Tag Archives: Google

Google Discontinues Geo Sitemap Files

Posted on by Jeremy LaDuque

Google has discontinued support for GeoSitemap XML files.  The exact reason behind the move are fairly cloudy and this change was not announced to the public at large.  Instead, thousands of webmasters just happened to notice that their GeoSitemap files suddenly displayed an error status in February & March of this year.  The exact error those webmasters saw was “This tag was not recognized. Please fix it and resubmit.”  The reported error was really vague and misleading and as I mentioned, this change came unannounced.  It was only on March 20th in follow up questions from SMX West on Susan Moskwa’s Google+ page that any of this was explained.

“Google has retired support for the Geo Sitemaps format. You can continue to submit your Geo content to us using the standard Sitemaps format (just listing the URL of the file(s), without <geo>-specific tags)…

We previously supported an extension to the Sitemaps protocol where you could include tags in your XML Sitemaps that contained geo-specific information in addition to the URL of your KML file. We no longer support those geo-specific XML tags in Sitemaps, but you can still submit the URLs of your KML files in a standard Sitemap format.” (http://goo.gl/ovcxf)

The good news is that Google still supports the use of KML files which help validate accurate business contact information which can lead to increased rankings in local search.  Our recommendation is to add your KML file’s location into your general sitemap.xml which you would then submit to Google’s Webmaster Tools.

Google Has New Way to Connect Your Blog Posts to Your Personal Brand

Posted on by Jeremy LaDuque

Google has a new way to connect your blog posts to your personal brand. By going into your blog and making some simple changes you can have each post point to an author page on your blog, which in turn you can link to the author’s Google+ page.

This is a huge opportunity because Google has more trust in articles that are written by unique authenticated authors. The more articles tied to your Google+ account and the more people who recommend your articles through Google+, the more weight your articles will carry when it comes to ranking your articles in Google’s search results.

On your end, here is how to authenticate your authorship on any blog you contribute to:

  • Log into your Google+ account
  • Click on the circle with a head in it at the top to get to your profile page
  • Click on the “Edit Profile” button
  • In the right hand sidebar click on “Contributor To” button
  • Add a custom link to your blog
  • Click “Save”
  • Click “Done editing” at the top of the profile

The following then has to be added to your blog. You may need your tech folks to do this part:

  • Create an author page on your blog if you do not already have one (author.php)
  • At the bottom of each post put in an author tag that will point to that author’s page (<?php the_author_posts_link(); ?></p>)
  • On the author page you will need to link to that author’s Google+ profile page with the following tag in the link (rel=”me”)

That’s it!

Google Search Plus Your World – Changes bring Changes

Posted on by Russ Lubin

Google Plus Your World: Changes bring Changes

We have seen change after change occur, both algorithmically and to the user interface of Google.  All of these changes affect what franchises do to generate leads to at the local franchisee location.  In this article we will explain the impact of Search plus Your World and provide instructions on how to change with the times.

Explanation of Search plus Your World

In January of 2012 Google launched what they called Search plus Your World.  The goal of this algorithm change is to create a very personalized result which they expect will have more value to the user than a more generic general result would.  Google has been offering personalized search results for years, but average users didn’t even know that that they were being provided with personalized search because the difference between them and a generic search result was subtle.  Search plus Your World entirely changes the search results layout and drastically changes the rankings of websites.

In 2010 Google launched a social network called Google+.  What the public didn’t realize at the time is that one of Google’s purposes of this new social media platform was to create a way to authenticate people’s online persona.  By doing so, Google can create rate the value of an individual social persona.  This means that the websites recommended by a recognized industry writer will carry more weight than the recommendations of a faceless IP address.  In the same line of thought, the recommendation from a peer in your circle of friends would be deemed as having more value to you because it is likely that they have the same interests and opinions that you do.

With Search plus Your World, Google brings those recommendations from your circle of friends right to the forefront and it can draw those recommendations from private conversations on their social network.  The changes to the search results can be seen in the screen captures below.  The image on the right shows how even a Google Image search is affected by this recent change.

click image to expand

Googles Search Plus Your World Results Google Images Search Plus Your World Results

The problem is that Google is now showing more preference to their Google+ results than it does to other social networks and websites.  Google draws the data for their personalized search results from the Google+ network only, stating that once other social networks will be included when they sign-up for a long-term partnership and offer up their networks worth of data completely to Google.  Obviously Facebook & Twitter, advertising competitors of Google have serious reservations about both of these requirements.

Google is also bumping up the positions from these personalized results right to the top position.  This might be great if your friends happen to be discussing something completely relevant to what you are searching for, but could also be just a text mention of a product or brand rather than a local store or website that can fulfill your needs.  Take a close look at the image above on the left.  The third result is a personalized result pointing me to the Google+ network to find information on ‘search engine help’.  Well, this Google+ post is about a free tool that can show me where my site is listed on Google, but this isn’t really search engine help, is it?  Obviously this is not the most relevant result I could be looking for and is definitely not worthy of a top result.

Taking Advantage of Personalized Search Results

If you are wondering how your franchise can benefit from Google+ and Search plus Your World, the short answer is that every business can.  Recently Google made a change to their search system that obscures the keyword terms that drive visitors to your website if they are logged into Google, whether that is because of Gmail, Google Docs or YouTube.  So, instead of seeing the relevant keywords you will instead see (not provided).  Now Google also creates a Google+ account profile automatically if you have create and account for any of Google’s online products.  From this, we can see that the percentage of results arriving to your website as (not provided), actually have Google+ accounts and are actively logged in when they have made this search.  According to reports from many companies, the current percentage of searches done by people logged into their Google+ account sits between 10-20%.  One of our franchise client’s corporate webpage is showing over 30% of their search visitors are logged into Google+.  That’s a significant percentage of potential leads and leaving them off the table by not optimizing for Search plus Your World makes no sense.

The link graph is dying.  Obtaining links can be easily gamed.  Recommendations from authentic industry experts and friends within a circle are the new most powerful search signals that Google is using to rate websites in their search results.

So How Can Your Franchise Optimize for Google’s New Socially Guided Results?

The first step is to setup a Google+ account for your business. Understandably a franchise may be leery about creating another social media account because they already have Facebook & Twitter accounts that they having difficulty keeping current, but Google+ is a game changer when it comes to  search results and if you don’t grab a Google+ account for your business and begin posting to it now you will be playing catchup.

The first thing you should do is add Google+ badges on your website in conspicuous places on your website, near your companies contact information and in places near where your website’s visitors will be interacting with.  These badges will drive interested users to your Google+ account and hopefully the content you post to your circles is interesting enough to them that they add you to their circles.
Secondly, you need to install a +1.  Similar to a Facebook Like, a +1 button on your website encourages visitors to rate your website positively and these positive ratings will be delivered to others in their social circles.

The key to achieving success in Search plus Your World through your Google+ account is by recognizing your audience.  Finding, growing and pruning potential leads and existing clients into your Google+ social circles is pivotal to ranking success.  This isn’t Twitter.  You don’t need millions of followers.  What you should be targeting is your key demographic, people that are deeply entrenched in the products or services related to what your franchise delivers.  Relevant links or Google+ recommendations –- similar to Facebook likes — from authentic industry experts will do more for your company’s search results than thousands of unrelated mentions from empty profiles will.

What do I share with my users?

Now the goal of this social build-up is to get your Google+ page shared with other users through search or having other users share your website material.  By creating high quality relevant content you can increase the odds of getting users to +1 your website’s content.  With every Google+ update you should keep focused on moving the user from your social profile to your website’s lead generators whether those are a contact form or a newsletter sign-up page.  Track those conversions and the sources that led to them and use those metrics to drive your Google+ campaigns.

Keep in mind that a Like, follow or +1 is great and may be something that you can measure by a simple line chart it is not a conversion.  A conversion is an e-mail, a phone call or a join form that turns a user into a qualified lead.

IFA 2012 is on it’s way!

Posted on by Chad Jordan

ElementsLocal is unveiling BrandLocal at IFA.  It’s exciting, it’s direct and to the point.  It is designed to escalate LEADS at the local level as well as establishing your National Franchise Brand as the locally legitimized business.  Visit www.ifaconference.com for up to date information on what is happening at IFA 2012 and to schedule a meeting with your ElementsLocal team.

Visit us in booth #724 to find out what all the excitement is about!

  1. Build LOCAL Content
  2. Deploy LOCAL Domain Names
  3. Link LOCAL Websites      Together
  4. Insure LOCAL Unique and Descriptive Titles, Headers and Descriptions are written for every page
  5. Create Regional Websites connecting your LOCAL websites together
  6. Send LOCAL Email Campaigns on a consistent basis
  7. Send LOCAL Promotions Via Facebook/Twitter/Foursquare/Yelp
  8. Use call/number tracking to capture your LOCAL phone leads as well as your form leads
  9. Measure your LOCAL goals using Google Analytics
  10. Test, test, test using Google Website Optimizer – Which LOCAL CTA gives the best conversion

All of this equals BrandLOCAL.  Visit BrandLocal.net for more information or call us at 805-547-1160 ext. 205


Google’s answer to the Facebook ‘Like” box: Google + Badges

Posted on by Jeremy LaDuque

Google+ Badges for brand pages, is a widget that lets Franchise brands promote their presence on Google’s social network.  Google+ Badges are similar in form and function to Facebook‘s Like Box social plugin.

The easily embeddable widget lets users either +1 a webpage or add that page to their Google+ circles. The widget also displays the faces of other users who have +1ed the webpage. It doesn’t have Facebook’s ability to display your friends’ faces first  though.

The launch of Google+ Badges coincides with Monday’s launch of Google+ Brand Pages, finally giving businesses the ability to create a presence on Google’s growing social network.

The Google+ Badge has a few other tricks. The Google+ badge also contains a snippet of code that connects your website to your Google+ page. And In addition to helping Google better index your Google+ page, this snippet will help you show more personal recommendations around the web by linking your +1’s on sites, your Google+ page, search and display ads.

Google also revealed that the badge is a requirement for inclusion in Google Direct Connect, a feature that makes it possible for users to find a Google+ Page from Google Search. Users type in the “+” operator, followed by the name of a brand participating in Direct Connect. The search result will lead users directly to the company’s Google+ brand page.

The widget was a necessary component for Google+, given the success of its Facebook counterpart. While it doesn’t have the same benefits  Facebook enjoys with Open Graph, the Google+ Badge gets the job done. Google still has a long, uphill battle to convince both brands and users that its social network is an ideal place to do business.

Stay tuned as ElementsLocal keeps track of the impact Google+ has on your Franchise Online Marketing.

Google Integrates Their Own Social Into Search, Big Deal?

Posted on by Russ Lubin

As you’ve probably already read, Google has introduced their new social search which is on by default into their “Everything” search.  Adding social circle recommendations and social media posts within the results is not the problem; Bing integrated Facebook social signals into their results almost a year ago.  Most pundits take issue with the fact that Google is showing great preference to their own Google+ social network in their search results.  Some are even going so far as to state, is that Google is willing to sacrifice relevance and quality in favor of their own social results.

google plusTwitter (General Counsel,Alex Macgillivray) fired a salvo at Google claiming that it is a “bad day for the internet” because Google is displaying unfair practices by giving link preference in their search results to their own properties.  Google publicly stated that the Google+ social network would get no preferential treatment if Facebook & Twitter gave them permission to access all of their content, which of course neither competitor is willing to do.

So is Google using anti-trust techniques to bolster their own properties?  Well, it can be argued that Google does not hold a monopoly on search as they currently hold a 66% of the market share and there is no obstacle for consumers to use another search engine.  So most likely Google is not breaking the law, but we can see how the spirit of the law appears to be broken when the 800lbs gorilla of search is showing a lot of results to their own properties in their results.

By showing Google+ profiles in their search results Google is encouraging their users to sign-up for a Google+ account.  See, Google needs a large scale adoption of their social platform in order to pick up social signals which they can then use to base their search results on.  Google’s use of these social signals, such as quality ratings (+1) from trusted Google+ profiles could very well replace the current link graph system.  The existing system assumes that the more links a website has pointing to it the more popular that website is which speaks to its’ quality, but this can easily be gamed.  This paradigm shift from link graph to social signals for search results is a real big game-changer in search engine marketing.

Business strategies for your Franchise you should not ignore

Posted on by Chad Jordan

Outside forces and new technologies dramatically affect what happens to your Franchise. You don’t have to respond on a whim, but keep your eyes wide open when major changes occur.

Here are some marketing and business trends that are important to Franchises:

The Cloud – Although social media and mobile get more buzz, the great change-maker for franchises comes from the cloud. Using Internet-based applications to run your business rather than locating those applications on your servers or hard drives sounds pretty liberating, doesn’t it?

Going to the cloud is transformative. You gain powerful functionality, you can spend more of your time on your business and less on your infrastructure.  Now that YOU are mobile, you can access your applications and data from virtually anywhere.  Having your customer contact management, email marketing and document storage is essential. Continue reading →

Franchise Online Marketing Outlook for 2012: Creating an Adaptive Marketing Platform

Posted on by Jeremy LaDuque

Reflecting back is more than just remembering where you wanted to be. It’s an eye opener about how dramatically the sands shifted under your feet in 2011 and a clear sign 2012 will be no different.

For Franchise Marketers Google introduced significant changes to the way it displays and delivers search results. Many franchise marketers had to quickly react to the importance of social media, blogging and directories. Our own vision of being a complete solution for franchise online marketing was expanded to include new best of breed partners in directory submission and social media. Our dashboard reflects the integrated nature of how pay-per-click, organic search and directories (such as Google Places) inter-relate and converge.

This being said, what does 2012 hold in store for Franchise online marketing? Seeing future trends is exactly what we need to do in order to anticipate change and be at the top of our game.

It’s not just about how to show up, attract and sell to consumers today, but next month, next year and years to come.  Lets transcend ideas like “social network” and “search engine” and focus  on consumers and technologies. Will we be using a search engine like Google in 5 years? Will we be using desktop computers in 5 years? What will future social networks look like? Answers to those questions are answers to the future of marketing and customer engagement.

Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon and plenty of other large companies are innovating at amazing speed to gain control of our attention. Some are doing it through devices, some through content, others through infrastructure.

So, what is message we got from 2011? Change… we must take a critical look at what it will take to adapt to change.  Rather than jumping from one place to the next in your franchise online marketing plan, consider developing an adaptive model that allows for rapid assimilation of new technologies and trends.

Creating an adaptive model assumes that you will have to adopt new technologies or new methodologies. Is your company an early adopter? Have you taken on the risk of adopting a technology platform before everyone else? Or have you given up first mover advantage because you felt it was going to be too expensive or time consuming. Continue reading →

Google Fresh – Blog and Update Social Media Sites Regularly for SEO Optimization

Posted on by Jeremy LaDuque

I have a quick update about what’s been happening that affects our Franchise Marketing clients, SEO Clients and anyone with a website.  Big news - GOOGLE’S big changes last week.

Google has updated their local search results.  They have dubbed their newest twist on search engine processes:  Google ‘Fresh’ Update – Google changed its algorithm. The Grey pinned results and several other things are now live. This is how it affects us:

They estimate this will affect about 35% of web searches. The change is meant to provide more ‘weight’ to the most relevant recent updates.   This serves to keep active, predominant and frequently attended to sites fresh on the search list.

Most of our clients are service based organization rather than news sites.  Google wants to produce near instant results for searches that are best answered with timely information, like baseball scores or TV shows.  They are still planning on delivering “best results” for searches that do not need near instant results.  I don’t believe that the service industry businesses or their keyword targets are going to fall into that instant bucket.

“For evergreen results, like recipes or how to change a tire, Google said the algorithm would know to show the best results no matter when they were posted.”

However, we have seen some of our clients with up to date websites get a boost in rank from this change almost imediately.

Integrate more social media into your website and post regular blog postings with unique content to take advantage of this algorithm change. BAKE freshness into your website and benefit with better SEO.

The week also included Google announcing that they can now index Facebook comments that are embedded into websites. A blog plug-in that allows users to use their existing Facebook accounts to comment on your blog and more timely blog posts should be something you integrate into your current marketing plans.

See Blumenthals article and / or the Google Blog Spot for more about the Google changes.

Two Recent Google Changes That Could Affect Your Website

Posted on by Russ Lubin

It seems like Google is always changing things, but generally these changes are behind the scene changes in the algorithm that are generally too obscure and boring to people who are not search engine optimization specialists.  This time, these two new Google changes take place right in your face and they could affect how successful your website is when compared with your competitor’s website.

Sitelinks

The first change is a change to Google sitelinks.  When a website becomes popular enough Google adds additional links to your website below your website’s main listing.  This is supposed to help users more easily navigate your website by quickly locating the information on your website that they are looking for.  For instance, a search of a local museum may produce sitelinks that point users to hours they are open or contact and tour information as these are destinations that searches generally want to find quickly.

Google has now increased the number of sitelinks a website can have from 8 to 12 and also added and additional one line text snippet description of that page.  How can this affect your and your competitor rankings?  Well the new sitelinks now dominate the search results which is good for you should you rank at number one for the queried key term, but very bad for you if you rank number 2 or below.

new google sitelinksThe screenshot to the right (click to expand) shows the new expanded sitelinks as indicated by the red arrow.  The Google Place’s result for that specific company appears directly below the sitelinks as indicated by the blue arrow.  All of this pushes down all other rankings below the page fold.  As you can see indicated by the green arrow Yelp, the second place result it shoved way down to the bottom and this example only contains 6 sitelinks when the maximum amount available are 12.  When you think about below the fold results only receiving 10% of search result clicks, this is a major shift in how search results deliver traffic.

Google Related

Google is offering up a new extension for Internet Explorer & Chrome called Google Related.  This extension adds a bar to the bottom of your browser which should deliver additional relevant information to the web page you are currently on.  So the website for your local city may also include a map in the related bar, weekly weather forecast and cities nearby that you may be interested in travelling to.  Neat!

The thing is, Google does not distinguish between an information only website and a commercial website.  In the example website below I am at a local restaurant and when I hover over the additional data in the Google Related toolbar I can see a map to the location (purple arrow).  The next column lists reviews of the establishment taken from Google Places and links to more reviews around the web (green arrow).

In the last column of the Google Related bar, the column that commercial websites will take issue with, is a listing of “Related Places”.  That means when I simply hover my mouse that column I am exposed to local competitors who in this result all have a higher review rating than that of the restaurant whose website I am currently on (red arrow).  Say this restaurant paid a monthly retainer for SEO work or spent money advertising through PPC solutions.  That is an expense that can ultimately end up driving visitors with Google Related barinstalled in their browser to their local competitor’s Google Places page.  Not cool Google.

google related