If you’re still chasing Google around trying to beat out their algorithm let me give you a little tip going into 2011, STOP!

Instead, here is a suggestion from Matt Cutts that he gave during his keynote address at Pubcon this year, “Don’t look at us where we are today, but look at the direction we are moving and what we are focusing on, the big five are the Mobile Web, Local Search, Social, Blended results in the SERPS and HTML5.”

The Mobile Web:

The mobile web refers to mobile applications or browser based access to the Internet from a handheld device, such as an iPad or a smartphone.

Morgan Stanley analysts have charted the most important online trends and they forecast that by 2015 the mobile web will be bigger than desktop Internet.

Local Search:

Today, there are over 10 billion unique searches done each month within the USA and over 40 percent of these searches have local intent!

We have also witnessed how much emphasis is placed on local search by Google on October 27th of this year when they changed the entire landscape of the search results.

1. More Emphasis on AdWords – Today Google showcases their Google map on the top right of their column, pushing down their paid ads a couple hundred pixels. In return, we have also seen that Google is showing MORE paid advertising in the middle column above the local listings.

2. More Competition for Local Advertising – In Google’s new listings they are showing reviews from their Google Places but also other third party websites like Yelp and Insider. As discussed by David Mihm during his recent presentation, “How Do You Rank a Phone Book,” Prominence is one of the three major factors in Google’s new Local algorithm.

3. Claim and Optimize your Google Places Page! – I cannot emphasis this enough. To be successful in the local landscape you MUST create trust with Google by first claiming your Google Places page(s). Then optimize them and focus on these two things:

a) Relevance
b) Prominence

4. Two Types of SEO – Some will argue that there are no longer two distinct algorithms for local search and traditional SEO. I disagree 100%! In my opinion, there are two distinct types of SEO that local businesses need to focus on in today’s new search to be successful:

a) Google Places SEO – the optimization of your Google Places and website which focuses on Relevance, Prominence and Distance.

b) Traditional SEO – that still focuses on website architecture, content, backlinks and social media.

Social Search:

I can easily sum up Social Search in one word – FACEBOOK!

With more than 500 million users Facebook has emerged as the dominate player in social media and as business owners and online marketers we need to understand how our potential customers are interacting with Facebook to identify the most efficient ways to communicate with them to build trust.

In case you missed last week’s article on Facebook SEO, we reviewed how you can strategize and implement a Facebook Social media campaign.

Traditional Search Engines like Bing, Yahoo and even Google are now including social search into their algorithms and one new search engine called Blekko has harnessed the social landscape by screening out spammy websites using their user base and integrating social mentions by trusted users in the social network.

Blended Results:

Users want to have results that are relevant to them when they search for information, a product and/or service, and that is what Blended Results or Universal Search is all about.

David Bailey, one of the investors in Google’s patent on Universal search, gave us a behind the scenes view when he related on Google’s blog “If only we could smartly place such results elsewhere on the page when they don’t quite deserve the top, we could share the benefits of these great Google features with people much more often.”

So what is this Universal Search anyway?

Well here is a quick run through:

1. Someone conducts a search. Google first looks up the query in its database and then filters this through the filters based upon the searcher’s search history profile.

2. Additional results will then be included based upon the history of the user such as: has the searcher watched videos, read news articles, or used social media sites. And has anyone in the searcher’s social circle searched for these types of products/services before and what have they recommended.

3. The scoring history is then recalculated and the result is then given to the user.

So you maybe asking yourself right now, how can I be successful in this new blended results landscape.

Well here is a very simple SEO tip, don’t put all your eggs into one basket. Diversify your onlíne marketing efforts by implementing social media, video and the publishing of news releases.

HTML5:

HTML5 is the next major revision of the HTML standard that is currently under development, adding many new syntax features such as elements and SVG content that has been developed to improve the inclusion and handling of multimedia and graphic content without the need for external plugins and/or APIs. In other words, if Apple didn’t knock Flash off its perch when Steve Job’s announced that they wouldn’t support the platform in their mobile devices, it will be certainly be dead when HTML5 comes around, so try not to use it in your future web development.

If you would like to learn more about how Force-Feed : LogIQ can help you with your Google placement and overall internet strategy, please contact us.

I believe if you asked any webmaster or online marketer what their most important aspect of running a site would be, you would get an answer that’s some way related to traffic. Mainly because traffic is your site’s lifeblood, actually without traffic you really don’t have a site at all.

Traffic is King

Traffic brings in the leads and the sales. Quality traffic is what produces your online revenue, whether from advertising or from sales on your site. Now, I have sites which get less than 50 visitors a day, I have a few sites which get around 200 visitors and I have one site which gets around 2,000 visitors a day.

Don’t jump to any conclusions, some days the site getting 50 visitors can make just as much as the site getting 2,000 visitors. It all has to do with the quality of the traffic and how well it converts into a sale. And of course, it all depends on what you’re selling… an LCD cleaning kit for $20 bucks or a gaming laptop which sell for $2000+.

Regardless, you have to get that traffic in the first place if you want to earn an online income. The more traffíc you have, usually, the more you will make; at least this has been my experience. Since traffic is very important to me, I keep a lot of records and stats on where my traffic is coming from on the web. I have to know what produces the quality traffic and how to get it.

So below I have listed down my 5 most important traffic sources and/or the marketing techniques I use to get that traffic. This list might also help you with your traffic and how you can grow it. Here are my 5 main traffic sources…

1. SEO and the Search Engines

The majority of the traffic to my sites comes from the search engines, mainly Google. It is my high rankings for my targeted keyword phrases which brings in the most and the best quality traffic to my sites. Get the SEO right and build a lot of quality one-way links from related sites and you will get the traffic. Another tactic, don’t just create a website with only 10 or 20 pages – create one with 1000 to 5000 pages. I know this takes time but consider your site like a long-term business which you will keep building for years. Produce plenty of quality content and you will get plenty of quality visitors in return. Works for me.

2. Article Marketing

Another very effective way to bring in quality traffic to your site or sites is article marketing. Just write short articles related to your site’s keywords and place your keyworded links in the resource box. Distribute these articles all over the web. Right now, what is working for me, is writing unique articles which I only place on one important site. I am using this technique with sites like SiteProNews, Buzzle and many more. Article marketing is still one of the most effective ways to get quality traffic, just try it.

3. PPC – Pay Per Clíck Advertising

I know, I know, this can be very expensive, but PPC can be the quickest way to get quality traffic to your sites. Just be careful and approach it with kid’s gloves until you find campaigns which work for you – then scale them up. Microsoft Adcenter and Yahoo Marketing have now joined forces and I find this is producing good traffic for me. Google Adwords is probably better, but they are a real pain to work with and have become too expensive, at least for my keywords. But if you have the resources, don’t rule out Adwords or any of the PPC programs.

4. Social Media Sites

From Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn, social media sites can provide a lot of traffic and word of mouth advertising for your site. For me, even though I haven’t worked these sites to their fullest potential, I still get traffic from them. Getting your pages bookmarked in some of these sites can bring in a flood of traffic overnight, while most of this traffic will be temporary, you can get a lot of sign-ups to your newsletter and different follow-up lists. While not exactly in the same group, I have had some success with YouTube videos which also bring in targeted traffic. Don’t ignore these social media and video sites in your traffic strategies.

5. Emaíl Marketing and Follow-up Lists

This is another one of my major sources of “repeat visitors” to my sites. You must be constantly building up your different contact lists for further follow-up. This will bring in more visitors than you would expect, especially if you put some simple viral messages in your emails. If you supply valuable information, people will recommend your content to friends and co-workers; again word of mouth can bring in a lot of traffic especially in this age of Facebook and Twitter.

Of course, there are other traffic sources such as Press Releases, Banner Ads, RSS Feeds, Off-line Advertising… and if you have your products to promote, affiliates and joint ventures will be your most valuable source of traffic.

Editor’s Note:

No single branch of the above traffic sources will sustain your site traffic on it’s own. You should be incorporating all of them into a well orchestrated internet marketing architecture that will allow for higher, quality traffic to your site. Remember, more traffic = more business and has been proven time and again.  If you need assistance in planning an effective internet marketing campaign, please contact Force-Feed : Logiq and we would be delighted to assist.

Must read for website owners!

By Peter Bowen (c) 2010

Google Local and Map have become a big influence on how people search and get results. We can demonstrate this by searching for ‘accountant’ and the search result returns a broad list of ‘accountants’, but perhaps too broad so we tend to search again by narrowing the result – adding a location to the search – ‘accountant in city’ and the results we see are now closer to home.

So it’s no surprise that Google should be taking a closer look at how we search and attempt to refine the process and provide a more meaningful search result by changing the Google Local search algorithm to make it easier for us to find what or who we are searching for locally.

Today, November 8, 2010 we see searches that reference local business and all the relevant places in that location in a new clustered visual display located in the upper right corner of a search result page. The now familiar map displays each business with red lettered pins, and links to each business. And as you scroll down the page the Google Places Map will scroll with the page so that it is always visible.

In addition to the way we see businesses displayed on Google Places, a new product is being launched – Google Boost.

Google Boost is a Google AdWords product that allows local businesses to feature more prominently in local searches. It allows small to medium size businesses the ability to feature more highly in searches, and concentrates much more on the relevance and location of that business than ever before. Now searchers will see sponsored location searches appear on the Google Places map as blue lettered pins and in search results with the blue marker pin next to the content description.

[If you are interested in learning more about how AdWords can benefit your business, contact Force-Feed: Logiq ]

Search results for the ‘accountant in city’ will now appear first below sponsored listings and above organic listings. What this means is that results for a business in a location will now appear grouped with the other search results, making it much easier for searchers to find what they are looking for in a local area.

Google reports that Place Search results will begin appearing automatically when Google determines that you are looking for a ‘business in location’ search result.

Google also says “We’ve made results like this possible by developing technology to better understand places. With Google Place Search, we’re dynamically connecting hundreds of millíons of websites with more than 50 million real-world locations. We automatically identify when sites are talking about physical places and cluster links even when they don’t provide addresses and use different names.”

Google Places is being rolled out across the world and will be available everywhere, in 40 languages once complete. Google is hoping to provide a better, local search to users, while exploiting a different revenue stream. It’s also competing with Facebook Places which was launched a while ago. Facebook was able to use very targeted advertising to provide a similar service to its users.

Google should have the advantage here though, as most Facebook advertising is passive, appearing alongside the primary content. Google’s Place Search is active and should have the advantage when it comes to conversion.

Location-based services are seen as a growing market, with Facebook Places and location aware services like Foursquare enjoying significant growth since their inception. Placing Google Place Search alongside search results, Google can hedge its bets while not detracting from its standard offering.

From an SEO perspective Peter Bowen at First One On says, “One of the downsides to this new display of results is how it will affect businesses that previously enjoyed number one placements for ‘business in location’ or featured well alongside the old Google Map.”

“Now with the introduction of Google Place Search in results it is quite possible that businesses that had worked hard to get top placements on page one now find themselves listed on page two! Other businesses that did not even have a listing on the old Google Map are now being brought to the top of the search results based on the location of their business and business listing in Google Places.”

What this means is that in the long run it will be more difficult for businesses to rank at the top of a local search unless they realize that they will have to spend much more time and effort on local search engine optimization. Businesses that had previously enjoyed a prominent position on the old Google Map without a website, which was possible before, will now find it almost impossible to maintain a listing without a well developed and locally optimized website.

Businesses will now have to have a visible and physical location if they want to be listed in a local search. In the past, businesses could hide their physical location and yet still be found locally through their websites, but now consumers searching for a business in a location will be able to determine if they contact that business or not based on their location. So as Google exposes competitors in searches, it is now revealing where those businesses are located – hopefully providing the consumer with more information before making a purchase decision.

[If you own a business and/or have a website and need to improve your search engine placement, contact Force-Feed : Logiq and we can help. ]

Whether you like it or not technology is the way of the future. Everything you do and say will be online. If you decide it is all too hard, we can help you!

Social media provides a way to communicate to the masses, it means that you can expose your business to people that you wouldn’t ever have had the ability to communicate and market to. It means that marketing your business all of a sudden becomes so much easier.

Facebook, being just one of the many social media communities, is an internet phenomenon which is currently sweeping the globe. Like instant messaging and sites such as YouTube, Facebook is a website which allows you to find and communicate with friends, share photographs, and compare your likes and dislikes.

Facebook has become so popular because it is uniquely viral in that you need to find ‘friends’ before you can communicate with anyone. People either have a love or hate relationship with Facebook since it gets to know an inordinate amount of information about you very quickly. However, you are in control of how much information you provide to the entire Facebook community or to your friends.

Facebook for Business

There is much debate as to whether Facebook is the place to be if you are in business. Is it worth your time and effort if the main users are consumers not businesses?

The answer to that is Yes. Marketing your business on any social media platform is not an arduous task, as much as many people think it is, it is about having a presence, building credibility, and educating your potential customers.

Remember, Facebook provides opportunities that you wouldn’t ever have been exposed to, so make the most of it.

To be most effective when marketing your business via social media, you really need to be talking to your target market. How you get them to “Like” your page is all about building your following and providing education about what you do and how you can help them.

You should also have a strategy in place on how you will market your business through social media. It’s like all your other marketing activities; it needs to be strategic not ad hoc for the best results.

10 Keys to Facebook Success

Here are 10 key steps to help you get the most out of Facebook marketing:

1. Create a neat page. You don’t have to fill out everything, but fill out at least the most important information in the profile section. Also, include a picture. People like seeing that they’re dealing with an actual person or business and not just some faceless company.

2. Keep your business profile separate from your personal one. Don’t go following your favorite bands or befriend your real life friends on Facebook with your business account. It’s okay to have a bit of fun with your business profile, but don’t forget its main purpose of marketing.

3. Make plans about what you’re going to say. What are you trying to accomplish? How can you make your page unique? How can you get the right audience interested in your page? How will you respond to criticism? To praise? Be strategic!

4. Brand your identity. You can now brand and theme your Facebook page similar to that of your website. Use the same logos and graphics, although you shouldn’t go overboard with them. Too many graphics will make your page difficult to load.

Create an Opt-in on your Facebook page to get followers contact details and all of a sudden you have another lead generation strategy for your business.

5. Interact with others. Participate in discussion and always give friendly, knowledgeable replies. Join clubs relating to your niche and provide suggestions and tips. Whenever somebody asks a question, provide a thoughtful answer.

If somebody says something you disagree with, let them know in a friendly manner, and provide a well-thought out reply as to why you do.

6. You’ll probably have to deal with some negativity. People can question your intentions at any time. Always be patient with your critics and deal with them in a professional and friendly manner. Don’t expect to always satisfy everybody. What you can do is maintain a positive image for your brand.

7. Try encouraging your fans to talk. Provide polls and surveys, asking your fans what they do and do not like about your niche. Try starting new topics such as ‘top 10 reasons why’ or ‘learn how to’ and then ask others to share their tips and ideas.

8. Keep everybody up-to-date with offers. Online communities need to be active, and one of the best ways to stay active on Facebook is to provide coupons and special deals on a regular basis. Also, having updates about discounts on your page will entice new visitors to follow you!

9. Hire a professional to create an app and provide it on your page. People really love apps, and your fans will even share them with their friends! Fun applications are a great way to attract attention on Facebook. You should be able to find a developer who charges fair rates.

10. Be consistent with your efforts. Log on every single day and post something! Even if you don’t have any updates, log on and participate in discussion. If you don’t get on Facebook every day and share tips, ideas, etc., people will forget about you. Also, don’t forget to use important keywords in your posts!

Follow these 10 steps to get the best out of your Facebook marketing campaign! If you

Why not share your comments here on how you utilize Facebook to attract new business?  You can be as hands on, or hands off as you like.  If you want to focus on running your business and let the pros hand;e your social media marketing efforts, please contact Force-Feed: Logiq and our team will get you under way.

Web directories have been around since the beginning of the World Wide Web in the early 1990′s and are still recognized as an important channel for advertising businesses online. People often get web directories and search engines mixed up. The difference between a search engine like Google and web directories is that Google uses a web crawler to automatically index websites to show up in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), while a web directory organizes links under various categories and sub-categories.

How Can Submitting to Directoríes Help Your Website?

Here are some tips:

Get Indexed Quicker in the Search Engines

When search engines crawl directory websites any new entries within those directories also get crawled and indexed. Directories that are deemed authoritative by search engines like Google are crawled regularly, finding new website links to index which are then ranked to appear in the search results. If you are launching a new website, you should seriously consider submitting to website directoríes to speed up the process of getting indexed into Google.

Raise Your Positions in Google

As many website owners should know the more quality links to your website that you obtain, the more favorably Google will rank your website. Website Directories are a great source for one-way or reciprocal links. Well maintained directories will place your link in an appropriate category or sub-category, meaning that the directory’s human moderators agree that your website is about what your website claims to be about and is useful to human beings.

Drive Traffic to Your Website

Having a listing on a popular, high traffic website directory can also bring you website traffic. You can usually judge whether a web directory receives much traffic from looking at its Alexa rank. This can be found simply by going to www.alexa.com and entering the directory’s domain name into the search field. The lower the “Alexa rank” the more visits the website gets. You can also get a “Country Rank” that indicates how much traffic it gets per country. If the Alexa rank is 100,000 or less, you can be confident that you will get some traffic from it.

How to Pick Good Directories from Bad Directories

Good website directories allow you to enter your preferred link title that best describes what your website is about. The link title, or anchor text, is an important factor in determining where your site appears for certain search terms in Google’s search results.

Good website directories are human edited, meaning that links are not approved automatically. This means that a directory moderator will review your website before making the listing live and won’t approve your website if it does not meet the directory’s quality guidelines.

Many website directories that were previously actively moderated and regularly updated are now pretty much dormant. One way to determine this is to see if the directory shows link statistics on the number of links approved and the number of links awaiting review. If the number of links awaiting approval is vastly larger than the total number of published links, it’s probably a waste of time submitting a listing.

Good website directories pass Google Page Rank through links to your website within their directory listings, but there are directories out there that prevent this from happening. They do this by using a tag in their links called a “nofollow attribute.” If the link to your website contains this tag, it is rendered almost useless to you.

Good directory websites do not accept links to rubbish websites (link farms and websites with nothing but affiliate or advertising links) or to sites that are otherwise not useful to real humans. A directory worth its SEO salt should also not allow links that redirect to another site.

Good directory websites require manual submission. Avoid automated directory submission software because there is a good chance that any directories that accept automated software driven submission are not going benefit your website.

Google, Paid Links and Directories

There is a lot of confusion about Google’s policy of penalizing websites for buying links. This is aided by the fact that Google does not really have a clear policy on paid links. Should you avoid paying for links from website directories?

From what employees of Google have indicated, human-edited website directories are generally okay with Google because there is editorial review. The directory is not considered to be selling the link, just the review and the listing service.

Manual Directory Submission Services

Manually submitting a website to online directoríes is a time consuming, seemingly pointless task. It’s important to be discerning about the directories that you submit to in order to make sure that it will help your website rather than waste your time. There are numerous manual directory submission services available these days that can do all the manual submission for you. A problem with a lot of these is that you need to be able to see the results. Also, it can take days, weeks, or even months for many submissions to go live and the quality of the directories submitted to can vary.

If you don’t have time for manually submitting your website to the directories and the benefits that your website can receive from such efforts, talk to an SEO expert. They can either perform this service as part of an overall SEO strategy, or identify a quality web directory submission service provider to use.

If you feel that you need this service as part of your overall internet marketing strategy, please contact Force-Feed : LogIQ for more information.