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Posts tagged Search Engine Optimisation
Google Gives Local Businesses an Advertising Boost
Oct 26th
Google has just launched Boost, a location-based ad product for local businesses which underlines the search engine giants stance on localised searches.
Built on Google Places, Boost beta is available in San Francisco, Houston and Chicago right now and will roll out to more cities soon.
Boost ads show up when users search for local businesses; they appear in the “sponsored links” section of Google’s (Google) web search and Google Maps (Google Maps), as well. Ads will appear when the right combination of vertical keyword (e.g., “restaurants”) and location keyword (e.g., “San Francisco”) is met.
The ads can contain basic location information, such as the address, business name and phone number, as well as more consumer-focused tidbits, including a star ratings, number of reviews received and a special Maps marker.
Business owners can create Boost ads from within their Google Places account. Initial setup is simple, and campaign management is automatic; all the business owner needs to do is set a budget, and Google’s advertising algorithm takes care of the details of placement and frequency.
We see this product as a preemptive strike against Facebook Places advertising. To date, Facebook has only announced cursory guidelines for Places use by businesses; no ads are yet being More >
The Present Future of Link Building
Oct 26th
The number of people who tried to get their posts to go viral (by writing list posts and publishing images) increased dramatically and, at the same time, Twitter and Facebook REALLY took off. People that wanted to ‘share good stuff’ found these services easier to use for sharing than having a WordPress or Blogspot blog. The result? If you create linkbait and it goes popular, then you should expect a lot of re-tweets/stumble thumbs-ups/Facebook ‘likes’ but a very small number of links from different unique root domains. Do these links from Facebook/Twitter carry any special importance?
Matt Cutts once said in a YouTube video that they rate links from Facebook and Twitter just like any other link! Yay!
One recent lesson I’ve learned about ‘niche’ link building is that you can get viral in your niche community. Take SEO and this blog, for example. I’ve witnessed how different SEOs follow each other and, in case someone has something interesting to share, then other people in the industry re-tweet him and the chain goes on. This is not the case for every niche market unfortunately.
What’s the Future of Natural Link Building? Is it DEAD?!??!Okay, 3 points here:
- Many people who link ‘naturally’ have switched to More >
Google Local Has Changed
Oct 19th
With a few tweaks and an interface change, Google has placed location and location-based search front-and-center in its search engine.
The big change, announced earlier today on Google Blog’s, is that Google (Google) has moved the user location setting to the left-hand panel of the search engine results page. This feature automatically detects your current location and tailors search results based on that. For example, searches for “pizza” or “gyms” will provide local business results near your location, which tend to be a lot more relevant than a Wikipedia (Wikipedia) article on everybody’s favorite cheesy snack.
The change rolls out starting today and will be available to users in 40+ languages sometime soon.
Now that the location setting will be on the left side of the search engine results page, users can easily change it if Google gets it wrong or if a user wants to find restaurants near a different location. Say you’re about to travel to Enfield and you want to find the best website design shop near your hotel; all you have to do is type in the new city or post code and Google will adjust search results based on that location.
While nothing has changed in the back-end of More >