Alberta Business Marketing

Over the course of the past 48 hours, one continuous message was almost a centre of discussion at the SESTO show which has recently wrapped up in Toronto was the elimination of spam in search.

The other day I got to see “doorway page” spam at work. I was on a conference call and was fielding some questions about search engine optimization with a potential client of ours at Ulistic. This client has an older site laced with hundreds of links in the footer of their main corporate site and is reluctant to remove them. He believes they work and my guess is some inexperienced SEO guru told him this is what he needs to do in order to succeed online.

Well, nothing is further from the truth in today’s search world. Those links at the bottom of your page are not scoring high in the Google world and they may be flagged as spam and will potentially harm your overall page ranking. Driving off page one instead of keeping you at the top.

What works? This list is quite a lengthy one but I will touch on just a couple of examples right now:

Keyword Rich Content – I preach about then importance of balance of design and content. Your website needs to work for the reader and for Google. Balancing the design of your site with well-written and keyword rich copy is crucial to attract qualified prospects from the search engines.

Be personable – This point is very important. You need to be personable online. Blogs and social media are wonderful ways your business can “have a face” online. Using Facebook, Twitter, video and blogs are key important personable tools all business must embrace.

There is more to life than self-serving links, especially spam-filled self-serving links…this is from the horse’s mouth and was shared with us SEO professionals at the Search Engine Strategies show in Toronto. Stop the cycle of pages filled with spam.

Get personable and educated your followers. Share your insight and share your knowledge and you just may rise to the top of the table.

My company Ulistic works with business across Canada understand SEO, social media and the importance of doing business online today. Give us a ring at 403.775.2205 with any questions you may have.

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Just stumbled on another recent announcement from Google.

“Similar” pages on results page
Here’s a new feature that makes it easier to discover the variety of choices available on the web. We’ve offered the “Similar” link on search results for a while now as a way to find new websites similar to ones you already use and like, but it hasn’t been too visible. Now, for queries where we think sites similar to the first search result might be helpful, a small block of similar sites will appear at the bottom of the results page. Clicking on the “Pages similar to” link at the start of the block will take you to the full list of similar pages.

What does this mean for your business?  Do this mean if I go out looking for a small business computer consultant or pick your company, is there a chance your competitor may just show up on your search results?

I did a search result for the IT company I worked for last year…check out the search results?  Notice anything?

Tags: Computing, google, Google Inc., Google search, Internet, Internet search engines, search engine optimization, search result, search results, small business computer consultant, Technology/Internet, Web search engine, World Wide Web
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Who said Social Media was for teens or kids?

Well the importance of social media in the business world took a huge leap forward.  Google on their official blog announced they will be showing real-time search results for Facebook information such as your fan pages.  It appears this will only be US-based for now, however once it starts gaining some momentum I am sure it will spill across the border to us here in Canada.

Real-time search results was released in December and so far it is showing up on a number of searches.

Here is an example of Google real-time search in action.  Searching for the Canadian Hockey Team on Google today showed some very interesting search results in real-time.

Social Media services are now critically important for your business.  Especially with this integration of search results from services like Twitter and now Facebook now showing in Google search results.  What opportunities is your business missing?  If you are would like to learn more about Canadian search engine optimization for your business give me a call at 403.775.2205.

To learn more about Facebook and Google search, check out the official Google blog.

Tags: Blog hosting services, canada, Criticism of Facebook, Facebook, Facebook Inc, google, Google Inc., Google search, Google's hoaxes, Online social networking, real time search, real-time search results, search engine optimization, search results, Social information processing, social media, Technology/Internet, Twitter, Twitter Inc, web 2.0, World Wide Web
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