The internet does, in fact, have a “dark side”

There was a story recently about an anonymous campaign of pro-hackers (people who use illicit methods of hacking for the betterment of our community) began on October 14^th, when members of a “hactivist” group found a cache of child-pornography websites while browsing a secret website called The Hidden Wiki.

So being in the internet business, I couldn’t help but want to read more about people who hack websites for a good cause, but what I found out about the internet really disturbed me.

Website hacking for a good cause (for once)

Members of an activist pro-hackers group are claiming responsibility for removing more than 40 child-pornography websites and singled out Lolita City, a file sharing website used by pedophiles, and leaked 1,589 active members to Pastebin on October 18^th 2011.

However, in targeting child-pornography web sites and in explaining its methods of counter attack, these Anonymous-affiliated hackers have revealed to the rest of the world a deeply disturbing side of the Internet unknown to most people.

The Hidden Wiki

The Hidden Wiki is a secret, invisible website which cannot be viewed by regular web users and is blocked from most internet search engines. It is compiled using state of the art technology and intentionally offers discretion to the most disturbing and traumatizing of human behavior.

The so-called “darknet,” from which this “Operation Darknet” hacking campaign takes its name, is any part of the Internet that is hidden from view — not just hard to reach, but deliberately concealed. In this instance, a darknet appears to have grown out of the free TOR routing service, which offers anonymous, encrypted Web browsing to any user.

It is important to remember that only computers that have installed TOR browser plug-ins can access the TOR-based darknet, including its guidebook the Hidden Wiki, the security site Infosec Island have  reported.  There are several good YouTube videos out there explaining how TOR works, how to install it and how to actually access the darknet.

What’s on the Darknet?

In short, anything illegal and explicit you could dream up. Whether you need to find a local drug dealer, browse child pornography, launder money or hire a contract killer – you can find it there.  Users update the hidden wiki which is organized into categories where individual services can be listed much like Craig’s List or other popular sites.

How can parents take an active role?

While we may all be aware to some degree the dangers that lurk online, it can take hard hitting facts like this to remember that child-pornography does in fact exist and can pose a real threat.  And with our young people as comfortable with technology as they are, don’t assume that they can’t find TOR and locate a drug dealer online.

There are many pro-active steps you can take as a parent or responsible adult to make sure our children are safe.

• Install parental controls into web browsing devices used by children
• Do not allow young children to browse the internet alone
• Educate your children on the dangers of the internet and talking to strangers
• Monitor their downloading patterns and behaviors, especially in older children
• Limit the social networks and the safety settings they currently use
• Be aware of who your children talk to online

With communication, education and strong parenting, the risk of your child becoming the next victim could be minimal, so do not hesitate in helping to implement a healthier, safer online community for everyone; especially for those most vulnerable and cherished.

Exciting news for businesses has emerged from Google; they have announced the launch of their new Google+ pages, pages specifically designed for businesses using Google+.

With a growing network of over 40 million members, Google+ pages are a great new internet marketing resource you need to implement and capitalize on today.  It can also give you an additional web property and links to your website which are important in today’s digital world.

Here are some quick and easy tips to make sure you gain the most from your Google+ pages and help you get started.

1. Setting up your Google+ account

Choose an accessible email address

Unlike Facebook, Google+ does not currently incorporate extensive administrative capabilities. To easily overcome this limitation, make sure you create a specific email address for your Google+ business page during the set up process to allow more maneuverability.

A common access email address will allow you to better monitor and manage the services provided by Google+ and offer you the opportunity to incorporate multiple member access and contributors to your Google+ business page, as well as monitor updates and allow direct communication in one easy to find place.

We often setup a gMail account that includes all of the Google services such as Analytics, AdWords and Webmaster Tools.  You can use this account for Google+ as well.

Create your page

To create a page, Google+ has made the set up process as simple as possible. Simply visit http://plus.google.com/pages/create and select ‘create a Google+ page.’

You will then be asked to select from one of the following:

• Local business or place
• Product or brand
• Company, institution or organization
• Arts, entertainment, or sports
• Other

After selecting your classification, complete your basic business information into the form as requested.

2. Customize your public profile

By customizing your public Google+ profile you will increase your presence online. Make sure customers know they have landed at the right place and why they should purchase your products by updating your profile with:

• Your tag-line – or business elevator pitch
• An image, such as your company logo
• Investing a little time to show off some good quality content
• Offer free downloads and incentives to potential customers

3. Promote your Google+ page

Once you have completed the basics of your Google+ business page, you will be asked to promote your page! This means you have completed the Google+ account activation, setup and have gone live to more than 40 million waiting customers!

All you have to do next is allow your Google+ business page to work for you! Great ways to continue in the success of your site is to focus on:

• Generating leads
• Always providing fresh content
• Reacting and responding to fans
• Become engaging
• Adapt your strategy as required
• Optimize your Google+ presence

Good luck incorporating these three easy steps to monetize your Google+!

The Google Analytics dashboard is one of the serious website owner’s most valuable tools.  Full of useful information and is hands down the best way to keep tabs on your internet marketing efforts.  This blog post will give you a first glance at the dashboard and consists of a step-by-step wizard that instructs you on how to begin analyzing traffic data on your website.

Getting Started – Sign Up

The first step that you will see, after logging into your Google Account, is the “sign up for Google Analytics” link. When you create your Google Analytics website dashboard within your Google account, you add the functions and services to your existing Google login. There is no charge for either a Google account or the Google Analytics service.

Step 2 – Install the Tracking Codes

The second step is to get and install the tracking code for your website(s). Google will ask you to enter your website data (URL, etc.), and will create a “tracking code” from that. This code should be placed within the <HEAD> </HEAD> section of your webpage. The code is invisible to visitors, but it places a “cookie” within the visitor’s browser that keeps track of your visitor’s activity while on your website.

If you are not sure about how to do this bit of programming, ask about our special offer to install Google Analytics for you.

Step 3 – Getting Familiar with the Dashboard

The third and final step in the Google Analytics process is to learn about your visitor’s browsing habits. After placing the code within your website’s header tag, the guest’s browsing activity while on your website will be recorded.  A few things you can learn include:

• The amount of time spent on the site
• Links visited within the site
• How many pages they looked at
• How they found your site

These are just a few of the important pieces of data you can learn from your dashboard, and will help you to gain a general understanding of a “trend” with user activity on your website. For example, if most of the visitors exit your website on a particular page within your site, you can analyze that particular page to see if there is a reason as to why the visitors leave your site after visiting that page.

Analyzing where customers leave before a purchase of a product on any retail site will show the store/website owner what they need to change on their website in order to keep the customers from leaving without purchasing their product.

Most Important Elements of Your Dashboard

While there are volumes of great materials written about the ins and outs of Google Analytics, I would like to point out what I believe are the most important, and practical aspects of the dashboard:

Traffic Sources

Your dashboard will tell you where your website traffic is coming from.  This is very important to understand how much of your traffic comes from each source, and how much (if at all) it changes over time.  The 3 major traffic sources are:

• Direct Traffic
• Traffic from Referring Sites
• Traffic from Search Engines (including keywords)

Visitor Info

Learning where your visitors come from, what they do on your site is vitally important.  A few things you can learn from this section are:

• The locality of web visitors
• How frequently they visit your site
• What type of browser (and mobile device) they used to find your site.

Goals

At the end of the day, having measurement in place to evaluate your website is critically important.  As such, you should configure goals for your website that you can track.  Potential goals include:

• Sign ups for newsletters or special offers
• Completed contact forms
• Purchase of online items
• Amount of time spent on the site

Regular Use of the Dashboard

After completing the initial steps, you will then login straight to your Google Analytics website dashboard from then on. Your website(s) will be displayed by URL, and you can click on that particular URL to see the traffic trends that have occurred on your site since your last visit to your Analytics account.

Analyzing the pages that your visitors enter your website and which pages that they leave your website are again, the most important sections of the dashboard. By looking at what page is the most popular entry page, you are able to tell that this page is more than likely the most SEO friendly, the most linked-to page from external sources, and also what the customer is looking for the most while visiting your website. For example, if most customers enter your website on the contact page, they are looking for a way to contact you more than anything else. If they were to enter on the products page, they are obviously looking for a product that your website sells, etc.

Glancing at the traffic trends for your website will tell you specific days of the week that your website has more visitors than others, the source of the visitor (how the visitor found your website), and how many visitors are repeat visitors/customers.

Overall, the Google Analytics website dashboard is more than likely the most simple, yet advanced, website analytics software to date. There are others such as AWStats, etc. – but Google Analytics is both platform-independent and free – which is always a plus.

As a major search engine, Google has been the leader of the pack for quite some time and their constant innovations with things like Google Places are one of the big reasons why. From search to tools to advertising, the Google brand has expanded to unprecedented levels. And one of the most important changes Google has made in the last year has been with the changes to Google Local or Google Places as it’s now called.

By now I’m sure your familiar with the red pushpin on a map showing the locations of 7-10 of the businesses Google can find near the area you are searching for.  Here is a sample screenshot:

"pizza places Metairie LA" Google search results

You are also by now familar with the map which accompanies these markers:

Google Place Search

The Google Local tools recognize that to capture more regional businesses, there needs to be a simplified way to do it. Local businesses like ours deal with many challenges, from customer service, to product and service development and delivery to payroll. Because regional companies have so much to do, it is hard to focus on specific aspects of our businesses.

Google Local includes Google Place Search, designed to offer much more local content from regional advertisers. What this means for me is that I no longer have to spend my time trying to research and find local keywords, monitor the results, and modify bids for those keywords for my AdWords account.

Impact on Ratings & Reviews

The new Google Local format uses the location concept to find out what people are saying about my business in terms of reviews and ratings. These are two things I rarely had time to focus on in the past. This new tool finds all of that info for me so that I can use it to develop relevant Web content. I can also address the issues that I find by writing to consumers directly, which is something I used to have to pay a person to do for me.

Organic Positioning

The other aspect I really like with Google Local is that I can see the details that a local searching consumer is using to find my products and services. Google Place Search issues rewards to local businesses like mine with organic positioning when it finds complete and accurate content. For example, when it picks up a blog entry or article that I wrote, that info is considered and counts toward a higher placement by the search engine.

Since past attempts at organic positioning was something I wasn’t able to master, the new Google Local and Google Place Search has been a lifesaver in terms of leveraging the benefits of local SEO (search engine optimization) listing and placement. Now I can focus on continuing to build a richer rating and review level using these Google resources – which means my business will grow much more easily.

Google Market Finder is a terrific free tool designed by Google which allows users to take a look at local monthly search volumes for specific locations. It also includes the costs of targeting particular keywords in every market, including foreign ones. This has been very beneficial in terms of growing our business on a world-wide basis.

Find New Markets

The free Google Market Finder tool uses world-wide Internet search data to reveal the number of times that keywords are searched for, in 56 different languages. We use the tool to see where consumers search for our products and services. Then we evaluate the new potential markets by comparing the local search volume, estimated keyword price and the competition for each keyword in all markets. This is really helpful in planning our marketing budget for the best results.

Here is an example of how it works:

Let’s say your company manufactures a cool line of sunglasses and you are interested in selling them outside of the US.  And let’s say (just for example) that you had several Spanish speaking employees and could support new business from Latin America.

You could use the Google Market Finder tool to search this type of query, and the results would look something like this:

Translate Key Words

Now that you have identified the countries that had the highest search volume for the phrase “sunglasses” you could use the free Global Market Finder tool to automatically translate our keywords into the language of our choosing (in this case Spanish), for all of our new potential customers. Using the tool, we can also see where people are searching for our products and services. Then we can narrow it down to specific locations to target in our online marketing plan. For this reason alone, it is an invaluable service, since we are not fluent in other languages. We would actually need to hire someone to do these translations, which would be quite costly. By knowing where our target audience is, we can best take advantage of the world-wide marketplace to expand our business and take it to the next level.

Use With Google AdWords

Google Market Finder is particularly effective when combined with Google AdWords. The free Google Market Finder tool showcases all of the estimates of a suggested keyword bid, as well as the competition for each Google translation for that specific target market keyword. In this way, since we are already using a Google Adwords campaign, we can use the Google Market Finder to choose a precise location and language with which to display our ads.

Access to All Marketing Media

The Google Market Finder can be used as a powerful marketing tool to help reach our potential customers on a worldwide level. Used with ad formats such as search engines, mobile devices, video and TV, this tool is extremely helpful in targeting exact marketing locations to find the best audience for our business products and services.

Google+ is the newest and most anticipated social networking site that I can remember hearing about for some time.  Google claims it does much more than other sites used by most people and that it ties Google’s most popular features together, making it much easier to manage your public profile, as well as, streamlining how you interact with friends, family and business associates and spend your leisure web time.

Google+ is now live, and chances are you have already starting seeing the +1 button showing up on website pages and even in your search results.

Here is a quick look at how Google + works:

Google Circles – these are your friends; you can organize them by lists, such as Childhood Friends or Family, to easily target messaging, share images, music and other important things with only who you want.

Sparks – is a reader similar to the current Google Reader, that brings content you are interested in directly to you on topic specific Spark pages; easily categorized, your interests will be streamlined, thus saving you search time and having to scroll through unwanted material.

Hangouts – is a video chat room where you can interact with friends in your Google Circles lists.

Notes for Mobile Devices

For mobile devices Google+ is currently available as an Android App, (iPhone app on the way) and offers two significant services:

• Hudddles – is a targeted messaging program that uses your Google Circles list.
• The App will also automatically upload photos to Google+ to share with your Circles members when you take them with your mobile device.

How to get in the action

If you are invited to join, the first step is to accept the invitation to join and finish the simple registration process.  You will then notice a change to your gray toolbar at the top of our Google homepage. The bar will become transparent gray and a, “+You” tab will join the Images, News and other tabs currently on the bar.

Clicking the +You tab will give you access to all the features mentioned above.

Reviews are being closely guarded by Google, but the information I have seen shows positive results thus far.

The competition for social network users is fierce in today’s market as more people are using these sites to manage lives and businesses. Google is counting on branding and reputation to set it above other providers. Releasing Google+ by invitation has done a great job at generating buzz on the net and will undoubtedly generate a surge of users as more invitations become available.

If you have any questions about Google + or any other social media questions, please email me info@mywsiconsultant.com.

3 reasons “content farms” came to be and what you can learn

This month a story has been all over the internet about a new update to Google’s search ranking algorithm that will try to knock back the rankings on what people are calling “content farms.”  And while no one has officially defined what a content farm is or can point directly to a specific example, they are generally understood to be sites like article directory sites or content gathering sites where the goal is to submit lots of articles on various topics that people may be searching on.

If this topic is relatively new to you, read this article by Danny Sullivan which does a great job explaining the entire content farm debate and showing lots of specific examples of what Google is trying to do.  But the purpose of this article is to take a closer look at how we arrived here in the first plan and what this change means for businesses.

What’s wrong with farmers, anyway?

Before we get too far into this article, I have to wonder what the online world has against farmers?  It seems like every time there is a crackdown on the internet, the questionable activities somehow turn into “farms”.  First there were “link farms” which are sites that do nothing but provide hundreds or even thousands of outbound links to other sites – and now we have the “content farm” debate.

How did content farms get so popular ?

Whenever there is a backlash by search engines like Google against any online practice, I find it interesting to look at how it happened in the first place because that usually holds some keys to understanding  what’s going on behind the scenes.  And in this case, it’s my opinion that content farms have sprung up because of 3 major trends:

1. All the attention on “long tail keywords”
2. The unwritten rule about a “good page” being 400 words long.
3. The race to become a “resource site”

Trend #1:  Long tail keywords:

It’s no secret that users are evolving in the way they use search engines and this means typing in more and more specific phrases to find what they need.  So what started as searches for things like “used cars” has evolved into “used 2003 Toyota Camrys for sale in New Orleans, LA”.  Users understand that the more specific they are with their searches, the better chance they have of finding what they need.

Enter the marketers.  Armed with data showing that the longer phrases produce more qualified traffic, the race begun to create as much content geared around these specific phrases in hopes of ranking well.  And generally speaking the search engines rewarded this practice by showing pages like these highly in their results.  The end result: more and more long tail content being created.

Trend #2: The 400 word page

This idea of “light fluffy content” which is being cracked down on by Google is actually something that search industry insiders have been promoting for years.  The other “unwritten rule” floating around was that Google would not index more than about 400 words on a page so there was no point in writing content that was much more in-depth.

The other argument in favor of shorter pages was that internet users don’t really like to read as much as they prefer to scan.  So the shorter pages with bullet lists and lots of headings would be more digestible to users which is ultimately what search engines want – to give you the content you want to read.

I am certain that whoever first noticed this trend must have had convincing screenshots to back up what they were saying because the entire web industry seemed to embrace these ideas wholeheartedly.   No matter where you look for content – the goal was a 350 word page with a max of 600 words (just look at the article submission guidelines for most article sharing sites).  This would seem to fly in the face of being considered “relevant content” because it was so shallow but the facts are these pages were consistently ranking in search results so why buck the trend?

Trend #3:  The race to become a “resource site”

Another generally accepted principle in the internet marketing world has been that more content equals higher credibility and “resource” status with search engines.  For instance, if you are a personal injury attorney and you have lots of law-related articles on your site than it must be a good site worthy of being shown highly in search results, right?  Again this trends seems to have been rewarded in search results.

So marketers took this concept of long tail keyword interest and applied the “light and fluffy” 350 word page game plan to creating resource sites.

Fast forward to today.  Like with “link farms” several years ago, these concepts have been manipulated to flood the internet with a lot of shallow content thus making it harder (in theory) to find the “good” content.  Whether or not this latest change in Google’s search recipe accomplishes that is yet to be seen, but there are some important lessons to be learned.

What should we learn from this and what you can do going forward

The internet is fueled by content and that trend is not going to change anytime soon.  What is changing though is the type of content that Google and other search engines is rewarding with high placement in search results.  As such, our suggestions going forward are:

• Specialize – become an industry expert:

o   Produce more in-depth content

o   More focus on narrower topics

o   Perhaps post with less frequency

• Make a better effort for more social sharing

Becoming an industry expert

The underlying trend here is that the online world is evolving into smaller, niche worlds where people are being recognized for their genuine expertise.  After all, if you’re going to read an article on why Green Bay won the Super Bowl do you want to read my take or the guys from ESPN first?

So while there isn’t necessarily a need to have a lot of long pages just for the sake of being long, there is some truth to the notion that it’s hard to really cover a topic in 350 words or less.  And with the examples being shown during the debate it’s getting easy to understand why Google is changing the rules again (check the Search Engine land post referenced above).

The logical reaction is to produce more focused and in-depth content which probably means you do it a little less frequently.  I recently attended a presentation from Avinash.  He is one of the most read bloggers on the internet, but he only posts once per month.  But when he does – it’s a 3,000 word post that people can’t wait to read.

The real question with more in-depth content is whether or not people will actually want or take the time to read it.  But these concerns are somewhat secondary since the first step is to actually get your content found by searchers, and if Google says it wants more in-depth pages than longer pages it will get.  I’m sure it will take time to figure out what the best practices are going forward, but it’s obvious that the trend is headed in this direction.

More social sharing of content

The other strategy going forward is to make sure this in-depth content is not just posted to an article site somewhere – but rather shared on as many social channels as possible.  There is no doubt that the social sharing of content is fast becoming the indicator of the value of content.  And with that in mind the more people that are commenting on and sharing your content the better.

More proof that kids always speak the truth

As a parent, each year that goes by brings lots of “wow” moments like those that happen when your kids say something that truly surprises you.  And this week, my 10 year old gave me one of those moments that really hit home with me in terms of the spread of technology into our lives.

You see my son is a huge Star Wars fan, and this Christmas he received several books about Star Wars.  The problem is that some of the books contained information about characters he had not yet seen in the movies.  My suggestion (made jokingly) that these characters would appear in the upcoming Star Wars movies Episode 7 caught him by surprise as he had never heard of new Star Wars movies coming up.

Now, my son is a big Star Wars fan, but he’s no fool.  And since he didn’t believe me that I had direct knowledge of new movies coming up, his response to me was:

“Prove it Dad – show it to me on Google!”

If a tree falls in the forest does Google hear it?

In a single brilliant sentence, my son summarized how the adoption of technology has led to changes in our thought processes.  I think many people would agree with the general statement that if something important can’t be found or validated on Google, than it doesn’t exist.  And while this is certainly not true in all cases, for the most part it’s a good indication of the change in how we reference things in our lives today.

As we start the New Year, I encourage you to compare my 10 year olds statement and compare it to how you perceive the internet and what it means to your business.  Of course, kids have different belief systems than adults who naturally become more suspicious with age.  But if the younger generation inherently believes that what Google gives them is the best they can find, what does that mean for how you position yourself in the coming years?

Will you be left behind?

I contend that as of right now, the internet will NEVER be less important than it was in 2010 – meaning that as time goes on, it will become more and more ingrained as part of our lives.  And by the time my 10 year old has buying power (he already knows how to use EBay), I can’t imagine what the process will be like.  And that’s just a mere 8 or so years away.

A Google change everyone will like

How many times have you wondered what a site looked like before you clicked on it?  If you’re like me, you often have that unsure feeling that the site being offered in search results might not be legitimate – or might not have what you want.

If you’ve ever had that feeling, than last week was a good one for you thanks to Google’s new Instant Preview feature.

Why Didn’t They Think of This Sooner?

Google preview is available by clicking on the new magnifying glass which appears next to the page title in search results.  When clicked, it pops out a wonderful screen filled with useful information such as:

• Full preview of the web page
• Highlights of the content relevant to your search

You can then click on either the Google listings, or the preview in order to visit the page.

What You Can Learn

Those of us who work in internet marketing know that Google has always been known for presenting quality sites even if they weren’t nice to look at.  However, now with the preview tool, those sites that are more appealing to look at have a better chance of getting the click.

Think about it – if you preview 2-3 sites before clicking and one is a nice looking site with clearly presented information, and the other is a dated looking site with hard to read text – which one would you click on.

So the lesson for site owners is that, sooner or later, nice looking sites will have an increased advantage over crummy ones – even in seo.

Kudos to Google (Again)

No matter what your opinion of Google, you have to admire their willingness to experiment with a good thing.  Google is the undisputed leader in search marketing with somewhere around 70% of all internet searches (depending on what study you look at).  And instead of resting on their success, they continue to push the envelope with new services designed to improve user experience.

Embracing new Google qualification standards

In 2010, Google officially retired their “Google Advertising Professionals” program and replaced it with a new, tougher Google Certified Partner certification.  The new program requires you to pass at least 2 exams related to the Google Advertising program.

Effective November 1st, we are pleased to announce that Andre’ Savoie has earned this new certification!  Congratulations.

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