How has Google misled us? Let us count the ways!

Target audience: Marketing professionals, SEO specialists, PR pros, brand managers, businesses, nonprofits, educators, Web publishers, journalists.

If you’ve been listening to Google of late, you’ve heard their spokespersons’ declarations that you should go merrily on your way producing content for your followers while making no attempts to improve your search rankings through explicit means. Focus on what you do best and ignore all that voodoo SEO stuff.

Well.

I’ll probably get some blowback for this, but it’s time to call out Google for its — how shall I put this? — sleight of hand, half-truths and tendency to lie about this.

The following list of Google mistruths have some exceptions and caveats. And, Google does make examples of bad actors, which is all to the good.

But for the vast majority of us Web publishers, bloggers and businesses who just want to create content and have it read, you should frankly ignore what Google has been telling you about backlinks not mattering anymore, SEO not mattering anymore and other misdirections.

Let’s do a rundown of which SEO elements actually still work

How has Google misled us? Let us count the ways! (I’ll list my bona fides below, and I have my own caveat: Google hasn’t said that none of the following is important, but let’s run through all of these SEO elements one by one.)

• Good titles are still really very essential – Because Google returns search results based on the sloppy terms you enter into the search field onto a results page that pretty literally just passes your page title through, you had better do a good job of making sure every single page of your site has a very descriptive, accurate, and unique title. That’s all Google has and that’s really all you have when it comes to whether or not someone clicks on your content or not.
• You still need to write for robots – Google is smart. It does understand synonyms and can make leaps in logic; however, Google cares more about speed than cleverness. Luckily, there are so many people who pre-prepare everything so perfectly for Google’s thoughtless pass-through that you’ll always lose. Google doesn’t have to think at all because there are enough other sites besides your site that does everything right — such as writing for robots, literally and across a wide diversity of appropriate keyword phrases — that any laziness on your part will be harshly penalized.
• Site speed is the most important – Even if you do everything right in preparing your site for a simple Google pass-through, Google will drop you as a top-three result on Organic Search if the pass-off isn’t immediate. So, after you make your site perfectly suited for Google and you’re still sucking wind, try upgrading your server, reducing the number of plugins you use, increasing the aggressiveness of your caching strategy (or, get a caching strategy), consider beefing up your server, putting our database on a separate box, get your ping down by getting closer to the the Internet‘s backbone or have someone optimize your DNS, or look into an Internet content delivery network service provider.
• Google is not a thinking thing or thesaurus – As a direct result of Twitter‘s success, Google rightfully feels like its results need to be real-time. In effectively creating an acceptable real time web, Google is generally in a constant feeding frenzy. A lot of cheating happens in this initial couple hours. And Google acts pretty dumb. In its rush to deliver content as it happens, real time, it tends to care more about filling the vacuum of trending breaking news than it cares about verifying. So, while Google does a good job of “trust but verify,” it trusts first. So, it’s still possible, even in 2014, to drive a lot of organic traffic to your site by just trend-surfing, news-surfing, and headline-surfing your content directly to what’s going on right now. You’ll just about always get a crush of traffic if you can be first to press on a big event, disaster, death, or announcement.

• Even in 2014, you can drive a lot of organic traffic to your site by just trend-surfing, news-surfing and headline-surfing your content directly to current events

  Google is still painfully literal – If you don’t write it, literally, in a literal string, on your site, verbatim, please don’t be surprised if your site doesn’t rank at all in that particular topic.

• Conspiracies still work on Google Search — As we have learned from Cristina Everett and the New York Daily News, if you can orchestrate a lot of people to write about the same topic or link to and fro or if you can conspire to write about each other or support each other’s content back and forth or even get everyone else in your little cabal to share and mention your posts, blogs, articles, columns, products, press release, announcement, or post, conspiracies of these sorts still work on Google, especially during its super-dumb feeding frenzy real time web “yay, hot donuts” phase.
• Metatag keywords work – Everyone tells you that the META Keywords tag has been completely deprecated but I don’t buy it, especially on sites that are predominantly visual, graphical, imagistic, photographic, or based on Flash, video, Silverlight, or whatever people use because they’re not smart enough to implement HTML5.
• Metatag descriptions are important – This is what Google passes through directly from the pages of your site verbatim to the results in the form of the page description, second only as important as the Title. If you don’t provide a pretty, well-written, useful one, Google will lazily and hastily scrape one up for you, one that will probably suck and might even eventually result in Google deprioritizing your site (because there’s always someone else who will gladly do it right).
• Alt tags are essential – Google still really can’t do anything with video or images or photos or code blobs unless you describe them or label them textually in a way that Google can read and index. And, if you do a good job of labeling your images, graphics, logos, executables, scripts, documents and PDFs, Google will reward you by showing your photos and videos and images and logos and graphics when people do image or video searches or even inline in regular web searches. If you dominate image and video search in your vertical, it can really help your general ranking everywhere else. So, it’s not even just the ALT tag anymore, there are quite a few ways to use HTML Schema to tell Google what’s going on. Do it! Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, and even Squarespace make it super-easy so you really have no damn excuse! Do it! Do it!
• Name all your files to be Google-readable — I spoke on this in the previous bullet but instead of leaving your photos and images with their default file names, be it what Adobe named them during some sort of slicing process or whatever your digital camera or phone named it when you uploaded it to your server. Instead of Photo.jpg, name your photo chris-abraham-portrait-black-glasses-black-t-shirt-socialmediabiz.jpg or something like that.
• Backlinks (still) matter – Reciprocal links, Page Rank, Domain Name age, and Backlinks are the core of Google and they’ll never really get rid of it. It’s their secret sauce and whether they’ve developed a new formulation there is still some sort of Google Rank or Google Klout going on — this Very Big Lie that backlinks no longer matter is the source of this article, Google is a lying liar that lies, as that’s one hell of a Big Lie.
• Human readable URLs are important – If your content management system (CMS) still gives you URLs that look like www.socialmedia.biz/?p=27642 instead of www.socialmedia.biz/2014/08/20/always-write-for-google-never-for-humans, then you really need to either install a plugin or upgrade your crappy CMS.
• Google still cares about formatting tags — No matter what anyone says, use the <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, <em>, <i>, <b>, <u>, and their HTML5 and CSS equivalents — they add structure and Google hearts structure.
• Google still indexes every page “separately” – You need to make sure every single one of the pages on your site are optimized. Google indexes by page and not by site. You need to have a separate title, keywords, description, and copy for every page and not just for the site. You need to either do it perfectly for each page or choose an SEO plugin that can do it for you automagically.
• Google hasn’t given up on Authorship – Even though 70% of all publishers, platforms, sites, papers, bloggers and writers ignored Google Authorship, Google rewards everyone who works happily and merrily toward making Google happy, and they’ll surely find a way to not deprecate the hard work we put into their effing terrible, unpopular, and alienating Google+, Google+ Pages, and Google Authorship.
• Google kisses Google+ users’ bottoms — Go invest the rest of this week mastering Google+, Google Plus Pages, Google+ Business Pages, and Google+ Communities. Do it!
• Google cares very much about site architecture – All robots and bots would always prefer structure data to the muddy hell known as whatever we like to read, research, and explore as humans. So, any predictable structure you can design into your site will be surely appreciated by the robots and bots of Google. If you move your site to a popular publishing platform like WordPress or Drupal, you will have invested in a structured platform that Google gets already.
  
• Google still does care about Sitemaps – Google loves structured data and Google loves it when you let it know that your site’s been updated instead of just waiting around until a Spider or Bot comes around.
• Google still loves RSS and ATOM –  Google loves structured data, remember?
• Google actually prefers long-form content —  Google indexes about half a megabyte, 520 Kb, per page, so you’re doing yourself a disservice by keeping your pages limited to 100 Kb. And, Bing probably indexes upwards of a megabyte of each page. Each page, that’s right, and not your entire site.

My bona fides, or, do I know what I’m talking about?

I’ve been producing websites since 1993, submitting sites to directories well before search engines sent out bots and spiders, and tailoring content for Google since late 1998. Soon to be 16 years later, Google hasn’t left behind all of its old tricks — no matter what Google tries to tell you what Google organic search has become circa 2014. When it comes to how things work when it comes to developing a server, site, content, and brand to appeal to Google, Google is a lying liar that lies.

Google can’t afford to leave anyone behind

Every time Google has tried to raise us up and improve us as Internet publishers, they have failed; and, they can’t afford to leave our content or us behind, especially when they so desperately want the entire world to build a mirror copy of In Real Life online and in a form that Google can index and understand. As a result, they need to do the equivalent of making the search algorithm as patient, accepting, compliant, flexible, and empowering as humanely possible, otherwise, the only sites that will every return are sites that are heavily bankrolled. Google might very well be lying to us, but it really does care about the best customer service experience humanly possible. And, in service of that, Google has and will continue to turn the other cheek while at the same time telling us exactly the opposite.

And, if you want to read a lot more about this subject, I wrote a much longer-form version over on the Biznology blog.

The post Don’t believe what Google tells you about search appeared first on Inside Social Media.

To be found online, create headlines & leads with the all-powerful Google bot in mind

Target audience: Marketing professionals, SEO specialists, PR pros, brand managers, businesses, nonprofits, educators, Web publishers, journalists.

When it comes to dominating search, especially when it comes to blogging and publishing, you need to always write your headlines and copy first for Google, then for people. Humans (and their flexible brains) are forgiving when it comes to reading stilted, “robotic,” keyword-explicit headlines and articles, but Google is not when you don’t.

You always need to write the copy — the exact phrases — that you believe people will most likely use to find what they’re looking for — that’s who you’re writing for. It’s true, no matter what anyone says — even at Google HQ! The title is the most important but so is the first paragraph, especially if you can insert that copy into your Description Meta Tag and your Keywords Meta Tag headers. It just makes sense, especially with breaking news, when you’re proffering content that Google will not have the time to ruminate and deeply examine before they need to include it in the real time web where it will show up in search.

Google can’t resist hot donuts

As I have said before over the years, Google can’t resist fresh hot donuts. They just eat ‘em up. When there’s breaking news, Google is just passing stuff along, and the timelier the better. If you can get the keywords right and be the first to market (first post!), then you can take the headlines away from even the biggest players — at least at first, and especially if there’s a little orchestration.

Learn from Cristina Everett’s leaked memo

Case in point, Cristina Everett‘s memo to her Web editors at the New York Daily News last week.

This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Online Reputation Management (ORM) converge. It’s where I live. I had a big pitch the other day in New York, so I rode my motorcycle up and back. On the way home I played through my Stitcher queue. Halfway through New Jersey Le Show came on. You’ll know Le Show from its host, Harry Shearer. In every show, he reads through the week’s trade publications and then features a segment called “I’m Sorry” in which he reads through the last week’s formal apologies.

On Aug. 12, New York Daily News editor Cristina Everett wrote a memo to her writers thanking them for the awesome work they’ve done getting and keeping their stories about the death of Robin Williams written by New York Daily News at the very top of organic search:

From: Everett, Cristina
Date: August 12, 2014 at 5:33:00 PM EDT
To: WebEditors
Subject: ENTERTAINMENT handoff!
NOTES ON ROBIN WILLIAMS STORIES/HEDES!!
Thank you to everyone who did a great story [sic] with keeping our stories SEO strong with the * Robin Williams dead at 63 * header for the first 24 hours. Starting tomorrow morning, we can scale back on the robot talk (meaning no death header) just as long as the stories continue to *start* with his full name and include buzzy search words like *death, dead, suicide, etc.*

Behind every successful publication there’s a Cristine Everett

Cristina Everett may well be judged guilty in the court of industry and public opinion, but she’s feeling the heat from above, isn’t she? Journalism is becoming a kill or be killed blood sport. She is probably being pressured by her bosses about click-throughs, ad revenue, performance, and all that — and she’s dealing with dinosaurs, also known as reporters, and those trilobites known as copy editors — professionals who only receive awards when they write carefully turned prose, not when they write the perfect Google-bait, search-bait, link-bait.

Cristina Everett will not get fired. She’s a star. She delivers the goods! She’s able to get her writers in line with both the stick and the carrot. She was able to get her Web team to write quickly, efficiently, and on-point, leveraging a global event, a beloved and universally adored actor, and a tragic loss to bring a heap of traffic, attention, and ad revenue to wee little New York Daily News, broadsheet tabloid gossip mag. Bringing vast attention, traffic, and notoriety — even if it’s negative — is ultimately good for the paper.

Robin Williams dead at 63

Were it not for the news story behind the memo, we would never have had the opportunity to see the truth behind the story: even in the post-keyword and post-link-juice, post-page rank era of Google algorithm updates Hummingbird, Panda, and Penguin, one must always write for keywords, always write for Google — especially for Google News, Yahoo! News, AOL News, and Bing News! It works!

Pros like to make SEO way more complicated than it is

Write every single line, from your headline to your closing line with Google in mind. No matter how stilted your copy might be for the careful reader, you’ll never ever get read if you don’t end up in the first-5 search results on the first page of Google search — or Bing, Yahoo!, AOL, Facebook, whatever. Your article will never go viral, it’ll never be shared on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, reddit, or even on Google+.

So, go forth and optimize. And don’t feel embarrassed in the least.

H/T to Attorney Shawn Sukumar.

The post Always write for Google, never for humans appeared first on Inside Social Media.

Make sure your content is unique, relevant and looks great

Target audience: Marketing professionals, SEO specialists, entrepreneurs, PR pros, brand managers, businesses, nonprofits, educators, Web publishers, journalists.

Today, it seems, just about all startups — and even more mature companies — want to wield the growth hacking buzzsaw. Growth hacking was the theme that drew several hundred marketers, entrepreneurs and business strategists to the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco on Thursday for the fancifully named Weapons of Mass Distribution conference put on by 500 Startups.

And while growth hacking may be hot hot hot right now — even marketing consultant Sean Ellis, who coined the term, was on hand — the impressive lineup of speakers made it clear that to succeed, a new enterprise can’t spin flax into gold. You’ve got to have some kick-ass idea to begin with, and you have to have a product team that knows how to execute. And then, yes, by all means, call in the growth hackers and marketers to run the numbers, size up your analytics, get feedback from customers, and create a virtuous product development loop that fast-tracks your company on to its inevitable trajectory of fame, riches and a guest spot on Jason Calacanis’s “This Week in Startups” podcast.

I captured some of the magic on stage and in the room in this Flickr photo set. (Ah, Flickr, you were on that fast track once!)

Rand Fishkin: Create great genuine editorial content

Let’s begin with the awesome presentation SEO Tactics to Love vs. Leave given by Rand Fishkin, founder and CEO of SEO/marketing firm Moz.

Some tips and takeaways from Rand’s talk:

• Thousands of companies are now flocking around the banner of content marketing, believing that Google will reward them for their efforts. Ditch that approach, Fishkin said. Google is looking for genuine, organic editorial content that fosters conversation and community, not manufactured storytelling. See Rand’s equally astute Slideshare preso, Why Content Marketing Fails.

• “Make sure your content is unique, it’s relevant, it’s helpful, it’s uniquely valuable, and has a great UX.” So says Rand. Now go make it so.

• With Google Analytics becoming something of a black box, check out keywordtool.io, the best (free) keyword tool in the market these days. Check it out, it’s magnificent.

• Another of his favorite new tools: BuzzSumo, a tool for content marketing and SEO campaigns.

• 6 billion searches a day take place on Google, and already 50 percent of them are coming from mobile.

• Use Google Plus, even if you think nobody else is.

Who said, ‘War is 90 percent information’?

• Neil Patel, co-founder of KISSmetrics: “The ideal number of questions to ask in a survey is five.” And: For multiple choice questions, limit it to no more than four choices. And: Add images to your survey to dress it up.

• Sean Ellis: “How do your customers describe the product? Ask them. They usually do it more accurately than the CEO.” I just ordered Sean’s Kindle edition book Startup Growth Engines on Amazon.

• James Currier, co-founder, ooga Labs: “Your growth person should be the most aggressive person on the team, so much so that the CEO has to tell him he’s going too far.”

• Brian Balfour, VP of growth at HubSpot: “Every good answer starts with a question.”

• Holly Liu, co-founder of Kabam: Create rewards to help people on Facebook become helpful to their friends instead of being spammy.

• Gustaf Alströmer, Growth Product Manager, Airbnb: “Our philosophy is simple: Our users tell the story better than we do.” And: “We never compromise on user experience. No tricks.”

And I’ll leave you with this:

• “War is 90 percent information.” – Napoleon, as quoted by Aihui Ong, founder & CEO, Love With Food.

Related

• Growth Hacking Distribution For Your Startup (Scott Allison in Forbes)

• How to build a content marketing strategy (Socialmedia.biz)

• Content marketing: How to get discovered in search (Socialmedia.biz)

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