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joi, 4 septembrie 2014

Protecting America's Great Outdoors

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Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act and the Wilderness Act -- two landmark pieces of conservation legislation.

Using revenues from offshore oil and gas development, the Land and Water Conservation Fund has increased access to the outdoors, protected iconic places like National Parks and Civil War battlefields, and advanced more than 40,000 local projects. And thanks to the Wilderness Act, more than 109 million acres of wildland have received our country's strongest protections.

But protecting the outdoors isn't just good for our air and water -- it's good for our economy, too. In 2012, more than 900 million visits to federally managed lands and waters helped support over $646 billion in spending on outdoor recreation.

Find out how these acts are protecting America's lands and boosting local economies.

Pigeon Advice from Top Local SEOs and a Pigeon-Proofing Checklist

Posted: 03 Sep 2014 05:15 PM PDT

Posted by MiriamEllis

If you work in Local SEO, chances are you've been fielding tons of questions from clients since Google rolled out the Pigeon update in late July. Need a little extra support providing sound advice in what are still the early days of this development that has caused both organic and local ranking shakeups? Here's your chance to learn what six of the finest Local SEOs on the map are telling their own clients and readers about Pigeon, followed up by a checklist aimed at helping you Pigeon-proof your local presence. Read closely, and I believe you'll find some gems of wisdom from these generous pros!

Mike Blumenthal says...

With Pigeon, it's important to understand that several things happened at once and you need to understand which of those things happened so that you can respond appropriately.

One major change was a shifting of the calculations for distance around a search. Typically, but not always, Google reduced the search radius.

If you are no longer included in the search radius you have several choices (besides opening another office). The one that makes the most sense is learn what geographic areas you are showing in and emphasize those AND find the less competitive categorical searches where you can compete to get some visibility. "Jewelry Appraisals" might not be as lucrative as "Jewelry" in a given market, but if you can dominate the search, it can lead to long term sustainable client acquisition. Figure out what these phrases are and be sure that you have both the right site content AND the right categories at places like YP.com and elsewhere.

The other change was a reordering of search results with some listings losing rank even though they are still within the new search radius.

If you lost rank but are still within the search radius then you need to do the things that Google is looking for. When in doubt, go back to the basics of internet marketing and be sure that you are participating in activities that make your business more visible on-line - becoming more citation worthy and linkable in your local market. In essence become newsworthy in your local market.

Mary Bowling says...

This is the gist of what I have found myself saying repeatedly over the past few weeks to clients:

1. Just because obvious spam is being rewarded in the SERPs, don't think that you should spam, too. If you're concerned about spam in the local packs that affect you, report it. The more people you can get to report it, the more likely it is to be examined and, hopefully, demoted.

2. Brands with their own directories of locations (or store finders) should do whatever is needed to boost their potential for ranking well, which will help both the brand website and the individual locations. The website needs to be structured to push PageRank down to all of the location listings. The directory section must be thoroughly crawlable and well-optimized at every level. The location listings themselves must have plenty of unique, location-specific content that visitors find interesting and valuable.

3. Make certain you are in the directories that are ranking in or above the local packs for the terms you'd like to rank for. Regardless of your feelings toward Yelp, most businesses need to maintain accurate and complete listings there, preferably accompanied by good reviews.

4. To appear in the shrunken local packs, you must now rank in the top 3 positions, which are usually influenced by organic rankings. So keep working on your organic rankings via valuable, well-optimized content and incoming links from other good websites.

Linda Buquet says...

My advice? The Pigeon has flown the coup, but has not landed yet! There is too much flux for any of us to make sense of yet. I've been sharing tracking screenshots at the Local Search Forum and we have 200 Pigeon analysis posts so far. All I can say is that hopefully by the time this bird is tested and/or trained it will settle into something equitable for users and business owners alike. So no solid advice can be given now, except to keep working on best practice strategies, which will always help in the end.

A couple of unique and more recent observations:

1. After doing lots of Pigeon analysis, I'm almost positive that Google is testing at least 3 versions of Pigeon on different datacenters and rotating results - maybe for AB testing. I say this, in part, because all the Google datacenter IPs I can find are still showing the old pre-Pigeon results and many of the tools I use that send me screenshots or ordered pack results are still showing the old algo ranking order as well. Classic Google maps is showing the old ranking order too, because it's using a different datacenter than Google search. Here is a detailed post with all my observations and screenshots to back them up:

Pigeon Analysis - New Insights about this Crazy Google Local Algo & the Constant Flux

So that would account for the crazy constant flux we are seeing. Depends on which of the rotating datacenters you hit. I repeat - the Pigeon has not landed!

2. Duplicate discovery has changed and Pigeon is now hiding lots of dupes. Those dupes can still rank and mess you up but are just harder to find. (h/t to Joy Hawkins for this discovery.) The old map search for phone # may only surface 1 listing even though there are 6. There is a long post about the various ways to search now, including a couple new ways at my forum. So if you deal with doctors, dentists, attorneys, just be aware that if your standard method of dupe discovery shows 0 additional listings – it does not mean they are not out there. They are just in hiding! (Plus Pigeon is handling dupes differently too, but I think going into that will make this too long.)

Phil Rozek says...

You have to figure out which strain of Pigeon Flu has got you down.

Is Google showing only 3-packs, and now your #5 ranking doesn't get you on page one? Don't panic and change your strategy; you're on the right track.

Have you been knocked out of the 7-pack by spammy results? Not much you can do, but Google will probably fix it anyway. Hang tight and work on your non-Google Places visibility efforts.

Lost your rankings in the big city? Well, your first priority always should have been to be King or Queen of your immediate area first and foremost. (And if that doesn't bring you enough phone calls, then you
need to earn more reviews and make your site stickier.)

In my experience, Pigeon is a wake-up peck.

Andrew Shotland says...

Our best advice to clients is to keep calm and carry on. We are still seeing a lot of changes in the local SERPs on almost a daily basis. So adjusting tactics while the game board is still moving seems ill-advised. In cases where things are really broken - and we've seen a bit of that (e.g. multi-location brands that have a 100-mile-away location ranking for <brand>+<city> queries even though they have a location in the searched city) - we are definitely hitting Google My Biz Support and making sure there's nothing screwy on the NAP side that could be causing this.

Thus far the big fix we are seeing to defeating spammy results in the local packs is to get links, which unfortunately is going to lead to a whole new wave of local link SPAM, because it appears to be working, for the moment.

My best advice to clients would be to do "real local SEO sh*t". Lots of local SEOs, especially at large firms, have focused on the local part of the algorithm to the exclusion of localized organic search. The Pigeon update, with its fusing of the local and organic ranking factors, appears to push us back to basic SEO tactics. Get good, local, links. Create quality content. Eliminate technical issues on your website and Google My Business page. Do this and you will be ahead of the vast majority of local businesses in the turd covered post-pigeon landscape.

Nyagoslav Zhekov says...

I do believe it is very early to comment on an update that appears to be as impactful as "Pigeon" (I really dislike the name, and I don't think it fits too well), partly because I do not even think the SERPs have settled down yet, and partly because very little targeted testing and research has been done to date.

The only thing we know for sure is what Google shared ( indirectly):

"Google has released a new algorithm to provide a [sic]more useful, relevant and accurate local search results that are tied more closely to traditional web search ranking signals."

"…Google said that this new algorithm improves their distance and location ranking parameters."

The first part could be interpreted as Google now giving more value to the "traditional" organic ranking factors (website-related ranking factors). This could be seen as a sort of a "follow-up" on Venice, which significantly impacted the type of local SERPs (major shift from "pure" to "blended" SERPs). Pigeon had significant impact on the display of local "packs" in the local SERPs, too (23.4% drop in local packs display).

The second part of Google's "announcement" could be interpreted as an attempt to further "localize" the search results, wherever it might make sense. There have been observations of "tightening" of the radius of the displayed local search results, and experts generally agree that the update had a serious impact on the hyper-local search results.

What a business owner should do? My advice – do what you have been doing up to now. A strong, end-to-end, local SEO campaign, without cutting corners, and without stressing on one aspect while neglecting the rest, is the most sustainable way to win in the long term, and practically the only way not to have to worry every time Google update their algorithms."

My 6-point Pigeon-proofing checklist for local businesses

Stay alert. Experts agree that the dust has not settled on this update, so this would not be the right time to react with a complete 180 in your marketing strategy. Stay tuned in to local blogs and fora and monitor the SERPs on a regular basis to watch things progress in the coming weeks and months. Based on past experience, I would not be at all surprised to see Google continue to turn dials up and down with this update. Don't panic like a birdbrain and start making major changes, but do keep up-to-date!

If your radius has shrunken for your core terms, you may need to consider focusing more effort on less competitive terms to try to make up the difference. Among other things, this could include changing a category on your Google My Business page, building new content that proves your relationship to these topics and earning new reviews and links that cement your presence in reference to these somewhat lesser terms.

If your 7-packs have shrunken to 3-packs, striving to build greater organic authority may help you more than purely local signals like citations and reviews. No mystery here – make your website as clean, fast, usable and rich in information as you possibly can, and brainstorm for those ideas that will set you apart from more sluggish or boring competitors, making your business link-and-shareworthy.

If more spam seems to be rearing its ugly head in your important SERPs, report it! You have several vehicles for doing so. In Google Mapmaker, search for a spammy business, click the 'edit' link and then the 'report this' link. Provide as much detail as you can, documenting and proving that the listing contains spam. Or, while signed into your G+ account, find the spammy Google+ Local page, click the downward pointing in the row of icons beneath the business NAP, choose the report/block option and then fully describe the issue. If you notice widespread spamming, you might want to consider reporting it via a thread at the Google And Your Business help forum in hopes of getting the attention of Top Contributors and/or staffers.

Because Pigeon appears to be giving more emphasis to local business directories for more searches now, it is more important than ever to have clean, consistent citations across the board. Do your most important keyword searches and see which directories are appearing high in the SERPs for these terms. Be sure you've got a fully-filled out listing on these directories and that the data on it is good and correct.

Local SEO strives to build a web-based mirror-image of local business communities – but don't forget that it is only a reflection of the offline world. Citation building, content development, link earning, review acquisition – these are all incredibly important tasks, but they do not take the place of the service you offer and relationships you are building in the real world with face-to-face customers and associates.

Becoming 'a name' in your neighbors' households by dint of your excellence should always be your #1 priority. So, give that better-than-expected customer service, launch that new in-store campaign, join that local business association and go to those local events and seminars! Become a vital local resource to your neighbors and you'll be standing in a strong place, no matter what updates may come your way.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

5 Reasons I Stopped Reading Your Blog

Posted: 04 Sep 2014 12:30 AM PDT

Writing a blog post is often a more difficult task than it sounds, and it isn't something that everyone has a natural affinity with. If you struggle when it comes to idea generation or putting your thoughts into writing, you might not be surprised to find that your levels of engagement are low and your bounce rate is high.

In the worst case scenario, you might not even realise that your blog posts aren't among the best out there. Unfortunately, there are plenty of impatient people like me who read a wide range of blogs and immediately discount some of them.

So here's a list of some of the reasons why I would leave your blog (and probably never return), to help you ensure that your own blog stays on track.

Your content isn't unique

While it's true that there isn't an infinite number of topics, and it is what you do with your idea that counts, reading similar posts across multiple blogs quickly gets tiring. Some people choose to rehash news articles or other blog posts instead of generating their own ideas, and simply don't add any new insight or opinion into the fray.

Similar content is also a common problem when bloggers are asked to review a product or a service. If there is a large campaign that requires a sizeable number of bloggers to take part, it doesn't take too long for readers of these blogs to pick up on the theme, especially if products have been given away for free (as in the image below).

You haven't checked for errors

Another blog turn off comes in the form of content and how it is actually put together; spelling mistakes and grammatical errors can make a blog post too irritating to bother reading. All it takes is a simple spell check; so, if your content management system doesn't include this feature as standard, write your post in a programme like Microsoft Word first. You should also check your facts, and include references to research where necessary.

I don't trust you

If a blog doesn't have a named author or editor, it makes me a bit suspicious. Due to the amount of syndicated content on the web, I want to guarantee that what I am reading has been created with more than just SEO 'benefits' in mind. Too many links in a blog post will immediately make me close my browsing window.

Even though a photograph and the name of a blogger don't necessarily provide 100% reassurance, they certainly go some way to help. Even better are links to personal social media profile pages, such as Facebook and Twitter.

You have no opinion

I touched on this point above when I spoke about unique content. Some blogs are filled with lots of writing and images, but the posts themselves don't actually say a whole lot. This makes me want to bang my head against a brick wall, especially when the post title suggests that the content will consist of a review.

As a consumer, I really want to read an honest opinion of a product or service. Many bloggers fall into the trap of writing a glowing review of a product to appease the PR firms who have given them something. *yawn*.

I find your content offensive

On the other hand, a blog post might have crossed a line or two during creation. Having an opinion is great, but there is a difference between this and being spiteful. The problem here is that people will always disagree about what is and isn't offensive. I won't read blog posts that bully named individuals, and even some companies. It's the era of the online witch-hunt, but where has the right to reply gone?

…What you can learn from this

Now you know the reasons I would stop reading a blog, you can start thinking about the things that are important to you when reading posts online. I’d love for you to share these with me, so please leave me a comment if you’d like to get in touch.

I hope you will now be able to go away knowing that your blog doesn’t commit any of the sins I have listed, or the ones you have identified yourself!

The post 5 Reasons I Stopped Reading Your Blog appeared first on White.net.

Seth's Blog : Does "stationary" matter?

Does "stationary" matter?

Formality is a curious thing.

I have trouble buying paper and pens at a store that cares so little about competence that they've misspelled the very thing they sell on their sign.

It occurs to me that this is a pretty silly reason not to buy a package of paper. I know exactly what they mean. I'm just being pedantic.

And we judge people by how they choose to wear a tie and jacket, or whether or not they use the correct typeface on their resume. Even though we're hiring them to run a forklift or balance the books.

Is it okay to read and enjoy a self-published book that is poorly laid out? What does hiring a talented layout designer have to do with writing a good book?

Is adherence to cultural norms an indicator of quality and care in other areas? If it's not, how much do we lose when we shun people who don't care about the cultural foundations that we grew up with?

We don't have a word for the satisfaction of engaging with something that's just right, that's both orginal and also grounded in the quality of execution that comes from an awareness and embrace of the cultural norms that people like us care about. Someone who took the time to get the irrelevant details right. That satisfaction is important to me.

And yet, the irrelevant cues might not be so irrelevant.

Not everyone will judge you because you ignore or don't understand the formalities. (And in fact, the judging and the tsk-tsking aren't always something to aspire to, if it distracts us from the work we're trying to do). But some people will judge you, and if you care about them, cultural norms are a cheap way to earn trust.

It's also a privilege to do something properly.

Will our entire culture go completely to pieces if we stop defending the apostrophe? I don't think so. But understanding formalities is a choice, and you should embrace or reject them with intent.