Local Search Marketing Services Archives

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.

Even Google needs SEO – better do not ignore it for your own site

Posted on September 18, 2015 Written by Michael Williams

Even Google needs SEO – better do not ignore it for your own site

Search engine optimization is so important that even Google is looking for SEO managers who help it to improve the organic rankings of their web pages. If you think that your website does not need search engine optimization, you might want to reconsider your position.

What exactly is Google looking for?

Google has posted a job offer for a full-time ‘Program Manager for Technical SEO’:

“As a Program Manager for Technical SEO, you will work with cross-functional teams across Marketing, Sales, Product Development, Engineering and more to help drive organic traffic and business growth.

You will take part in website development and optimization, help shape blog and social strategy, improve website code hygiene and define web architecture for international websites.”

Google: search engine optimization is important

Google’s job offer has several implications:

1. Even though Google is the most visited website in the world, they still acknowledge the importance of search engine optimization. Even Google needs to comply and compete.

2. Google are saying that they are following responsible search practices and that they want to compete fairly in their own search results.

3. Google has an enormous marketing budget. Nevertheless, they find SEO very valuable for their marketing purposes.

Stop spamming, start doing SEO

Note that the ad is talking about search engine optimization, not about spamming. So forget about automated link building tools, article spinners or other shady SEO methods.

If you want to be successful, you have to start doing real SEO: create good web page content, optimize that content, make sure that search engines can index your web pages, improve the links that point to your site, etc.

The tools in SEOprofiler help you to do real SEO. If you want to get high rankings on Google and other search engines, SEO is crucial. If you haven’t done it yet, try SEOprofiler now and see for yourself:

Article by
Axandra SEO software

Now Google sees you, now they don’t

Posted on May 19, 2015 Written by Michael Williams

1. Now Google sees you, now they don’t

Checking the technical aspects of your website is a necessity if you want to make sure that Google and other search engines give your web pages high rankings. If your web pages contain particular errors, Google won’t be able to see them. Regular website audits make sure that your site gets the rankings that it deserves.

1. Check your website for critical errors

Critical errors are errors that can have an immediate effect on the rankings of your website on Google:

Broken links Every website has broken links. If you update your web pages frequently, you will find many links that need an udpate. Some websites disappear, web pages get deleted, etc.
Server errors
Timeout errors Server errors can cause major problems with search engines. If a web page delivers the wrong HTTP status code, search engines won’t index it. For that reason, it is important to check your website for server errors.
Empty titles
Duplicate titles Empty titles and duplicate titles are a lost search engine optimization opportunity. If a web page has an empty title, it won’t rank as highly as it could.

You should avoid these errors if you don’t want to risk ranking problems. The website audit tool in SEOprofiler regularly checks if these errors appear on your web pages to make sure that your pages get the best possible rankings.

2. Check your web pages for things that can cause problems

Even if your website does not contain critical errors, there are several things that can have a negative influence on the rankings of your web pages:

Duplicate pages
Duplicate contentAlthough there is no penalty for duplicate content, it is difficult to get high rankings for pages with duplicate content. If possible, avoid duplicate content on your web pages.

http & https
www & non-wwwIf your web pages are linked with and without www, and with both http and https, there can be canonical URL problems. Identify these pages and use the rel=canonical attribute on these pages.

No text content
Little text contentWeb pages with no content or little text content won’t get high rankings.
No bot allowed
Bot blockedSome webmasters accidentally block search engine robots without knowing it. If a web page blocks search engine robots, it cannot get high rankings.Click depthA very high click depth can be an indicator that people cannot find a page easily. Web pages that aren’t easy to find should not contain important content.

Temporary redirects
Too many linksTemporary redirects can cause problems with search engines. Pages with too many links (in relation to the actual content) won’t get high rankings.
Meta Description empty
Meta Description too short
Meta Description too long
Meta Description wasted
Meta RefreshThe meta description tag does not have a direct influence on the rankings of a web page. It can, however, have a major influence on the number of clicks that your listing gets on the search results page. Meta refreshs can cause problems with search engines if they aren’t used correctly.
Duplicate canonical attribute
Duplicate meta tagDuplicate canonical attributes can keep search engine robots away. A duplicate meta tag is an indicator of a low quality web page.
Page too big
Title too short
Title too long
Title wasted
Title tag twiceThe title tag is an important web page element. For that reason, you should make sure that your web pages have the right title tags. If a page is too big, search engine robots might not index it completely and/or website visitors might go away before the page has fully loaded.
URL invalid
URL too dynamic
URL too longInvalid URLs or URLs with too many variables can cause problems with search engine robots. The same with URLs that are too long.

All of these things can have a positive influence on the rankings of your web pages if you optimize them. The website audit tool in SEOprofiler regularly checks if your web pages use these elements correctly.

3. Check your web pages for things that can be improved

In addition to the things above, there are several things that you can check to make sure that your web pages get the best possible rankings:

Anchor text wasted
H1 tag keyword
H1 tag empty
H1 tag missing
H1 tag wasted
Image problems
Meta Robots None
Meta NoFollow
Meta NoIndex
Meta NoSnippet
Perm. redirect (301)
Other redirect (303)
Temp. redirect (307)
Forbidden (403)
Redirect same URL
Upper case URLs
Rel. link to domain
Canonical URL used

Checking these things will make sure that your web pages perform as well as possible. For example, images should have descriptive alt attributes, H1 tags should contain the right keywords, etc. The website audit tool in SEOprofiler automatically checks your web pages for these elements.

4. Check your web pages for spelling mistakes

The website audit tool also checks your web pages for spelling mistakes. Most websites contain a lot of spelling mistakes and typing mistakes. First impressions count, so it’s better to correct these mistakes.

The website audit tool in SEOprofiler regular checks your web pages to make sure that everything is correct. You will save time and you will be able to correct errors quickly and easily:

Try SEOprofiler risk-free

Special Offers from Green Melon Marketing

Article by Axandra SEO software

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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