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5 Tips To Beat Google Penguin 2

June 11, 2013 by onvizinz 1 Comment

Google Penguin 2 Arrives

You are no doubt aware that Google has been implementing some pretty radical changes over the last couple of years, in an attempt to combat, what it calls ‘web spam’.

This has resulted in some changes to it’s algorithm, which is a hugely complex beast that it uses to determine it’s search results.

You may even be familiar with some of the names these updates have had, Panda in 2011 and Penguin in 2012.

Well, back in May, we got insight from Matt Cutts (Google Head of Web Spam) that the Summer of 2013 would see the roll out of Google Penguin 2, aimed at building on what the previous updates had started. And a couple of weeks ago on May 22nd, the roll out began.

In a Google Webmaster Help video, Cutts went into more detail on what Penguin 2.0 would bring, along with what new changes webmasters can expect over the coming months with regards to Google search results.

He detailed that the new Penguin was specifically going to target black hat spam, but would be a significantly larger impact on spam than the original Penguin and subsequent Penguin updates have had.

So with this in mind, here are my top 5 tips to stay on the good side of Google:

Ensure the content on your websites is relevant and natural. Don’t stuff it full of keywords and expect that Google won’t notice. By all means use your main keywords throughout your content, but let it fit in naturally within the context of your writing
Don’t (I repeat DON’T) stuff keywords onto your homepage (or any page) and then make them invisible by changing the colour to the naked eye. This tactic was very popular several years ago, but remember, Google reads the code, not the text. To a search engine, these ‘invisible’ keywords may as well be flashing neon green and shouting “here I am”
Don’t let your web properties become stagnant. Google likes to see sites that are updated regularly (a blog is perfect for this)
Let your link profile be natural. If you start an SEO campaign, build links to your site gradually. Nothing sets off the alarm bells more than 100+ links a day appearing overnight.
Review your existing link profile. If the links to your site are low value, from spammy sources or are all using the same anchor text, it may be a good idea to go about removing them.

Of course, there is more to Google Penguin 2 and there will always be things that can be improved. Ensuring the 5 points above are covered is a great start and will keep you in the good books and well on the way to success.

SEO v Local SEO. Do You Know The Difference?

June 6, 2013 by onvizinz 2 Comments

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is one of those terms that has become household by now. A primary way of marketing a website online, SEO utilises strategies that can allow a website to rank higher on web searches. After some time and effort, a sound SEO plan can allow your business to shoot to the top of a Google search.

However, not all businesses/blogs understand that there is a key difference between SEO and local SEO. For a business that has a physical location, such as a store or restaurant, the latter is something that should be a part of the plan. They both should be.

What does local SEO do? There are searches on Google that could amount to a visitor finding your website, and then there are local searches. These searches use a location, such as a search for a certain kind of restaurant along with a city that is desired.

Thus, someone can search for a business with “home security.” If that’s your business and you are near the top for that term, then you have invested in SEO for that (and similar, hopefully) terms. However, with “home security Auckland,” that’s a local search. If that’s your business area and your location, then we’re talking about local SEO.

As you can imagine, each way can generate visits from search engines. And when customers are looking for you locally, if applicable, optimal placement on local as well as basic SEO can come in handy. SEO and local SEO are two important strategies that belong in every business’ plan, as applicable.

Google’s Penguin 2 Update Coming Summer 2013

May 14, 2013 by onvizinz 1 Comment

Matt Cutts is the head of the Google Web Spam team. He is also seen in the SEO community as the SEO spokesman for Google. Today Matt has posted a preview of what is coming in the Penguin 2.0 release, due Summer 2013. Penguin 2.0 is the next major update of Google’s search algorithm and it’s associated tools and applications.

There are a few items related to security so I’m going to outline them below, and then to save you time I’ll give you a summary of the SEO items he mentioned.

The changes coming in Penguin 2.0 update related to security are:

Improved detection of hacked websites. This probably means your site is more likely to be blacklisted by Google when you are hacked and that it will be blacklisted sooner.
Improved communication with webmasters when your site is hacked. Currently if you sign into Google Webmaster Tools, you can select to receive a daily digest of issues related to your websites. My guess is that Google is expanding this to offer real-time email alerts when malware is detected on your site or when your site is compromised.
A possible differentiation between sites that are hacked and sites that serve up malware.
Better tools to diagnose and clean your hacked website. Matt describes a single place you can go to once your site has been hacked where you can get more information that will help you clean up your site.
Webmaster Tools will be providing more concrete details and “example URLs” that you can go to to diagnose your site. [No specifics on this]

Other interesting changes related to SEO are:

Google will still give preference to high quality content that “users love, bookmark, come back to and visit over and over again”. It sounds like repeat visitors may get a higher emphasis with the Penguin 2.0 update.
They will penalize paid links and paid websites that attempt to boost the ranking of other websites by linking to those other websites. They will be removing any PageRank that those paid sites pass on to the sites they’re trying to promote.
They are making two algorithm changes that will significantly affect the ranking of sites in sectors that are particularly spammy.
Penguin 2.0 will do a better job of giving sites who are clearly an authority in their space a higher ranking.
They will also attempt to soften penalties that were imposed on some sites with the release of Penguin 1.0. Specifically sites that are in a grey area but have some positive signals will see a higher ranking.

The Penguin 2.0 update will be released in Summer of 2013. You can see the full video on Matt’s blog.

Top 100 Web Design Blogs To Follow In 2013

March 28, 2013 by onvizinz Leave a Comment

Delighted to have been included in the Top 100 Web Design Blogs To Follow In 2013.

We have rolled in at position 68. Thanks to Edgar Morin and the team at Coupon Audit

An infographic by the team at CouponAudit

Extending the Benefits of SEO in Auckland

March 26, 2013 by onvizinz 1 Comment

Some businesses do not take the time to look at search engine optimisation (SEO). However, not doing so can remove a number of powerful advantages that can drive sales and establish a business’ voice. As a company that specialises in SEO and other marketing areas, we know first-hand the power of this strategy.

In the past, we have helped businesses with SEO in Auckland. It starts with keyword research to analyse which terms are related to the business. Next, after we have looked at the business’ competition, we will make the website search engine friendly, which includes targeting these keyword terms and building content around them.

This is the basic drive of SEO. However, there is much more. For instance, link building strategies can help search engines recognise the company better. There are also benefits to be gained from social media that are direct to SEO. Used properly, these strategies can converge to help a business rise to the top of the search engine results page.

Businesses in Auckland can see a better return on their time and money with an SEO strategy. At Onvizi, we have taught businesses not only the power of SEO, but its relevance to social media and other strategies. By balancing all of these strategies, a business can reap more benefits from their efforts.

Is your business in Auckland seeing a good ROI? Feel free to contact us to see how we can help your business build its online presence – creating impressive growth from these sound online strategies.

Google+ Offering Advantages to Businesses that Use the Network

March 18, 2013 by onvizinz Leave a Comment

It is now official: Google+ is part of the “big three” of social media networks. As of February, Sean Johnson reports, Google+ passed up Twitter in terms of active users, making it the second-largest social media network on the Internet. Third is technically YouTube – which can be seen as a niche social network – but the lesson is clear: Google+ is a must-have.

The benefits of Google+ are not to be missed by businesses. Aside from its overtaking of Twitter, Johnson notes a few strengths of the growing social network:

Search Results: Since Google+ is a Google product, it is going to be indexed more quickly on search results. Google will obviously like its own product, adding SEO benefits.
Group Hangouts: This group video chat feature is useful for internal purposes – add webinars or product training for customers, and there is plenty to like here.
Google+ Communities: This new feature can help companies showcase their expertise.

Speaking of the first advantage with SEO, Paul North is quick to add two further benefits of Google. The following search marketing advantages are considerable:

Adwords: The ad is expanded slightly with your business’ follower count on Google+. Visitors can instantly click the +1 button to potentially grow the presence of this page.
Regular Web Search: When you company shows in the results, updates from Google+ will show on the right sidebar. This adds some legitimacy that could help a visitor click on your business’ website.

With all of these noted benefits, it is becoming more and more essential for businesses to use Google+. It will only keep growing and adding relevancy to the social media marketing strategy – and searches.

Landing Page and Video Optimisation Strategies

March 1, 2013 by onvizinz Leave a Comment

Converting on the landing page is a big deal for online businesses. After all, the increase in business, visitors, and customers can be impressive. According to Megan Leap, a vendor found that “73% of their customers that create and test landing pages achieve 100% life in their conversion rate.”

Playing around with landing page setups can create that undeniable difference. To that end, one strategy that has emerged utilises a popular medium – video – to increase landing page optimisation. By using video optimisation strategies, the landing page can benefit from the presence of the popular media type.

Leap identifies some powerful tips that can pave the road to an effective video-based landing page:

Cut the Clutter: Don’t distract or give the customer an opportunity to abandon the page. If the page has too many links, logos, social media references, and columns, the visitor will be inundated – and you will miss the conversion.
Use a Great Headline: Leap advises that the headline should follow through on the ad, link, or email that brought the visitor to the page. Regardless, the headline must be relevant and make the visitor interested.
“Make Time:” Leap uses this phrase to refer to the process of landing pages. She recommends making time to review, learn, and play with the page – it can make a huge difference.

Inserting a video on an optimised page can be a great focal point for the landing page. Remember that you can mix it up – a video can showcase a product or service, contain testimonials, or present some particular or overarching aspect. There is plenty of versatility with landing pages and videos as a part of these important pages.

How Do You Rank Against Your Competitors in Local SEO Terms?

February 8, 2013 by onvizinz Leave a Comment

Local search engine optimisation (SEO) can emerge as an undeniably important part of marketing for local businesses. If you have a business location in New Zealand or Australia, local SEO can help drive online traffic not only to your website – but to your physical location(s). And local SEO can help you run promotions, connect to social media, and much more.

One simple key of local SEO is to analyse how a business is doing in relation to your competitors. For instance, if you run a shoe repair store in New Zealand, you would want to know where you rank in the search engines for “shoe repair New Zealand,” which would perhaps be the most logical search string for a prospective customer at your business. That’s the foundation of local SEO – taking advantage of “local searches” in your target audience.

Myles Anderson points out that research, benchmarking, and tracking are the keys to creating a local SEO roadmap that can lead to results. He breaks it down into three steps:

Identify the most lucrative search terms for the business.
Identify the top ranked businesses for these terms or industry/location.
Benchmark the business versus its competitors.

As you might imagine, this can become an in-depth process. Indeed, Anderson breaks it down with a gamete of tools that the professionals use to quantify local SEO and produce results for their customers. However, that isn’t out of reach for your business – the small business owner that doesn’t have a great deal of time to invest in these (often confusing) aspects.

Contact us at Onvizi to learn more about how local SEO can benefit your business. We will be happy to answer your questions. If you’re interested in obtaining local SEO gains, we can save you time and money by putting our expertise to work.

Mobile Websites & Mobile Marketing

February 1, 2013 by onvizinz Leave a Comment

Mobile usage has increased drastically over the past few years. Now, people are using smartphones to access the Internet, make purchases or even conduct their e-banking activities. According to ComCore, a reliable digital market analyst, there are 61.5 million people who use smartphones in the United States alone, so if you combine the number from different countries around the world, the total number would be huge.

If you run a small business and want to reach out to as many customers as possible, you should start focusing on designing a working mobile version of your business website now. If you are able to build a functioning mobile website that could take payments from your customers, you will be able to generate a significant amount of income through your mobile channel.

If you have no knowledge in coding, you will have to ask for help from a professional coder. Here are some tips to help you build a converting mobile website for your business:

Design

The design of your mobile website is very important, since it will determine whether the customers will keep browsing your site or navigate away. We all know that smartphones have smaller screens, therefore, when designing a site for mobile viewing, you need to arrange the elements and components in a way that can maximize the space without losing out important information.

Mobile Optimization

When you design mobile websites, you will need to omit a lot of unnecessary elements to keep the site load fast. Plus, there is another concept that you have to pay attention to: mobile optimization. In order for your mobile site to get traffic, you will need to optimize it for mobile search.

Mobile Analytics

All your efforts will go in vain if you cannot track your progress, therefore, you will need some analytics program to track your website’s performance in the mobile platform.

It is best to hire a mobile marketing company if you want to stop going through trials and errors doing it yourself.

Choosing the Right SEO Services For Your Success in 2013

January 17, 2013 by onvizinz Leave a Comment

Now 2013 has arrived, most business owners are busy evaluating what they have achieved in 2012 and making plans for the new year. When you own an online business, you have a lot to worry about especially your marketing plan. Online marketing is not the same as traditional marketing. Google is the king of search engines, and most online marketing plans revolve around this giant search engine. However, the problem that all business owners have to face is Google keeps changing its algorithm. A site could be ranking number one for a search term today and then nowhere to be found the next day. To keep your site on the safe side, you should keep yourself updated with the latest changes that Google makes and try to adapt to those changes.

However, most business owners have no time to educate themselves about SEO and they all need to hire a professional SEO Services to do the work for them. Hiring a SEO service could be costly, but if you choose the right service, the result you will get is well worth the cost.

For 2013, you should choose a SEO service that puts an emphasis on social network marketing, white hat SEO techniques and high quality content. High quality content is extremely important since it will not only increase your site ranking but also help you gain more readership. A SEO company may offer a full range of services that include creating quality content for your site.

If you want to bring your online business to the next level, contact us today and our expert team will help you get started.