Let’s face it, your brand is your baby. It is your lively hood. Your pride and joy. However, when someone searches for you on Google, what branded search results do they see? Chances are that your domain ranks first, but what else shows up? Other web properties you control? Perhaps some competitors are trying to move in and steal organic branded real estate from you? For your brand, there is no reason you can not “own” the first page organic results. Below, I will explain 10 easy ways you can dominate your branded search results.

1. Your Website

Chances are that 99% of you have this one covered, but I needed to bring it up for those who are in the 1%. There should be little issue getting your domain to rank for your brand provided it is a legitimate brand and not some generic keyword phrase. For example, if you search for the brand “Directv” you will see their branded site ranking first. Please note that this an actual brand and not something generic like “satellite tv” which could be anyone. If you can’t or are not ranking first for your brand with your URL, chances are that you may have incurred a penalty of some sort. Possibly you have been hit by a duplicate content penalty from the Google Panda update. Should you be penalized, it is very important you utilize the other tactics listed below to dominate your brand for search. Read more »

September 5, 2012 Chris Makara SEO 2 comments

Recently Google made an announcement that they were “Making Search More Secure” through a change that will no doubt have a huge impact on the search engine optimization community. The basic change is that anyone who happens to be logged into a Google account (Gmail, Picasa, Google+, etc) and performs a Google search will do so through a secure (SSL) page. Previously, when users clicked on an organic search result the keyword phrase they searched for to find the result would be passed through to the website and ultimately into the web analytics program. However, under the change the search for logged in users will be done via SSL and therefore the data becomes encrypted and no longer passes the keyword phrase into the analytics program. Rest assured Google is still storing this data for themselves.

The Headaches This Will Cause

Keyword data is vital to SEO for a number of reasons. Among them is the ability to tie conversions/sales to specific keyword phrases. Knowing which phrases work (or don’t) allows for adjustments to be made to the search engine optimization campaign in order to enhance user experience and ultimately increased conversion rates. Google claims this will only affect single digit percentages of search, but many believe this number is far from being accurate.

Google already has a large hold on the web with properties like Youtube, Picasa, Gmail, and more. Add the recent release of Google+, Google hopes many more users not part of the Google network will signup for the social service allowing them to have you “signed in” to a Google property until you sign out.

While this will have little or no impact on the common user, the headaches it will cause the SEO industry will be far and wide.

Do No Evil

What is strange about this recent announcement is that it only affects organic searches while pay per click (PPC) will continue to pass keyword data to the advertisers campaign data. If privacy was really a concern of Google, wouldn’t they protect keyword data for all searches? Both paid and organic?

Read more »

October 20, 2011 Chris Makara SEO 2 comments

Automating tweets on Twitter is an acceptable common practice when used moderately. While this post is not about whether automating tasks is right or wrong, I have seen several people on Google+ asking if there is a way to automatically post to Twitter from Google+, alleviating having to perform the same task manually on Twitter. After doing some research, I found a way to do it.

Find Your Google+ User Number

The first thing you will need to do is find your Google+ user number. In order to do this, simply visit your Google+ profile page and look for it in the URL. I have highlighted the number of my user profile below. Be sure to copy (ctrl+c) your number to your clipboard.

Google+ Does Not Have RSS Feeds (Yet)

In order to automate a tweet, you typically need a RSS or XML feed to enter into your choice application or script to post to Twitter (Twitterfeed, Hootsuite, etc). Currently, I am unaware of a RSS or XML link for Google+ accounts (If there are, please let me know where to find them). No worries, as I was able to find an app that will create a RSS feed from a Google+ account on AppSpot. Read more »

July 13, 2011 Chris Makara Social Media No comments