s an excerpt by Adam Audette at SearchEngineLand.

This article speaks more about Canonicalization issues but the take home message is the same.  The details of SEO are extremely important when it comes to marketing websites.  If there are 200 different ranking factors that Google takes into consideration, and your competitor has fulfilled 130 of them but your website has only fulfilled 70 of them.  Well, guess who’s going to rank higher?

What’s a site owner or SEO webmaster to do?

Well, stick with the basics for one and of course, keep adding and tweaking the site not only for the search engines but for the target audience as well.

Here’s a list of the basics that I follow when optimizing websites…

1) Keyword research is the key – assign 1 keyword phrase per website page and don’t forget to use the semantic phrases as well.

2) Make sure that keyword phrase is where it’s supposed to be.  Meta tags, header tags, bold, at the beginning, in the middle, at the end and within links.

3) Silo the website architecture and use breadcrumbs and smart menu navigation throughout.

4) Spread the word via articles, social media and social bookmarking.

5) Monitor each page of the website.  Find out what’s working, what’s not working and then make your changes.  Internet marketing is a constant tweaking process.  Don’t kid yourself to thinking that it’s a one time deal.

So, the lesson here is don’t get too caught up about the rankings of your website.  Look at the specific stats your website is telling you.  Fix the pages that aren’t working.  Change the keyword phrases that aren’t bringing in good traffic.    Believe me, you’ll get to the top!

Why should we care what the “European sales chief” says?  Well, considering the fact that Europe (and Asia) are 3 years ahead of the United States in mobile technology, we can safely assume that this “European sales chief” knows what he is talking about.  He’s already seen the amazing usage and expansion of mobile and tablet pc’s – he sees it every day.

The United States is just starting to get into that market but yet, I’m sure that even if you don’t use a mobile phone or tablet PC, that you know at least ONE person who does.  So, even though we are just beginning to see the impact of mobile Internet, as someone once said, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

So, as a small business owner, as a website owner, how are you going to leverage your company to take advantage of this trend?  After all, if Google thinks it’s the wave of the future, the chances are it most likely will be.  So, what are you going to do?  How can you take advantage of it?  How can you use it?

Here are some thoughts…

1) Don’t wait any longer to go mobile.  If you haven’t yet made sure that your website is easily accessible by mobile users, don’t wait anymore.  Get your designer on the task immediately.

2) Think Global.  In many rural areas across the globe, mobile is cheaper and easier to get.  This means the number of people going online is increasing much faster with mobile usage.  If your product or service reaches a global audience, make sure you’re addressing the needs of each culture so that you can take advantage of global sales.

3) Think Local.  The benefits of mobile and local businesses is tremendous.  In order to take advantage of this you must position yourself in all the local maps and directories.  I’m talking about Google Maps, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps.  I’m talking about Yelp and Foursquare.  If you want to be found my local customers, make sure they can find you from their mobile phones.  Again put your designer or seo firm on this task.

4) Go Social.  Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are just some of the social media program you must take advantage of.  This is how you “go viral”.  One person talks about you and passes it on to their friends, etc.  The great surge of usage of social media programs is from mobile units.  Take advantage of this by putting yourself in front of all those people.

Mobile and tablet technologies are not going away, they’re coming and they’re coming fast.  Be pro-active and begin the process of getting your business ready for this technology.  You’ll be better off for it.

What is Buzz?  Think of it as Google’s very own Twitter.  The benefit is that it’s right there on Gmail.  So, no need to open a separate screen of have a separate account or window open.  Your email, your chats and now your Tweets can all be performed, viewed, responded to right from the Gmail control panel.  Pretty slick.

Will it take over Twitter?  Who knows, it’s anybody’s guess as to what programs will still be in use months from now but one thing is for sure.  The ease of using this new gadget can’t be beat.

If you’ve already been buzzed, feel free to follow me at eckweb@gmail.com.  I’ll post my daily tips, notes and comments about this crazy SEO / Internet Marketing industry and hopefully you’ll find them useful for your own marketing.

Happy Buzzing.

Google announced and began implementing several new factors in their list of ranking factors…

1) Real Time Search
2) Personalized Search Results
3) Page Speed
4) Easier search on mobile units

So, what do these mean?

1) Real Time Search
Basically, when you do a search on Google you will be given results from within Social Media programs such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc. along with the other search engine results.  Here’s an article from WebProNews that explains the entire process in detail but know this, there is no doubt that from now on, your exposure in social media programs will impact your website.  This “change” by Google ensures the future of social media.  What you say and do, and what is said about you in social media circles can and will become a line in the search result pages.  So, if you haven’t yet begun the process of joining and participating in social media, the time has come to jump in.

2) Personalized Search Results

It used to be that if you had a Google account and you were signed in to your Google account and you used Google to search for something, your search results would be skewed to your history.  In other words, if your Google history showed that you shopped often at Sears online, then when you made a search for an item, you would be shown results from Sears because to Google, you like Sears so they’re trying to give you what you like.  Google calls this “Personalized Search”.

You could, of course, log out of your Google account and your search results would be different because Google had no history to tap into.  But those days are now gone.  Personalized search is now ALL THE TIME and FOR EVERYONE using Google.  So, no matter if you have a Google account or not, if you’re signed in or not, you will have a Google history and they will tap into that history everytime you do a search on Google.

This is a great feature for Internet users, it makes the entire search process faster, easier and more relevant.  But for website owners and marketers, it changes the game completely.  It means that we can’t rely on website rankings anymore for traffic.  Because, truthfully, rankings aren’t going to matter much.  After all, 10 people in the same city doing the same exact search can potentially get 10 different search results depending on their zip code and their search history.  So, what good is it to be #1 on Sally’s computer and #8 on Mike’s computer?

The game now changes from rankings to traffic.  The goal now, for every website owner and Internet marketer is to increase the amount of traffic.  Rankings still play a part of course, but we can’t rely on those rankings as much as we used to.

Here’s an article with some more information about Google Personalized Search.

3) Page Speed

Web Designers, this is for you!  If you’ve been resisting the use of CSS and other code enhancements to create websites, you’re in for a large learning curve.  Google is now using the load time of a website page as part of it’s ranking algorithm.  So, if your website page takes 5 seconds to load onto a browser and your competitor takes 2 seconds to load, well, your competitor will get some extra ranking points for that.

Of course, this is just one of over 100 ranking factors that Google uses to rank websites but it is a new factor.  It’s important enough for Google to add to their Webmaster tools which in turn, tells us that they are looking at it right now!  So, get your websites loading faster!

4) Easier search on mobile units

I said it at the beginning of 2009, that this would be the year that Mobile Internet would hit big in the US and it has proven to be true.  2010 will only be bigger and it will just continue to grow.  The impact has been acknowledged by Google as they are now providing some easier ways to search on mobile units.

They already have search by voice, search by location and now they’ve introduced search by images.  Basically, you take a photo of the item that you’re interested in and Google will “attempt to locate it and give you information…” about it.  They’re calling ig Google Goggles.  How this will pan out, I have no idea but it’s an extremely interesting concept!

All in all, Google has launched 38 different new ways to search in the last 70 days.  There’s no doubt that the “big brother” theme comes to mind but for now, as an Internet marketer, I have to change my game plan.  We all do.  Anyone associated with SEO and Internet marketing has to re-structure how they manage their website marketing campaigns if they want to work with Google and gain the benefits of that search engine.  After all, it’s being used by 74% of the planet!

If you haven’t yet heard from your SEO firm about these changes, shoot them an email.  Don’t call, they’re probably working 22 hours a day just trying to keep up!

http://www.mooredesignsolutions.com/enews/2009/08-001/index.html