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About admin

Weston Riesche is the Marketing Manager at SEO Solutions Inc. Weston is a Graduate of Roosevelt University and holds two Bachelors in Integrated Marketing Communications and Economics. He has been an integral part of the SEO Solutions management team, developing insights into the world of Search Engine Optimization. Social Media and Internet Marketing. Weston works closely with clients to engage their companies with unique, effective and exhaustive Internet Marketing campaigns that leads them to the top of the major search engines.

IPhone-OK-Google

Google Has Published Guidelines on Google Assistant and Google Voice Search

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Recently, Google published their quality guidelines mainly for Google Assistant and Voice Search Results. As per the guidelines; the better the quality voice search equals a more appropriate generated response or list of responses.

Here’s what Google wrote —

“In the past we have received requests to see our evaluation guidelines from academics who are researching improvements in voice interactions, question answering, and voice-guided exploration. To facilitate their evaluations, we are publishing some of the first Google Assistant guidelines. It is our hope that making these guidelines public will help the research community build and evaluate their own systems.”

Google will be evaluating these dimensions for rating voice search responses.

  • Information Satisfaction: The content should not be irrelevant. It has to be similar to the requirements specified by the user.
  • Length: As far as the length is in question, the information should not be very little or too much. Unlike a web search, the users cannot scan the results and identify its usefulness, which is why it has to be sufficient enough to fulfill the user’s query.
  • Formulation: This simply means that the source (e.g. website), language, and of course the content produced should be grammatically sound and easy to understand by the user.
  • Elocution: Resources such as WaveNet and Tacotron 2 are rapidly simplifying the text-to-speech generation process thereby minimizing the need for human performance.

The full PDF of Google Voice Search Guidelines is available as a download here.

For more information on how people are using this new technology, check out this list by Adculture of 25 voice search statistics.

Google Quietly Updates Its Ranking Algorithm – The Maccabees Update

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The Google Maccabees Update

December is when every business owner out there is busy getting the biggest pie from the
holiday cake. So it’s very rare that you see any buzz in SEO forums. But this time, we witnessed
something different. Many people were online, sharing their experiences. Just like an
unexpected tornado caught them off guard, and took away everything they had. Well maybe
it became way too more dramatic, but we would like to inform you that Google has made
changes to their core ranking algorithms. And as a result, many websites witnessed a drop in
traffic as massive as 35%!

Moz reported high volatility in search results through Mozcast as can be seen below

google-weather-screenshot

 

A nonseasonal site owner, who hardly witnesses any fluctuations witnessed a drop of 30%! However, they were not alone and this was not due to any glitch. Many other users started sharing their trauma on webmaster forums. After a thorough research, we found out that Google did make changes to their core ranking algorithms and later on they confirmed the same. The statement Google sent was “we released several minor improvements during this timeframe, part of our regular and routine efforts to improve relevancy.”

We decided to do some number crunching ourselves. Our dataset of 4000+ websites and 350,000+ keywords (local and national) makes it easy for us to get a birds-eye view of how our client campaigns are performing.Not surprisingly, we were happy to find that this update didn’t have any negative impact on our client campaigns. Most probably, the SEO deliverables which we offer saved our clients from this update. This is another example of how our strategies future-proof your business.

So if your organic leads were affected, especially around December 13th or 14th, open
Google Analytics and check whether your site was hit by the MACCABEEs update or not. If you were hit by this update OR want to make sure you’re not going to be a likely victim, we can help. Just connect with us and let our professional SEOs to do the work for you.

 

PPC-Tips-to-Save-Money-Banner

GET THE MAXIMUM BANG FOR YOUR BUCK BY AVOIDING THESE PPC MISTAKES

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The holiday season has passed but PPC can still be a great tool for marketing your business online. Here are some tips to help you save money on your PPC Campaign. Some advice that will help you avoid making beginner SEO mistakes.

Neglecting your daily spend

Recently Google has allowed the advertisers to go over their daily spend budget. You can almost double the spending. Although they say that they will even the overspending over a 30 day period, it’s not recommended. Closely track the conversion level and spending and avoid exceeding the daily limit.

Using the same ad copy

PPC is all about experimenting. You will have to keep trying something new to get better results. Using the same ad copy, again and again, will make your ads monotonous and drastically reduce the click-through rate. Spend time in crafting engaging & original ad copies. Include numbers, geographies and other factors into the ad text.

Landing pages not reflecting offers

Matching query intent to content is an absolute must. If you notice that your bounce rate is way too high, it’s probably because your landing page is not in sync with the ad copy. Suppose you are offering a 40% discount on some products and that product is nowhere to be found on your landing page, then the visitor will feel betrayed and leave the site immediately.

Ignoring your Google merchant feed

If you are using product listings ads, make sure to push the latest feed with the most precise product attributes. The price, color, model and everything else should be pitch perfect.

Re-targeting carelessly

Re-targeting is considered one of the most profitable marketing practice. But overdoing it can do more harm then good because people are already bombarded with ads during the holidays season, and if you are not carefully crafting your re-targeting campaign then you are annoying them instead of convincing them.

google-home-services-now-google-local-services

Google Home Services is Now Google Local Services

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Google Home Services has been rebranded as Google Local Services and expanded to 17 states. Google has re-branded it for a reason — they are now including businesses that do not come under the “home services” like auto repairs & dentists. They are actively expanding it to other states and adding new categories.

People have witnessed a boost of up to 70% after joining the Google Local Service program. Google has launched a dedicated app using which you can accept bookings, respond to customer questions & track conversions. It also allows you to track calls and manage ad budget.

Google-Local-Services

As of now, the Google Local Services is available in the following 17 cities:

1. Phoenix
2. Los Angeles
3. Riverside
4. Sacramento
5. San Diego
6. San Francisco
7. San Jose
8. Miami
9. Atlanta
10. Chicago
11. Boston
12. Detroit
13. New York
14. Philadelphia
15. Dallas
16. Seattle
17. Washington, D.C.

To see if a business is eligible to join, go here. And to get the app, go here. Go here for Local Services Help.

responsive-design-website

4 Common Mistakes To Avoid While Creating a Responsive Website

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Mobile usage has escalated enormously in the past few years. It has surpassed desktop
searches in 2015 and is still growing. And it’s not just mobile, people are accessing the web via
Tablets, Netbooks and even smart TVs. Overall it’s safe to say that the way people accessed
the web has changed completely.

But it took some time for the marketers to pick up the change. On one hand, we had
mesmerizing desktop websites, on the other hand, there were slow loading websites with a lot
of bloated images for mobiles and tablet users, just opposite to what they expect.

In this difficult time, responsive websites came to marketer’s rescue. However, it’s not a
magical tool that will boost conversion rate on its own. You have to pay attention to even the
minutest details and make sure there are no issues.

We are sharing the top 4 common mistakes that marketers make when creating a responsive website and how to avoid them.

1. Bloated images

It’s crucial to keep in mind that responsive website makes use of a single markup for all
devices. So to ensure that you are sending the right image to the right device, use following
tricks.

  • Run images though ImageMagick for an optimal size.
  • Maintain high depth even after reducing the image size by using Lossy Compression.
  • Use multiple servers to render images.

2. Slow load page time

Mobile and tablet users are always on the go, so if your page load time is slow, you are losing
on a lot of prospects. According to a recent research, more than 40% of the visitors will
abandon a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.Mobile users command a seamless web suffering, and fast loading pages are a big part of it. Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool to analyze your site’s performance. It provides you with valuable information using which you can boost the speed of your website.

3. Long forms?

Ain’t nobody got time for that. If a site visitor is on your contact page, it means he is HIGHLY interested, losing him at this point is like losing a definite sale. The best way to compel the visitors to fill your form is to keep it short and simple. Don’t ask for too much information at once. First get basic info like Name, Phone number, and Email address — you can ask for more information later. A good case in point is Expedia. Little did anyone knew that a small mistake, like placing a long form will cost them a whopping 12 million dollars. Don’t make that mistake. Keep it short and simple, you will get much more leads.

4. Not taking mobile users intent into consideration

Responsive design doesn’t take mobile users goal into consideration. So you have to pay attention to it, Make sure that your mobile site is easy to navigate, especially for the dudes with big, fat fingers. Also, cramping a lot of content will do more harm than good. You are distracting the users from taking an action by putting long titles and a lot of text on the screen. Also, make sure that your site design is neat and clean. So that users can get wherever they want in no time.

Looking to build a responsive website? We can help. Just connect with one of our Sales reps to get started.

Top features of our Google Mobile Friendly Website:

  • Responsive website recognized by Google as mobile friendly.
  • Click-to-Call, Click-to-Email and Click-to-Text features.
  • Advanced mobile lead tracking and analytics.

Your Customers Can Now Book Appointments Directly From Google Search Results

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Google rolled out it’s “booking feature” for selected businesses back in December 2016. Back then, it was only available for only spa and salon owners, and in selected cities. But now they have expanded it and more business owners can now allow their customers to book appointments directly from the search result. Here’s the official statement from Google – https://www.blog.google/topics/small-business/easy-booking-button-businesses-google/

Google-Local-Listing

All you have to do is to login to your Google My business Console. When logged in, you will see a new button “SIGN UP FOR BOOKINGS” within in the “Accept bookings on Google” section.

Google-My-Business-Dashboard

The next step is to select a booking provider. You can enroll with a scheduling provider from Google’s list here. Once you’ve enrolled, your business will be ready to accept bookings in few days.

Google-Scheduling-Partners

Once the integration is successful, you will be able to see how well your business is doing. You can track the number of bookings as well as how much money you’ve made from these bookings from Google.

But be informed that as of now, it’s only available to select business types and within the US only.

Google-Bookings

Google says it will be adding the booking option in other countries and business categories soon – so stay tuned!

How Google Local Search Works – Google Will Now Show Search Results Based on the Google Users Location Instead of the Domain Name

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Google’s paramount goal is to provide the users with most relevant search results. Today 1 in 5 searches on Google is related to location, so providing locally relevant search results is of utmost priority. Google is changing how Google local search works. Till now the country of service was indicated by the country code top-level domain name (ccTLD). For example “google.co.uk” for the United Kingdom. But from now on, Google will determine the country of service based on your location. If you’re in the UK, even manually typing “google.com” and searching something will not fetch you results from the USA, instead, it will show results based on your current location, i.e. the UK.

Google-Homepage

However, Google has cleared that they have just changed the way they labeled Google search results and maps, and not the way it works.

In case your country of service doesn’t change as per the location, you can update it by going into the Settings > Search Settings in the footer and then navigate to Region Settings.

Google-Region-Setttings

From the Google Search Blog:

So if you live in Australia, you’ll automatically receive the country service for Australia, but when you travel to New Zealand, your results will switch automatically to the country service for New Zealand. Upon return to Australia, you will seamlessly revert back to the Australian country service.

Google is hopeful that this update will ensure that the users will get the most relevant search results, and will ultimately improve the overall search experience.

man-holding-iphone

How To Move Your M-DOT URLS To New Responsive Website – A Step By Step Guide

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Google has released a 4 step tutorial on how to move your m-dot URL’s to your newly created
responsive websites in a “Googlebot friendly” way.

Below are the steps Google outlined (in green). Plus we have added our own steps in between
to give you a clear path to work on.

1. First Thing first, get your responsive site ready.seperating-mobile-URLs-diagram

2. Collect all the data from your M-dot website like conversion rate, traffic etc. So that you can compare it with the new responsive site & know how your new website is performing.

3. 301 redirect to the new responsive URLs from your old URLs. You will have to do it for each URL’s separately, it is daunting but necessary.

301-redirection-diagram

4. Sometimes, there are images or a white paper that is in use & ranking well. You will have to find them out and redirect them to your main site so that you don’t lose traffic.

5. Your site might have some Mobile-URL specific configuration like conditional redirects, make sure you remove it.

6. Setup rel=canonical on the responsive URLs pointing to themselves.

7. You can encourage the search engines spider to recrawl your M-URL by resubmitting your M.site Google search console & Bing Webmaster Tools Sitemaps. By doing so, they will reindex your site faster and become aware of the new 301 Redirects.

8. Keep an eye on the progress by monitoring the index status of the old M.site on Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.

9. In about 3 months or more, Google will drop the M URLs out of the index. But only after they become aware of the 301 redirects.

10. Update the important links to the Old M.site & have them point to the new URLs.

11. Make sure you change the new old M.site to the new one on all your marketing and promotional materials.

Editing Your Google My Business Listing Just Got Easier!

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Editing your Google Business Listing? If you have a verified business in Google My Business, you can now update your business info directly from Google search engine result page, provided you’re logged in to your Google My Business account.

Here’s how it works. Just type your business name in the Google search box and you will see a menu right above the search results. Again, you need to be logged into your account in order for this to work. Upon clicking the edit info button, you will find all the editable fields highlighted.

Google-My-Business-Screenshot

 

You can upload photos, see the number of views, check and respond to the reviews and even access detailed information about your site metrics and Google My Business metrics. And the best part is, you can do it from any device, be it desktop or mobile.

To provide accurate and updated information to the users, Google heavily relies on the business owners. Google knows that if they want valuable content for free, they have to make the process simple and easy.

And, who better suited to provide accurate content than the business owner, right? Google’s perfect plan to outsource the business info-update process just got a little more efficient. This not only maintains the value, it increases it for Google, businesses, and customers. A win-win situation for everyone!