3/16/2012

Take Google Updates Into Account to Keep SEO Campaigns Fresh

Take Google Updates Into Account to Keep SEO Campaigns Fresh:
Search engine optimization (SEO) can sometimes seem like an uphill battle. When your company has finally found the content and keyword sweet spot that helps it rank for the perfect terms, it can seem as if Google is ready to pull the rug out from under your entire organization. The frequent updates and changes to search algorithms often seem arbitrary and only serve to make your website less accessible and visible to customers.
However, almost every single change Google makes to search algorithms and equations serve to make the internet better. As a result, if you’re working to produce high-quality content and want to provide a valuable resource for users to establish your business’ thought leadership, you shouldn’t have too much to worry about. In fact, if you and your staff have been looking for minor improvements so you can move up a few spots on the results list, updates provide great opportunities for fine tuning.
For instance, the latest permutation of Google’s algorithm, codenamed Panda, was implemented in early 2011. However, the finer points are frequently being updated, so it’s crucial to be aware of changes made in the beginning of 2012. Use these significant alterations to optimize your SEO campaigns and ultimately improve your lead scoring capabilities.

Official site

One problem internet marketers had in the past when they were trying to improve inbound marketing activities had to do with placing official sites. It wasn’t uncommon for particular search terms to direct users to non-commercial websites. This is understandable when generic terms, such as “small business banking” are what a person is looking for. However, a company is in real trouble if its own name doesn’t lead to its official site.
Prevent this from happening by clearly denoting your status as the official representative of a company on the internet. Include a section marked “About Us” that describes some basic company operations, and register with Google Places, Yelp and other online resources that tie your company URL to its name. A recent Panda update is intended to improve this process, but it never hurts to take a few extra steps.

Image indexing

Google image searches are the second-most queried types of media after websites themselves. When people find pictures they’re looking for, they’re fairly likely to visit the site on which those images originated. Consequently, it’s important to rank highly for pictures as well as text. Be sure to appropriately label pictures with keywords when you subtitle, and include alternate text and descriptions that are both accurate and rich in the keywords that help your social search optimization and other efforts.

Dates

One of the most important functions Google’s algorithm updates perform is to ensure content is timely and relevant. This is done by trolling through a post or article for dates that are present both in the text as well as the HTML meta-data. Panda is an improvement in Google’s already effective date-scanning efforts, so make sure recent stories and content are clearly labeled and frequently updated.

News and content

In a move related to encouraging timeliness, Google is also striving to blend news results with regular content more effectively. Panda is apparently better at finding related news articles and connecting them with standard results, so now is an excellent time to start producing news stories and time-sensitive blog posts.
In addition to generally keeping a website up-to-date and high on Google’s list of results for certain search terms, news stories demonstrate how contemporary a company or organization is. As such, customers who are looking for the most recent commentary about certain topics are more likely to contribute to your lead generation efforts if they know you’re staying on top of industry news and product announcements.
Take Google Updates Into Account to Keep SEO Campaigns Fresh is a post from: B2B Marketing and Lead Generation | Optify

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