Dave Shuts from England bought a domain 7 months prior and yet it still isn’t showing up on search engine result pages. He wonders if its history might have something to do with the situation. Digging deeper, he found that it was first registered in 2000 and it has since gone through a number of owners. One of them was a company in Australia that used it to serve ads. Is it possible that trust issues are preventing its appearance on Google SERPs?
Matt Cutts agrees with this assessment. Seven months is far too long as domains typically appear after a few days. Try typing the exact URL on the search engine textbox. If it still does not appear in Google results, then there are probably trust issues going on. The problem may also be rooted in an esoteric country code. Another possible reason is a lack of links pointing to the website. This would prevent spiders from finding it. This should be easy enough to check and rule out.
Matt invites us to look at the situation as a black hat SEO. Such a person would buy domains and use them for spamming until these sites become useless because of their bad reputation. The domains might then be sold to an unsuspecting buyer. Avoid being victimized by doing a thorough background check before purchasing.
It’s been recently discovered that Google has submitted a patent that should change the way linkbuilding is done in a drastic manner. We’ve all been aware of the linkbuilding penalties that Google has been handing out for the abuse and misuse of links, so it’s no surprise to see them taking action. In fact, this has been coming for a while, it’s just unclear how many people truly expected this kind of superb fix: implied links.
Under our current understanding of linkbuilding, ‘express links’ are the only types of links that are beneficial to a site’s ranking. An express link is your standard link that leads back to the webpage by embedding (or just plain pasting) the URL on a page. For example, http://www.Google.com is an express link. These are the links that are being used in negative SEO and link building schemes, as well as by honest internet marketers like you and me.
Enter the Implied Link
But now, Google is poised to swing the emphasis from express links to what are being called ‘implied links.’ Implied links do not actually have to include the URL to the website, they are simply implied by the mere mention of the website (or brand, product, service, etc.). This means that mentions and citations are going to be the next wave of linkbuilding, mostly because they are much harder to manipulate in order to score higher rankings in the SERPs.
This isn’t to say anything of nofollow links, we expect these to stay pretty heavy in the algorithm, but just to say that implied links are going to weigh a lot more than express links. Granted, this is mostly educated speculation right now, but the patent filed by Google certainly makes it clear that implied links are a real thing and will matter.
Reference Queries and Brand Mentions
But the changes aren’t stopping there. Not only does the Panda patent talk about express and implied links, but authority calculation will now also be affected reference queries. This is essentially a road map that starts with a very specific query that ends up in a very specific location. In other words, if 80% of all queries into “soda pop” end up on Coca Cola’s page and not Pepsi’s, Coca Cola will benefit from the reference query weight of “soda pop.”
This helps ensure that Google is directing searchers to the right pages by sending them to the places that others have found success. This determines popularity of the page by query entry, thus adding to the authority of the site. Basically, this is just another way to improve the visitor experience so keep focusing on making sure you are giving your audience exactly what they want. The better you answer their questions and meet their needs, the better your reference query scores will be.
As for brand mentions, this is just another term for implied links. They are also called mentions and if you want your brand to carry authority, you simply need other sites to talk about your brand and/or website. This is going to change the outlook on blogging since now you don’t really need anyone to place an express link in their blog, only talk about you as an authority or in some similar form.
Creating new content is critical to the success of your web pages, but let’s face it: It’s also a pain in the butt.
It often seems like you’ve already said everything you want to say about your blog or website’s subject matter. Yet if you don’t provide a constant stream of fresh, engaging content, you risk alienating your regular visitors and you could stop attracting new fans.
Here’s some easy ways to keep your blog or website engaging and interesting to new fans and loyal return visitors:
– Engaging Content Is Critical – This is something you hear a lot, but what does it really mean? Engaging content can mean any number of things, such as a lively debate about a controversial subject relating to your niche to reviews of the latest news. It could mean stories from your own real life or somebody else’s that are relevant to your subject matter.
Developing engaging content is something that should come organically to you. If you are the author of a popular blog or website, you probably already are constantly on the lookout for articles, images and other content you think your readers might find interesting. But you don’t always have to give your readers long blocks of text. In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t.
Infographics are one of the hottest types of engaging content being used online right now. These are images that present information both textually and with engaging graphics. The purpose of infographics is to make your content easier to be absorbed by your visitors.
Videos are another great type of engaging content, especially if you don’t usually post videos of yourself. If your readers have following your blog for a long time and then suddenly, BOOM!, there’s a video of you in your own home or office, it can be like: Mind. Blown.
– Put Your Visitors First – The most successful sites make their readers the blog or website owners’ top priority. This pays off because when visitors feel valued, they are much more likely to come back another time.
Did you ever read a blog or website and think, “Boy, this person is such a know-it-all?” How did that make you feel? Now compare that to a blog or website where the author is actively responding to visitors’ questions, sharing stories about interactions with fans, and inviting visitors to share their stories or tips as they are relevant to the blog’s subject matter. Big difference. Much more inviting.
– Mix It Up A Little –If you’ve been using the same theme since the first day of your blog or website, or always use the default layout, it may be comfortable for you but it can be a real turnoff for your visitors. People like it when you shake things up every once in a while.
Think about the way Google will change their home search page for special holidays or just for fun. You can do the same thing with your blog or website to make it more engaging for your visitors. At the very least, change your theme to reflect the season, such as having a snowy background in winter, a sunny one in summer, and so on.
Okay, these techniques of enhancing the users’ experience when they arrive on your pages may take a little time or effort on your part. But they will pay off royally when you build your subscriber list and start attracting hundreds of new visitors every day. See for yourself!
Do you want more web traffic? Are you failing to reach your ideal online customer base? If you think that your online success could do with a boost, then you may want to start by improving your SEO.
SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is first and foremost about making your website easy to find. By following a number of fairly standard steps you can ensure that your site has a prominent place in the search engines when prospective customers carry out a search for the things that you’re selling. The important distinction here is that your site needs to be reaching people who are searching not only for your business, but also those who are searching for the products or services you are selling.
If your business sells French Provincial Style Furniture it is important that the search engines recognise what your business is about, not just your business name. SEO helps to pinpoint key word phrases that your customers use to search with. This ensures that your website is correctly indexed and ranked to reflect its relevance to the phrase being targeted. A good outcome from SEO is that your site will rank highly when a potential customer runs a search using a targeted phrase (e.g. ‘French provincial style furniture’).
SEO helps to clarify what your site is about, so that when a search engine comes to index your site, it does so correctly. Through good SEO practices, you’ll find that your site moves up through the pages; ranking more highly for appropriate phrases. Your site then becomes easier for prospective customers to find.Some of the simplest steps can make a big difference to how your site ranks; which, in turn can have a big impact on the amount of traffic reaching your site.
Boosting your search engine ranking for the most appropriate phrases will also ensure that the traffic you receive is largely from qualified visitors to your site. When your webpage ranks highly for appropriate, targeted phrases you’ll be able to not only increase the numbers ofprospects on your site, you’ll be confident that those who do reach your site will be genuinely interested. Having a large number of visitors is somewhat pointless if they land on your site and then leave less than 10 seconds later. Relevance is a big part of SEO and it ensures that your web traffic consists of a greater number of visitors with a genuine enthusiasm and interest in your products and services.
Someone recently asked me what a great landing page consisted of. Before I began to rattle through my list of essential checkpoints, they modified the question and said, “Answer in two words.” I thought for a split second and then responded, “Content and Images.” Okay, that was three, sue me.
Still, my point remains. In order to have a really successful landing page, you really only need two things (aside from the obvious i.e. call to action, hosting site, URL, the ability to exist, etc.). When it really comes down to it, content is going to drive the traffic and then the sales and images are going to keep the viewer invested in the landing page. Done deal, right?
Not so fast. It should be obvious by now that you can’t just slap up any old content up on a landing page and expect it to work. The content has to be done correctly. This means a few things:
– Content Focus. For starters, the content has to be very specific. Landing pages aren’t the place to write novels or go off on tangents. Tell the viewer where they are, what they can do here and what you want them to do. Get them in, get them informed, get their order/email/etc.
– Keywords. Of course you’re going to need keywords to rank on the SERPs, but don’t just keyword stuff. Use LSIs to trigger that oh-so important semantic search algorithm.
– Digestible Chunks. Don’t write huge paragraphs or walls of text. Keep it short and to the point, creating a lot of white space and nothing that will swallow your viewer whole.
– Pleasing Font. No comic sans, no 20 pt bold, no Times Roman—stick to Verdana if you want to be safe, but don’t be obnoxious or boring with your font choice, color or size as a general rule.
– Proper English (or whatever language you’re writing in). If there are spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, punctuation mistakes or anything of the sort, I’m leaving and I’m taking your viewers with me. These types of errors scream “amateur” and “scam artist” and will drive your leads to a better landing page (probably not owned by you!).
And if content has to be done right, it follows that images can’t just be slapped up there either in order for landing pages to have the “bare essentials” for success. Here are some pointers to make sure your images are being all that they can be:
– Properly Sized. Images can’t be too big or too small. They should be scaled to fit on any device screen (responsive websites are the best way to do this).
– Alt Text. While not exactly essential, it is important to your keyword ranking and ultimate ability for your landing page to be found through a Google image search. Make your alt txt on images the keywords for your landing page.
– Content Appropriate. Make sure the pictures not only match what you are talking about, but are also situated in the right area on the page. For example, don’t talk about blue elephants at the top of the page and then post a blue elephant picture at the bottom.
As you can see, it doesn’t take many elements to have a killer landingpage, but what it does take has to be done properly.
