by Dave Cosper Google has begun to allow custom links to be added to a business’s profile in Google Places . Up until now, only a single website link was permitted. Google’s initial stance was this single link provided should be the best online representation of that company. This new feature, however, allows a business to leverage things like their social presence by linking to pages on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and any other relevant pages worth promoting. Here’s where the new custom link appears on the profile: After you click “More details” the link display like this: Also, I noticed these links display alphabetically, so be aware of the titles/descriptions you use.�One of the oddities of this feature is both the text and�hyperlink�display as identical copy and so far I could not figure out a way around this repetition. For example, if you add “Follow us on Twitter!” in the first field and place the desired URL for this title in the second field, it will display as: I’m not sure if displaying the text twice like this is by design or merely a flaw in the system - either way the link is live. These new links also appear to be free of “no-follow” restrictions, but I’ll venture to assume link-juice is insignificant. This is just one of the hundreds of new features and tweaks Google has and will continue to add to the Google Places area for SMB’s. Be sure and visit our small business news site.

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Google Places Now Allows Custom Links to be Displayed in Profiles

by Garrett French Content-based link building is all about RELATIONSHIPS. In particular, blogger and media relationships. Whether you’re writing guest posts for publication on leading industry sites or conducting massive group interviews and surveys you need to know ALL the bloggers and other media creators in your industry. Here’s how to thoroughly query your space in order to discover who you should be interviewing, requesting guest post opportunities from, listing, giving awards to, and any other ways you can think of to engage them! 1) Find the Round-Up Writers If you’re blessed to be in an industry with hundreds or even thousands of bloggers, it’s highly likely that there are “round up” writers. These writers seek to thoroughly cover the events of the day or week by posting lists of their favorite articles. Since you publish great content, you should know who these folks are and let them know when you publish. Here are some queries for finding them: [mdkw*] intitle:roundup [mdkw] intitle:”round up” [mdkw] intitle:links [mdkw] intitle:”weekly roundup” [mdkw] intitle:”weekly round up” [mdkw] intitle:”best of” Note - if you’re not finding anything with the intitle searches, try removing the operator. 2) Find the Guest Post Publishers Some bloggers seek content in the form of guest posts from outside experts. If the blog or website has authority in your space and a targeted readership then you should, by all means, submit some content to them. Here are some queries for finding these oppportunities: [mdkw] inurl:category/guest [mdkw] “guest blogger” [mdkw] guest blog post writer [mdkw] “guest post” [mdkw] “guest article” [mdkw] “guest column” [mdkw] inurl:contributors 3) Find the Blogger and Twitter Lists If you’re looking to really blow out your contact lists for future engagement, then build on top of the efforts of your colleagues. It’s fairly common in many verticals for bloggers and other publishers to make lists of each other. Blogrolls are another excellent example of blog lists. [mdkw] blog list [mdkw] top bloggers [mdkw] blogroll [mdkw] “blog roll” [mdkw] twitter list [mdkw] twitter users 4) Find the List-Writing Linkbaiters Who has written linkbait in the past? What did they aggregate into lists? This can show you what not to write, as well as give you ideas for your “list of lists…” [mdkw] “list of lists” [mdkw] “top * ways” [mdkw] “top * tips” [mdkw] “top 10″ [mdkw] “top 100″ Make sure you outreach to the sites included on your lists and let them know they’re on them! 5) Find the Interview Writers (and Interviewees) We’ve found that getting interviewed is a fantastic link builder - and a lead generator. Further, group interviews with experts really help to generate links and establish relationships with the top bloggers and thinkers in your space. Here are queries for finding sites that conduct interviews, as well as individuals who may be open to you interviewing them: [mdkw] intitle:”q/a with” [mdkw] intitle:”q&a with” [mdkw] intitle:experts interview OR talk OR discuss OR answer [mdkw] expert interview [mdkw] intitle:interview 6) Putting it All Together… Now that you know who publishes in your space, you know who to begin engaging with, researching thoroughly, highlighting in your content and even retweeting consistently. So start with some “aggregation” content, then move on to individual and group interviews. Make sure you’re reaching out consistently when you publish new content - especially to those who you’ve featured. And most importantly - keep it up! Keep at it and you’ll see your rankings, targeted traffic and brand buzz grow in your market! All of these link building queries (and many more) are in our link building query tool here > > [mdkw*] = ” Market Defining Keyword ” Be sure and visit our small business news site.

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Link Building with Content: 29 Queries for Content-Based Link Builders

by Bill Hartzer You would think that when planning a new web site or a totally new version of your web site that you can sit down, make a list of web pages, create the content, and forget about it. That is simply not the case. If you take a look at the current search results for most popular search phrases, you will see that the best web sites (the ones showing up at the top of the search results) not old, static web sites. They are, in fact, updated on a regular basis and contain a lot of good content on their subject. That brings me to the most important point here: you cannot expect to create a few web pages and expect that web site to rank well in the search engines (especially Google). When it comes to Google, they want to deliver the best user experience. When you go to Google, you expect to find what you are searching for: if you do not, then you will turn to another search engine. So, if you are looking for “red widgets” then you would expect to find a web site that has a lot of good information about “red widgets”. So, if you are a company that sells “red widgets”, how would you go about getting a top search engine ranking for “red widgets”? Creating more content on your web site about “red widgets” than any other web site on the internet about that subject will most likely bring you to the top of the search results. Show the search engines and your web site visitors that you are the expert on “red widgets” and you will be rewarded with good search results. It doesn’t matter what your do you your web site. In fact, if you sell “red widgets”, then educating your potential customers about “red widgets” will make them a more informed consumer. Those potential customers will trust you: they will want to do business with you. How Do You Create Content? How do you create content? How do you create great content? How do you create content that people will want to link to without even asking? That probably could be a whole other blog post. But, there are a few options to consider: create the content yourself or hire someone to create it for you. It really depends on your industry that you are in, but generally speaking there’s going to be some way to add additional content to your site. Doing it Yourself One simple way of adding content to your site on a regular basis would be to add a blog to your web site. If you’re a corporation and you have a corporate web site then perhaps adding your press releases to your web site before you put them out on the newswires is an option. Or, if you are an online retailer then perhaps adding a blog to the site and picking one product per day to review would be enough. Other options, depending on your site, could include user generated content. Adding a message board, adding product reviews, aggregating the latest news from your industry might be an option. Hiring a Writer Depending on your industry, hiring an outside writer to create the content (write blog posts for you), industry-related articles, or even reviews of your products is an option. I have recently seen blog posts outsourced to writers (contractors) for as little as $5 per article/blog post. And I’ve seen them as high as $100-200 an article depending on the subject. There are places to hire writers, such as Craigs List or even Guru.com. Adding Content Regularly Whatever you do, whether or not you hire a writer or add the unique content to your web site yourself (not copied or duplicate content), it’s important to not add all the content all at once. For example, if you were to hire someone to write 100 on-topic articles or blog posts, you would want to add them on a regular basis to the site. Even if they’re delivered to you all at once you would want to perhaps post 10 of them at first; and then one or two per week or one or two per day. Take a look at how often your competitors (the web sites that are already ranking well in Google) are adding content to their web sites. The bottom line What’s the bottom line? If you have a one or two web page site then most likely you’re not going to rank well in the search engines. Look at your competition: how many web pages do they have on their web sites? Use the site:domain.com command to see how many pages your competitors have. To compete, you will need at least that much content on your site: or even more content. Having more content and adding more content to your web site on a regular basis will bring you better search engine rankings. Be sure and visit our small business news site.

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Search Engine Optimization Tip: Adding Content to your Web Site

You’ve spilled coffee on your keyboard. The a, e, i, o, u, and r keys have stopped working. Now try to search Google for the nearest c o mp u t e r re p air shop. The pain of typing on this broken keyboard is similar to what many people searching in non-English languages feel when trying to type today. Typing searches on keyboards not designed for your languages can be frustrating, even impossible. Our user research has shown that many people are more comfortable formulating search queries in their own language but have difficulty typing these queries into Google. (Try typing नमस्ते on a keyboard with English letters.) To overcome the difficulty they face in typing in their local language scripts, some people have resorted to copying and pasting from other sites and from online translation tools. But there’s an easier way — a virtual, or “on-screen” keyboard, lets you type directly in your local language script in an easy and consistent manner, no matter where you are or what computer you’re using. Virtual keyboards let people type directly in their local language script and don’t require any additional software. Last year, to make text input easy for people across the globe, we introduced a virtual keyboard API through code.google.com . This allowed developers to enable virtual keyboards on any text field or text area in their webpages. Today, we are taking this effort one step further by integrating virtual keyboards into Google search in 35 languages. A virtual keyboard on www.google.am to input Armenian text (the query term is [armenia]) If you use Google search in one of the languages listed below, you’ll see a small keyboard icon show up next to the search field, on both the Google homepage and search results page. Clicking on that keyboard icon brings up a virtual keyboard in your language. You can input text by either clicking on the on-screen keyboard or pressing the corresponding key. You can find out more information on how to use the virtual keyboard in our help article . If you use Google in a language not listed below and feel that your language will benefit from a virtual keyboard, let us know by voting for your language . We hope virtual keyboards help you find information more easily — especially those of you who speak/type/read in non-Latin scripts. Languages with integrated virtual keyboards Albanian Arabic Armenian Basque Belarusian Bosnian Bulgarian Catalan Croatian Czech Finnish Galician Georgian Greek Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Kazakh Kirghiz Macedonian Malayalam Mongolian Persian Polish Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Swedish Tatar Thai Turkish Ukrainian Uzbek Posted by Manish Bhargava, Product Manager Google Îñţérñåţîöñåļîžåţîờñ

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Integrating virtual keyboards in Google search

by Stoney deGeyter In Part 1 of this series I introduced Google webmaster tools and walked you through adding websites. Now that you have your site(s) in the system, you’ll need to configure your site so you get the most out of the data provided through the Webmaster Tools interface. Site Configuration Site configuration allows you to review and adjust your basic configuration settings. You don’t have a lot of leeway here but some of the very basics are covered which allow you to adjust how Google handles your site. Webmaster Tools gives you four primary ways to configure your website: Sitemaps Crawler access Sitelinks Change of address Settings Sitemaps If you have an .xml sitemap for your website you can submit that to Google through Webmaster Tools. Once submitted, you’ll get stats such as when it was last downloaded, how many URLs were submitted how many site URLs are in the search index. Each time your site changes, with new pages being added or removed, you should re-create your site map and resubmit it to Google. This ensures they have the most recent version to crawl. If you’re showing a disproportionate number of URLs not being index from those submitted, this may represent a problem with your site map or the architecture of your site. Either way, it bears looking into. [Top] Crawler Access This section allows you to see and edit Google’s access to your site via the robots.txt file. You can see when the robot.txt file was last downloaded by Google and what specifically it reads. Google also provides a way for you to create a new robots.txt file if you don’t have one. Typically the robots.txt file is for telling the search engines what sections of the site you don’t want crawled and indexed but it’s good to have one even if to tell the engines they have the run of the house. If you find specific URLs that Google is indexing that they shouldn’t you can either add that to your robots.txt file or submit that URL to Google directly through Webmaster Tools with the Remove URL link provided on this page. The URL removal tool is only good for 90 days so if you want something permanent, use your robots.txt file. Here have the option to temporarily remove a single URL, a sub-directory of your site, your entire site, or the Google cache of a particular page. You can also test your site against different Google Crawlers (User Agents) to make sure your site is accessible for image results, mobile results, and their AdSense and AdWords crawlers. If, for whatever reason, your site isn’t allowing any of these crawlers access you’ll be notified here and can make changes as needed. [Top] Sitelinks Site links are the additional links below your primary listing that Google chooses to give some websites. Here’s what my sitelinks look like in the search results: Webmaster Tools will let you view and make edits to your sitelinks: Using the “block” options Google allows you to ask that a particular site link not be used and provide a reason why. Unfortunately you can’t ask to change the text of a sitelink without first blocking it entirely, which you may not want to do for a valuable site link, even if it reads incorrectly. [Top] Change of Address This section is used if you are changing URLs for your site. Obviously, changing URLs is not recommended, but if you do Google provides a nice way to give them notification… along with all the proper redirects being put in place behind the scenes. This page mostly contains information on how best to move your site to a new domain and then allows you to select the new URL (after you’ve set it up in Webmaster Tools) to tell Google that the old domain is now the new domain. [Top] Settings Google allows you add some basic settings for your website that helps them know how best to crawl and index your site. Here you can adjust the following: Geographic targeting: Select which country your site is aimed for. If you have a global TLD (.com, .net, etc) you can tell Google that your site is designed for a specific country audience. If your site is global then you won’t want to change these settings at all. If you have section of your site in different languages you can set up each unique URL section in Webmaster Tools and assign the geographic location for that portion of the site. Preferred domain: Do you want your site accessed with or without the www. in the URL? Consistency matters and unfortunately, many sites are inconsistent with their internal linking with some links pointing to www. URLs and others not. Short of fixing all your internal links, making them consistent throughout your site, you can tell Google your preference. Even if you have all your internal links in order, set your preferred domain to account for any incoming links from external sites that may not be set up properly. Crawl rate: Google allows some sites to change the crawl rate - the rate in which Google spiders your site. This can help you reduce the speed at which Google indexes your pages which can free up much needed bandwidth. In some cases Google will set a custom crawl rate for you and you won’t be able to make any edits here. Parameter handling: Dynamic sites that us an inordinate number of parameters in the URLs can use this section of the site to tell Google which parameters make a difference and which should be ignored. This help keep bogus URLs or duplicate pages out of the Google index which can improve the site crawl and pages in Google’s index. [Top] Learn more about these sections of Google Webmaster Tools Part I: Setting Up a Site Part II: Site configuration Part III: Your site on the web Part IV: Your site on the web (continued) Part V: Diagnostics Part VI: Labs Be sure and visit our small business news site.

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SEO With Google Webmaster Tools - Part 2: Site Configuration

This is the second post in our Small Business series about entrepreneurship and the various Google tools you can use to establish and improve your business presence on the Internet. Here, you’ll learn how Google Places (formerly called the Local Business Center) can help you attract and be discovered by customers in your area for free. -Ed. As a local business owner, one of the things that sets you apart is your ability to make personal connections with your customers because of your passion for what you do. Letting people know who you are and what your business is about is a vital part of finding customers, building lasting relationships with them and helping your business succeed. Google Places helps business owners like you to manage your online presence and supplement your Place Page with all the information that helps people decide to visit you — from basics like hours of operation and address to helpful extras like videos, coupons and special announcements. To give you a firsthand account of how Google Places can help a small business grow and succeed, I’ve invited Danya Wright to share her experience: I first began riding horses at age six. Ever since then I knew that I wanted to spend my life working with horses and sharing my passion with others. I had jobs working for several barns and riding programs around Arizona, but always dreamed of having a school of my own. Two years ago, I finally realized my dream and opened Specialized Training and Riding School — S.T.A.R.S. of Horsemanship . At S.T.A.R.S., we offer lessons to riders of all ages and skill levels, provide therapeutic horse training services for those with disabilities, and train Special Olympics riders. Our property is a 10-acre scenic environment for our students and horses. But because we’re located in a rural area of Gilbert, AZ , this also presents a big challenge: I don’t have the advantage of “window shoppers” or drive-by traffic. Without a storefront, those who do pass by may not realize that my stable is open to customers. Whenever I want to find a local business, Google Maps is my resource, so I wanted to make sure my business appears there too. I did a little research and quickly found Google Places (which was known as Local Business Center when I first signed up). Within a few minutes, I was able to update the S.T.A.R.S. Place Page to add key details about my business, like exact location and contact information. And I could mention the special services we offer like group classes, private lessons, birthday parties, Scouting events, parent-child sessions and so on. Now when a company’s looking specifically for a team-building venue, they can find my business easily. Since avid equestrians can be quite particular about facility details, I wanted to make sure that my Place Page included all of the specialized information that’s relevant to my target clients. Now when you search on Google, you can be taken to our Place Page to see photos that offer preview of our stables and even meet Salty, one of the horses. You can also find a coupon to help provide a little extra incentive to come try out our lessons if you’re new to horseback riding. Since I started using Google Places six months ago, my business has grown tenfold from what it was before — I’ve gone from averaging around 10 to 15 students to now serving more than 100. To be honest, I had just figured that new customers would trickle in over time, but it’s boomed far beyond my expectations. And now I can spend more time with horses and riders, and less at the computer! Posted by Carter Maslan, Director of Product Management, Local Search

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Connect with your "neigh"bors using Google Places

by Mike Fleming What’s the best keyword research tool out there?� Google’s?� WordTracker? Keyword Discovery?� Actually, none of them. The best keyword research tool is a broad match keyword in a PPC account .� Huh?� Doesn’t everyone say that broad match is extremely dangerous and you should only approach them with the utmost respect and gentleness?� Well, yes that’s true, but that doesn’t mean you abandon them! OK, so why do I say this is the case?� Because broad match keywords are like scouts for you .� They go out and evaluate all of the possible “players” in the game and come back to you and let you know which ones are worthy of playing on your team and which ones aren’t. When you just use phrase and exact match, it’s like you’re only scouting the most prestigious college-level players; all the D-I teams in the major conferences. And when you just use the pre-campaign keyword research tools, they are like scouts that just tell you that the player played at a big time school.� But, they don’t tell you how fast they can run, how high they can jump or if they’re likely to end up in jail by the end of their first season! If you use just the pre-campaign tools, you’ll definitely end up with some good players and it is the place to start , but what about the guy from East Southwestern Triway Junior Community College that was a late bloomer and that most others are looking over that will eventually become an all-star?� That guy’s gonna be your best value. � Well, the only way you’ll find him is if you look at everybody.� And the only way to look at everybody is to use broad match keywords. If I have a website that sells dress shoes, it would be a mistake to leave out the broad match keyword ” shoes .”� Why?� Because you want him out there looking for keyword phrases that that the pre-campaign tools aren’t showing or that you may have failed to look for that will be valuable for you.� But, you know what would also be a mistake?� To bid the same amount and spend the same amount of your budget on “shoes.”� Remember, he’s your scout that you pay like a hundred grand, not your franchise quarterback you’re giving millions.� So, you just throw him in a separate campaign with a lower budget and lower bids and use your ad to communicate what it is you specifically offer (since you’ll get lower CTRs and conversion rates). So, every so often you take a look at your Search Query Report and find what your “scout” is reporting to you.� You’ll inevitably find phrases, maybe like ” shoes for prom ” or ” blue suede shoes ” that will stand out from the crowd.� Let your scout inform you of what picks to make and who to cut. (What targeted keywords and content to put on your site) Be sure and visit our small business news site.

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Scouting Keywords That Will Become Your All-Star Players

Two great industry conferences are happening next week in San Jose: eMetrics and the Conversion Conference . Veterans of the industry will be familiar with eMetrics, but you may not know about the Conversion Conference. The Conversion Conference is a brand new event being chaired by Tim Ash. Tim is the president of Site Tuners (a Website Optimizer Certified Partner), and if you’ve been to any online marketing conference in the last few years, you’ve probably heard him speak about the importance of conversion. He’s helped assemble some of the best minds in conversion (like Bryan Eisenberg and Jakob Nielsen) for a really amazing event. If you haven’t registered yet, Conversion Conference is offering a $250 late-bird discount. Just enter CCW646 when registering at the Conversion Conference site . Here’s some of the happenings at the two conferences: Tuesday, May 4th 11am - Introduction to Website Optimizer session (I’m giving this session) 1:50pm - What’s New with Google Analytics with Brett Crosby 2pm - Web Analytics & Uncovering Problems with Eric Peterson & Brett Crosby We’ll be hosting a book signing of the brand new book Performance Marketing with Google Analytics . All three authors, two Google Analytics Certified Partners, Justin Cutroni and Caleb Whitmore and a former member of the Google Analytics team, Sebastian Tonkin, will be on hand giving away and signing the new book on May 4th, starting at 3pm in the Cupertino room. Wednesday, May 5th 9am - Keynote: Leveraging Bleeding Edge Analytics Goodies with Avinash Kaushik 12:15pm - Brown Bag Deep Dive with Google Analytics product manager, Jayanth Mysore Also, don’t miss your chance to come face to face with the HiPPO at the Google booth. Hope to see you next week in San Jose. Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Website Optimizer team

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Website Optimizer at eMetrics San Jose and Conversion Conference West next week

Two great industry conferences are happening next week in San Jose: eMetrics and the Conversion Conference . Veterans of the industry will be familiar with eMetrics, but you may not know about the Conversion Conference. The Conversion Conference is a brand new event being chaired by Tim Ash. Tim is the president of Site Tuners (a Website Optimizer Certified Partner), and if you’ve been to any online marketing conference in the last few years, you’ve probably heard him speak about the importance of conversion. He’s helped assemble some of the best minds in conversion (like Bryan Eisenberg and Jakob Nielsen) for a really amazing event. If you haven’t registered yet, Conversion Conference is offering a $250 late-bird discount. Just enter CCW646 when registering at the Conversion Conference site . Here’s some of the happenings at the two conferences: Tuesday, May 4th 11am - Introduction to Website Optimizer session (I’m giving this session) 1:50pm - What’s New with Google Analytics with Brett Crosby 2pm - Web Analytics & Uncovering Problems with Eric Peterson & Brett Crosby We’ll be hosting a book signing of the brand new book Performance Marketing with Google Analytics . All three authors, two Google Analytics Certified Partners, Justin Cutroni and Caleb Whitmore and a former member of the Google Analytics team, Sebastian Tonkin, will be on hand giving away and signing the new book on May 4th, starting at 3pm in the Cupertino room. Wednesday, May 5th 9am - Keynote: Leveraging Bleeding Edge Analytics Goodies with Avinash Kaushik 12:15pm - Brown Bag Deep Dive with Google Analytics product manager, Jayanth Mysore Also, don’t miss your chance to come face to face with the HiPPO at the Google booth. Hope to see you next week in San Jose. Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Website Optimizer team

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Website Optimizer at eMetrics San Jose and Conversion Conference West next week

Hey marketers and data heads: heads up! Next week is a good week to tell your boss you’re taking “enrichment time off.” We totally support using this excuse to take afternoons off and go to baseball games, or using it to let your boss know you won’t be at work on a Friday, when you’re actually planning to hit the slopes early for a long ski weekend. “Enrichment time”. But regarding next week, we’re actually talking about legitimate, professional, guilt free, educational enrichment time at two web analytics conferences happening at the same place in San Jose — next week! You’ve heard of eMetrics , a premiere event for marketing and website analytics. We’ve launched a bunch of stuff at this conference over the years because the atmosphere fosters innovation. Well attended and sponsored by the Web Analytics Association , it’s also a chance for the web analytics industry to get together and share best practices and help each other. In conjunction this year, there will be an additional conference in the same space, targeted specifically at conversions, called Conversion Conference . This conference is aimed specifically at helping you make minor or major adjustments to your website or campaigns specifically to increase your online conversions. It will share social events with eMetrics, and registering for both will help you take full advantage of the week. And when you register at the Conversion Conferece site you can get a late-bird discount of $250 off. Enter the code CCW646. Here are some of the must-see sessions: Monday, May 3: 9am - 4:30pm: Google Analytics Workshop , led by Caleb Whitmore from Analytics Pros , a Google Analytics Certified Partner . This promises to be a great training, with hands on examples from one of our most experienced partners. Make sure to register this week. Tuesday, May 4: 11am - 12pm: Introduction to Google Website Optimizer as part of Conversion Conference 1:50pm - 2pm: “What’s New with Google Analytics” with our very own Brett Crosby 2pm - 3pm: see Brett again at the Conversion Conference in a panel with Eric Peterson called “Web Analytics & Uncovering Problems” 3pm - 3:30pm: Book signing and giveaway of a new book on Google Analytics written by Caleb Whitmore, Justin Cutroni and Sebastian Tonkin, who used to work on the Google Analytics team. This will take place in breakout room Cupertino. Wednesday, May 5: 9am: keynote by Avinash Kaushik: “Leveraging Bleeding Edge Analytics Goodies” 12:15pm: Brown bag deep dive into what’s new with Google Analytics with product manager Jayanth Mysore We hope to see you in San Jose next week, data heads, and you will return to work, savvier at all things web analytics, on the cutting edge of online tracking, and linked in with more professionals in your industry. Truly enriched. Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team

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Next Week: Two Incredible Conferences In One