Archive for category Search Engine Marketing
Questions for the Search Engines
Posted by richard in Local Search Marketing, Search Engine Marketing on September 13th, 2009
In October, I will be attending SMX East in NYC at the Javits Center. I was reading Danny Sullivan’s preview on the conference and one session, Ask The Search Engines: Best Practices Edition, is a must attend.
I do have a couple questions:
- Is it OK in Google Local Business Center to have a business listing for each of the 30 phone numbers my client has? Meaning for each and every tracking phone number, to set up a separate business listing as many businesses (or their marketing agencies) are doing. This is a tactic hugely rewarded, so I am just curious if after more than a year of this going on if it is accepted practice.
- My followup to the above question will be: How about a business listing for each address of every employee in the company?
- And one more followup: How about simply using randomly picked residential addresses from the yellow pages?
All three valid questions. I do have a couple other questions:
- Is jamming a dozen keyword-stuffed classifieds (backpages, craigslist, webcosmos, kijiji) and clogging up a SERP for any-given keyword a valid practice? Or can this get a business in trouble? After all, it’s not y site that I’m spamming with.
- Should I register a bunch of cheap .info keyword-rich domain names and auto-generate content for these to get 7-8 listings on a SERP for a very competitive keyword.
- My followup would be: Is it OK to build 10 sites for the same business (each with the content slightly re-written and placed in a different order on the page) to try to get each organic spot on a SERP.
You can probably all guess my final question, and like most questions asked at these conferences, the answer is self evident:
- Are all the above practices, used in conjunction, acceptable for marketing a Web site online?
One might think so, if one looked at the last year’s worth of SERP data.
SEO Rabbit says I rant, but I’m just a marketer trying to do best by my clients. And when, over extended periods of time, a marketing tool with a majority of users in the search vertical can’t keep the playing field level, it’s tough to forgive, and thus I rant a bit. Again, to Google’s credit, they are the only one worth griping about. And believe me, I bitched about the Yellow Pages forcing me into buying the double-page spread and then selling a leader ad in front of it.
Google Local Business Ten-Pack Hell
Posted by richard in Local Search Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Uncategorized on June 13th, 2009
It’s almost enough to make you throw your hands in the air and send out some postal mailer coupons again.
Google’s Local Business results are so bad, and so obnoxiously in the user’s face with the large color map right at the top, that I honestly feel that soon spamming these Local Business results will be the only way to compete. And would I be wrong to do so. I have a business and I have clients who need to at least be competitive and results like the ones I’ve copied below are really starting to not only become aggravating, but I believe hurt business.
10-Pack Spam
The above is just your run-of-the-mill Local Business result where a spammer (and most likely, an unaware spammer – meaning just someone who probably doesn’t even know spam from ham) figured out how easy it is to get multiple listings and did so. I reported this to Google on April 8, 2009, it’s June 13, 2009 at this posting.
I know that Google likes to do everything algorithmically, but I think it’s time that they get some recent college grad googlers in there and start straightening this out by hand.
Here’s another result:
Local business result spam
This one adds injury to insult with natural SERP spam as well. All those .info sites are the same company, but they were a little cleverer and bought a bunch of keyword-laden .info URLs and stuffed a Web page with keywords. Then they posted each as it’s own Local Business listing — some have the same phone number and different addresses, but that doesn’t seem to matter — and they have 11 spots on the first page — plus one (1) AdWords spot — that’s the icing on the cake, if these were real business, wouldn’t maybe more than one have an Adwords account?
The thing that’s so galling about this spam is that it’s so easily recognizable. It’s like competing against children on these things and because the ref won’t call a foul, the kids are dominating the court. I only recently reported this one, so I’m in for the long wait if I want to continue to let business slip by.
And plus, the multiple site thing doesn’t seem to bother the search engines… but that’s another article.
So I have to ask myself… is it worth waiting? Is it worth trying to abide by Google’s rules? I feel like I’m doing my clients and myself a disservice by waiting for this thing to get cleared out… and… what’s the repercussion going to be of a little cheating anyway? Some of my work gets omitted after time? But in the meantime, I have happy clients and generate some business.
I’ll have to make a decision, but from this post I hope two things:
1. That any SEOs that read this, recognize the futility, as I have, of playing by the rules and simply go the multiple listing route. Why? Because if the problem gets even more ridiculous than it is, than it will have to be addressed more quickly.
2. I hope against hope, that some googler whose unfortunate job it is to watch the Google Alerts for their company name, forwards this to the Local Business spam patrol and it hurries the fix.
Is this a difficult decision on how to proceed? I don’t think so. I know what I’m going to do… who’s with me…
New Quote Link on Google SERP – Huge for Lead Generation
Posted by richard in Online Lead Generation, Search Engine Marketing on April 18th, 2009
I saw this SERP returned for our industry’s largest search term, “basement waterproofing“. Google was testing a link with an icon in the 4th organic position. We have the 1st organic with the Basement Systems Inc. domain, and we were in the 4th position with the icon.
Google Quote Link SERP Result
This would be a great result if Google decides to go with this. It makes sense, because it is the path of least resistance to requesting a free quote. And yes, I am spinning, hoping that a Googler may read this and agree with my logic.
It’s not as good as Amazon’s one-click purchase, but Google can correct that with a “Get Free Quote Now” button under the listing for people logged in (adding more benefit to being logged in) and a little code on the quote-offering Web site.
Having that link with the icon would be devastating to our competitors. It would make it look like not only are we the best choice – Google-Approved – but really the only smart choice to get an estimate … which Basement Systems is, and maybe this is just some more of Google’s push to get trusted brands ranked better.
Some oddities with the SERP were that, granted Basement Systems Web site has a ton of pages, but I couldn’t find where the title or snippet below it for the Google Quote-Link came from. We typically say “U.S.” in our copy rather than USA, and “Ireland” instead of a misspelled “Scottland,” as Ireland isn’t included in the “UK.” It could come from a directory listing somewhere, but I tried searching Google’s index with quotations, and found nothing. It’s almost as if a Googler wrote it… which could make sense if it was only a test in some small-ish markets.
I can only dream of a SERP with a QuoteLink
This is a great SERP for Basement Systems- 1st and 4th position, with an icon, a great third description line “Contact us for a free estimate,” and the third PPC spot with the Reg Mark (I Photoshopped the 2nd result out to save space) for the local Basement Systems dealership, Connecticut Basement Waterproofing Systems.
I’m not sure if “free” has anything to do with it – meaning if we charged $300 for the estimate, would we still be eligible for the QuoteLink… I don’t know, this is the only QuoteLink that I’ve seen.
Baby Sitelinks (One-line Sitelinks)
Posted by richard in Search Engine Marketing on April 15th, 2009
Google now displaying Baby Site Links (or classic site links)
Google’s new Baby Site Links, as coined by Josh Gister – Google refers to them as One-line Sitelinks, but about a week ago I saw them refer to them as Classic Sitelinks. These are great for making a site stand out better in the SERPs. It’s great to be rewarded for SEO and local search marketing work done for Connecticut Basement Systems, a basement waterproofing company in Connecticut.