Search Engine Ranking Suggestions Archives - Internet Marketing Services

Why small businesses need to claim their Google My Business listing

Posted on February 3, 2020 Written by Michael Williams

Local Search Marketing Services

As a local search marketing company, we always recommend that small businesses claim their Google My Business listing. So why should you claim your Google My Business listing anyway? What makes it so important? According to research, 88% of consumers search for local products and services with nearly 46% of all Google searchers are looking for local information.

Yet, only 54% of businesses have claimed a GMB local business profile. This is an opportunity for you to beat your competition if they haven’t taken advantage and claimed their Google My Business listing— yet! Claiming your Google My Business listing is the single most important action you can take to have your business show up in Google searches and Google Maps.

Get ahead of your competitors in the local search results in your area. Literally.

Learn more by calling (954) 306-9699. Green Melon Marketing is a local search marketing company providing essential Internet marketing services for local small business owners.

About Google’s new mobile algorithm

Posted on March 31, 2015 Written by Michael Williams

Official information about Google’s new mobile algorithm

In a Q&A session on Google+, Mary and Michael from Google’s webmaster relations team revealed more information about Google’s new mobile ranking algorithm.

What is Google’s new mobile algorithm?

Google is going to introduce an addition to the ranking algorithm that influences the position of your web pages in Google’s mobile search results.

The change only affects the rankings that your web pages have if the user searches on a mobile phone. The regular search results are not affected by the new algorithm.

What did Google say in the Q&A session?

Google’s mobile ranking algorithm will start rolling out on 21 April 2015. The global rollout will take a few days.
A web page is either mobile-friendly or not. It’s not possible that a web page is a bit mobile-friendly.
The mobile testing tool (see below) can show different results than Google Webmaster Tools (which can be delayed based on crawl-time).
The mobile ranking algorithm works on a page-by-page basis.

How to check if your website is mobile-friendly

It is important to make sure that your web pages are mobile-friendly. Fortunately, Google has a tool for this that is available here. Just enter the URL of your website and click the “Analyze” button.

If your website fails the test then you have to adjust the design of your web pages. Instead of creating a separate website for mobile devices, you could use responsive design for your web pages. If you use WordPress, there are many themes that support responsive design.

Being mobile-friendly is not enoughA website that currently does not have high rankings won’t get high rankings just because it is mobile-friendly. There are many more things that Google wants to find on your web pages. Check your website with the website audit tool in SEOprofiler to make sure that Google can index all pages of your website.

In addition, use the Top 10 Optimizer in SEOprofiler to make sure that Google shows your web pages for the right keywords. If you haven’t done it yet, create your SEOprofiler account now:

Try SEOprofiler risk-free

Article by
Axandra SEO software

Duplicate content: it’s not a penalty but it feels like one

Posted on March 10, 2015 Written by Michael Williams

1. Duplicate content: it’s not a penalty but it feels like one

Duplicate content is an issue for many webmasters. Although there is no penalty for having duplicate content on your website, Google has ranking algorithm filters that act very similarly to a penalty. Google’s Gary Illyes confirmed at SMX last week that duplicate content does not influence the other pages on your website.

duplicate content issue

What’s the issue with duplicate content?

Duplicate content won’t rank on Google as long as there is another more popular page with the same or similar content. If your website has multiple pages that contain the same content, it can be difficult for Google to pick the right version.

Only one version of the content will be displayed in Google’s search results and the other versions will be hidden. For many webmasters, this feels like a penalty because other websites that have similar content are displayed in Google’s search results instead of their own websites.

What does Google think about duplicate content?

In general, Google does not consider duplicate content spam:

“Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results.”

They also admit that duplicate content can cause ranking problems:

“In rare situations, our algorithm may select a URL from an external site that is hosting your content without your permission. If you believe that another site is duplicating your content in violation of copyright law, you may contact the site’s host to request removal.”

Legitimate duplicate content can be caused by the mobile versions of regular web pages, by printer-only versions of web pages, by store items that are linked via multiple distinct URLs, etc.

How to avoid duplicate content issues

There are several things that you can do to avoid duplicate content problems:

Use 301 redirects to redirect visitors to the correct pages on your website.

Always use the same link, i.e. do not link to /page, /page/index.htm and /page/.

Use country-specific domains for country-specific content. Use domain.de instead of domain.com/de.

Syndicate your content carefully. If the websites that show your content are more popular than your own websites, they will be shown in Google’s search results.

Avoid long boilerplate texts on all pages. Better link to a page with the details.

Avoid similar pages. If you have several pages with similar content, consider merging them into one page.

Duplicate content can lead to ranking problems on Google. Although there is no official duplicate content penalty, Google’s filters for duplicate content have a very similar effect.

Use the website audit tool in SEOprofiler to find and remove duplicate content issues on your website. If you haven’t done it yet, create your SEOprofiler account now:

Article by Axandra SEO software

How long does it take to get a first page Google ranking?

Posted on February 20, 2015 Written by Michael Williams

1. How long does it take to get a first page Google ranking?

That’s a question that we often hear. There is no general answer to this question. It depends on many different factors. This article helps you to get a realistic timeline for your SEO goals.

What’s the current state of your website?

The time that it takes to get results depends on the current state of your website. Has your website been penalized by Google? Has your website been optimized before? Have you used spammy SEO methods in the past?

Fixing problems is as important as improving your content. Before you do anything else, fix the problems on your web pages.This will take some time but it is absolutely necessary if you want to improve your rankings. The website audit tool in SEOprofiler helps you to locate problems on your site.

It’s not Karma, it’s the way SEO works

The things that you do today will influence your rankings tomorrow. If you used spammy SEO methods in the past, it’s very likely that your web pages will be penalized today. If you used white-hat SEO methods, it is likely that your website will have better rankings today.

Only use white-hat methods to promote your web pages. SEO is a continuous process.

Be patient, do the right things and you will get sustainable high rankings. It takes some time to get these rankings but the results are worth the time and effort

So how long will it take to get high rankings?

If your website is brand new, or if your website has many issues, it can take up to 12 months until you see sustainable results. Tactics that can help you to get short term results can have a negative effect on your rankings in the long term.

To get a better idea of the time that it takes to get high rankings, segment your goals into actions. For example: Fixing errors on your web page (2-4 weeks), revamping website content (4-6 weeks), link building (4 weeks), etc.

Don’t just focus on rankings. High rankings for a particular keyword aren’t necessarily what you want to achieve. Better focus on the overall number of visitors that you get from search engines, the number of sales that you get through search engine visitors, etc.

Start with small, achievable goals. Try to get high rankings for very targeted keywords first. In general, it is much better to have high rankings for “where to buy high quality hiking shoes” than for “shoes”.By focusing on small, achievable goals, you can steadily create something great while making one step at a time.

Search engine optimization takes some time if you want to get sustainable results. If you continually work on your web pages, you will get high rankings that last.
Fixing critical errors on your website will often have an immediate effect on your rankings, i.e. it can happen that your rankings improve dramatically after fixing technical errors, remove bad links, etc.

What you should take from this article is that before beginning any SEO efforts, you should take time to assess the situation, plan both short- and long term-strategies, approach SEO as an ongoing process, and communicate realistic goals and timelines for improvement to the larger team and executives.

The tools in SEOprofiler help you to work as efficiently as possible with your website. If you haven’t done it yet, try SEOprofiler now:

Try SEOprofiler now risk-free!

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