The SEO specialists all over the world have been waiting for Google to launch the Penguin 4.0 update for over 4 months now. Many of them expected the launch date to be World Penguin Day, which is on 25th April and sounds like the perfect time for that. But since nothing happened on that date, everyone is wondering what to expect from now on. It has been well over a year and a half since Google launched Penguin 3.0, which is why SEO specialists are becoming very impatient.
Maybe, at one point, something will happen and render keywords irrelevant. Until then, they will determine the rankings and SEO strategy of every business that tries to establish a successful online presence.
The misleading obsession with keywords and high rankings has become very unhealthy, especially in the recent years when it is common knowledge that the term “Search Engine Optimization” is currently the exact opposite of what it was in the beginning.
Keywords certainly give a relatively accurate measure of progress when it comes to how our website is doing in terms of SEO. However, the real problem is that apart from localized rankings for business listings, keyword ranking is practically useless.
Let’s explain why.
Are you stuck with your keyword strategy from 2005? Wake up because it’s 2015.
SEO was a very straightforward process back when search engines were mostly one dimensional because you would get basically the same results for a given search, wherever you were in the world. Under these conditions, rankings for keywords were quite simple as a metric, even transparent. (more…)
After some of the recent changes in Google’s policy and algorithms, it became even more difficult to promote the same business on different locations around a certain area. Companies with more than one office, store or facility find it hard to appear on good positions when it comes to local SEO. While this may be a more generalized assumption, there are of course certain cases where bigger companies with good reputation both on a public and online level enjoy good rankings.
Your business is relatively small?
However, if you are just starting out or your company is not that reputable and recognized yet, you are likely to be facing difficulties with the optimization of your various locations.
We will fix that!
We are here to change that for you and let you know which the key factors in improving your chances for a better position and more visibility in Google’s results are! (more…)
What to Do When the PageSpeed Service Is Gone?First of all, we should point out what exactly is (soon to be was) the PageSpeed service, what are its negative and positive sides and more useful information on the whole situation.
The whole idea and function behind the PageSpeed service by Google was to give you a full analysis on the performance of your website, how much time does it take to fully load all of its features (images, JavaScript, and other elements). At least that is the major and primary part of its functions. When the tool finishes the analysis, it not only shows the speed itself, but also points out what exactly is wrong with the website and gives very detailed and thorough suggestions to what can be done in order to improve its performance according to Google’s guidelines and algorithms. (more…)
The most terrifying words that can make a website owner’s skin crawl are “Google’s updating the algorithm again.” This is not intended to be a fear-mongering article, but you are free to make your own conclusions.
So, when we are talking about Google and its algorithms, we always deduce to the most negative results, bad outcome and overall apocalyptic expectations. The most common reason for the search engine to look upon your website with a frown is the possible spam that you may have accidentally included.
What are the most common types of spam:
User generated spam
Spammers that use automated tools intend to spam your website (depending on its type) with unwanted and irrelevant messages that take advantage of your traffic and direct it to their sources.
The measures you can take here are simply to moderate your site better and take advantage of solutions such as captcha and recaptchas.
If you happen to receive a penalty because of this you should clean it up entirely, not sparing anything that shows the slightest hint of spam. (more…)
We are all familiar with the hundreds of different key factors that either contribute to the rank of our website, or do the opposite – they bring it down. However, as the advancements go, we constantly see changes and fluctuations in Google’s results. This brings to mind that some things may pass, but other things will always stay the same.
In general, a reliable and efficient SEO strategy that 411 Locals would suggest consists of several key features:
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