The “Webspam Update” has been released by Google’s Matt Cutts, head of the webspam team at Google, made at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin. Essentially, he commented that Google will soon be rolling out a new over-optimization penalty in their ranking algorithm. This update has supposedly gone live already according to some, but Google said “in the next few days” 36 hours ago. Regardless, there’s no shortage of speculation. Here’s some of what he said:

“Normally we don’t sort of pre-announce changes, but there is something that we’ve been working on in the last few months. And hopefully, in the next couple months or so, in the coming weeks, we hope to release it. … So all those people who have sort of been doing, for lack of a better word, “over optimization” or “overly” doing their SEO, compared to the people who are just making great content and trying to make a fantastic site, we want to sort of make that playing field a little bit more level.”

I have been hearing from LOTS of people that they have seen major movements in their search engine rankings over the past day or so.

First, I want to briefly discuss what this penalty is and then how my own sites are doing.  First, Matt Cutts says in the announcement that they are essentially targeting sites that they feel are gaming the system through link schemes and keyword stuffing. Overall, this is effecting about 3.1% of queries in English.  So, it effecting quite a few sites.  In addition, this recent announcement essentially follows up with the previous Panda updates that are trying to help higher quality sites rank better, and lower quality sites to rank worse.

However, from the discussion I am seeing all over the place, it appears that more than 3% of sites were affected.  Did Google go overboard?

As always Google is not saying exactly what triggers the algorithm, but they did give us a couple of examples of pages that are considered spammy,

• Overspun articles... they just don’t make sense to humans with a functioning brain.
• Spammy Page Titles…This includes titles that are consistently too long (over 64 characters), that include multiple different keywords, or use the same keyword more than twice. Essentially titles that are clearly spammy looking and don’t read well. An example of a bad title would be “Buy Blue Widgets | Blue Widget Distributor | Wholesale Discount Blue Widgets – Acme, Inc” The ranking strength that titles give makes it a likely target for over-optimization and webspam.
• Meta Keyword Tag Stuffing…The meta keyword tag no longer provides any SEO benefit to rankings; however, many of the spammiest sites still stuff this outdated tag with dozens of keywords, and sometimes the same dozens on every page of the site. This behavior is a pretty safe indication of over-SEO’d sites. There’s nothing wrong with using the meta keywords tag, but it should hold no more than 5 or so keywords, and the keyword selection should be different from page to page. It is also completely safe to not use this tag at all, as it does not help rankings.
• Content Keyword Stuffing…Excessive keyword use in the body text of a page is one of the clearest overly-optimized signals on a page. There is a fine line between being sure to use your keywords often (which is good) and using them too often. In general once the text starts to read poorly it is too much. An example of this would be “Buy your blue widgets here at Acme, Inc and get the blue widget that you want, and have your blue widget shipped out the same day. All of our blue widgets meet this highest widget standards, and are as blue as you can imagine any blue widget being.” Keep in mind image alt text is included in the keyword density, and excessive bolding is a possible spam signal as well.
• Reciprocal Link Pages…If you have link pages – sometimes called resource pages – that link out to a bunch of other sites that in turn link to you, this is an over-optimization signal and once that Matt Cutts specifically mentioned. You can link out to other useful sites, but if they’re also linking back to your site somewhere, you’re probably better off not doing so. Reciprocal links are against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Again, there are exceptions, and these are usually found in specific niches in which all the authoritative sites in the niches link to each other as a matter of culture (usually this is blog niches, and those links are the name of the site they’re linking to, not anchor text).
• Excessive Footer links… Too many footer links, and in particular abnormal types of footer links, is another likely signal. Most users never look at a site’s footer, so it’s become a popular place to stuff links just for the search engines. It’s normal to have links to locations, contact pages, sitemaps, privacy policies and credits in the footer. It’s not normal to repeat large sections of the site’s navigation in the footer, or to place the site’s navigation in the footer or link to dozens of pages, internal or external.
• Excessive Anchor Text in Backlinks… One of the purest signals of over-optimization or spam is very large numbers of backlinks that use exact match or partial exact match anchor text. This means that large percentages of backlinks from other sites are using link text like “Blue Widgets” or “Buy Blue Widgets” rather than the more common way of linking using the site’s name or URL. As a broad rule of thumb, most sites with a natural link profile have over 50% of their links using the site’s name or URL, and no other single anchor text accounts for more than 10% of the backlinks. This signal basically represents sites accumulating large numbers of paid links, and it’s very likely that this signal will only trigger in combination with another on-site signal.
• Excessive or Unnatural Internal Linking…Excessive inter-linking within the body content of your pages is another spam signal, especially when the same page or same anchor text is linked repeatedly. As a broad rule of thumb you usually don’t want to link more than twice in the content of your typical page (to different pages), and no inter-linking is just fine. Keep in mind that Google only pays attention to the first anchor text of any given link, so if you’re linking to a page already linked in the global navigation, you’re probably giving minimal benefit anyway. If you have the occasional page with a legitimate need to link out a lot, that’s not going to be a problem. But if you do so all the time or in ways that seem like you’re just spamming links, then you could be in trouble. If you really feel the need for this much inner linking on most pages, then you may want to reexamine your site’s navigation and find out why that isn’t serving the navigation needs of users.

Yes it does and it’s great if you know what it stands for but, let’s get down to the real question… which isn’t “do you know what SEO stands for?”

The real question is “how is your website doing in its search engine ranking?” And does it rank for keywords which are really helping you bring in new business? A lot of business owners I talk to seem to truly understand that they need to do a much better job of getting their website to rank on the first page of the search engines like Google for this keyword or that long tail keyword phrase and so on. But in talking to these business owners, most of them have also failed to employ a SEO campaign because of the sticker shock they get when getting a quote from most companies who perform SEO.

Getting quotes for $12,000 to $15,000 for one year is quite a common occurrence. Worse and I think where both the Internet Marketing company and the business owner go wrong is in failing to really sit down and crunch the numbers to see what the business needs to achieve to get a healthy ROI on whatever dollars they are looking to invest in an SEO campaign. How many new customers do you need to get to make this a worthwhile endeavor? What is the Lifetime Value of a Customer to your business? If you do your job right as a business owner, how many other customers will one new customer refer to you over the next 1, 5 and 10 years?

And the fact is, you can get Affordable SEO Services that fit your budget and which can help you get the ball rolling in the right direction. You might need to start off with $150-200 per month. With that kind of budget, we still get our clients tangible, measurable results. Sure, if you can invest $1000 per month for 6-12 months, we can get you there faster and with more keywords, but the reality is that a lot of business owners just don’t have that right now in this economy.

So, if you know you need to get your website cleaned up and ranking better but you’re also looking for affordable internet marketing solutions including affordable SEO services, give us a call and let’s chat about how we can help you achieve your goals without breaking the bank!

To determine the exact definition of Internet marketing, let us examine the following scenarios. Ask some 100 individuals about the definition of Internet marketing and 99 percent of them will point you to a single direction—the search engine. You will go to your favorite search engine, type the words “define Internet marketing” and click the “search icon”.

The result is….

The top pages of search results will display the marketing veterans who have established themselves to be the pioneers of Internet marketing, thus they really deserve a spot to provide the definition by themselves. However, if you will take a look on the placement ads on search result pages, there seems to be another story to tell.

You will notice that most of the ads associated with Internet marketing are intended to aid websites to get more traffic or hits. Yes, Internet traffic is the lifeblood of a website, but it is just the start of Internet traffic. Combining this concept with the traditional conduct of marketing and the Internet as the marketing medium, you will be able to arrive on the following conclusion:

“Internet marketing is an income-generating opportunity dependent on the utilization of interactive technology (via the Internet) to build a dialog with potential clients by connecting with them through quality content about your product and/or service offerings”.

The fulfillment of Internet marketing is dependent on the utilization of interactive technology, which the definition specified as the “Internet”. The utilization of the Internet involves the existence of different Internet marketing services. Without these services, the Internet will not be able to perform on its specific task as the marketing medium between Internet marketers and their clients.

Every online entrepreneur must be familiar with Internet marketing services to keep their online business alive. Such services are very vital in the development of their online business as well as the success of their Internet marketing career.

Here are some of the basic Internet marketing services that you should know and be familiar with:

• Search engine optimization- search engines are powerful tools in locating websites and other useful information on the Web. Most Internet users make use of search engines to find the information that they need. Thus, your site must appear on the top pages of a search engine page result. Through optimizing your website (reengineering its contents), you will be able to achieve better search engine placement.
• Indexing- it involves the procedure of submitting your web pages for search engine registration and other Internet-based directories.
• Keyword research- it is the identification of highly-searched keywords and key phrases that are relevant to your online business.
• SEO consultation- it is recommended for novice Internet marketers to invest with an SEO (search engine optimization) consultant who will help you in planning the methods of marketing your website successfully.
• Use net- it is a worldwide bulletin board system wherein it contains more than 14,000 forums. Use net is considered to be one of the fast and efficient methods of generating targeted traffic for a website. It covers every interest group and commonly used by millions of individuals around the world everyday.
• E-mail marketing- it is one of the popular advertising methods used on Internet marketing. It makes use of electronic mail that is sent to a list of subscribers who want to receive updates about your products and/or services.
• Press releases- this services is used to announce any site launches, special product offerings, and other useful information relevant to your online business. These press releases are drafted carefully to attract more people towards your website.

There are other Internet marketing services available, but the aforementioned services are the most basic and essential ones. You will not succeed on your Internet marketing business if you will not incorporate any of the services discussed. Make sure that you will integrate them in your online business and expect the best results out of it.

Before making the decision to embark on an Internet marketing campaign you should carefully consider your target audience. The Internet is used widely around the world but whether or not members of your target audience are likely to utilize the Internet to research or purchase the products or services you sell is not guaranteed. This is significant because investing a great deal of time, effort and money into Internet marketing when your target audience is not likely to respond to these efforts is not worthwhile.

Conducting market research can do a great deal to help you determine whether or not you should invest in an Internet marketing campaign for your business. This step is very important because it will give you a good indication of whether or not you should even begin marketing your business on the Internet. Hiring a firm specializing in market research is recommended because they can conduct this research quickly and efficiently and will likely gain a great deal of valuable information as a result of their research efforts. If they determine your business can benefit from an Internet marketing campaign, it is time to start thinking about how you want to advertise your business online.

Again, seeking the help of professionals can be an extremely worthwhile investment. If you are not well versed in the industry of Internet marketing, hiring a firm with a great deal of expertise in this industry can be very helpful. They can assist you by consulting with you to determine which marketing strategies will be most effective, designing advertisements for your campaign, helping you to orchestrate your Internet marketing campaign and evaluating the results of marketing efforts to determine which strategies are working and which are not.

The potential for success with an Internet marketing campaign is virtually limitless. The success you enjoy is only limited by your ability to promote your products and services and execute effective marketing strategies. Some of the marketing strategies you may wish to employ may include optimizing your website for relevant search terms, placing links to your website judiciously on the Internet, writing and publishing e-newsletters and utilizing affiliates to promote your website.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most important aspects of any Internet marketing campaign. SEO is so important because it dictates the ranking of your website on popular search engines. Internet users value these results and are not likely to seek out websites which do not rank well with search engines. Conversely, high ranking websites can enjoy a great deal of increased website traffic as a result of these rankings.

Inbound links to your website are also important in Internet marketing. Inbound links are links on other websites which direct users to your website. These links are important in an Internet marketing campaign. First of all many search engines factor inbound links into their ranking algorithms which means inbound links can result in higher search engines rankings. Also, these links can be used directly by website users to access your website. This means you can gain traffic directly from these links.

Another way to enjoy a successful Internet marketing campaign is to orchestrate an affiliate marketing campaign. Affiliates are essentially website owners who place a banner ad on their website to direct traffic to your website. Typically, affiliates are only compensated when the advertisement on their website produces a desired effect such as enticing the users to click through the advertisement, resulting in a sale or resulting in another action such as filling out a survey or registering with your website. Affiliate marketing can not only be highly effective but it is also cost effective because you only pay the affiliates when they produce results.

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