Well, Labor Day weekend is fast approaching, and as such we are busy looking up travel arrangements as well as planning our leisurely activities. Two features we have found very helpful in these endeavors are Google’s “Best Guess” (one of Google’s best kept secrets, in my opinion) and Google Maps Check-Ins. Best Guess When we were thinking about leisure and down time for this upcoming long weekend, we thought of a movie we have been dying to know the specifics about: The Tree of Life. Having not heard anything about its release date lately, we turned to Google and found this: This feature has seemingly been
Hey everyone, it’s Jason Hennessey from Atlanta SEO company EverSpark Interactive. Today, I’m going to talk a little bit about how to use keyword research to increase traffic to your website. Though we have done video blogs about both keyword research and the about defining the importance of keywords, we haven’t really yet discussed how to put the research and importance of keywords to good use for your site. So, how do you do it? First, let’s do a little recap of keyword research best practices. Remember, though general keywords can be helpful, using targeted – or, highly specific – keywords for your SEO campaign
Though the economy has been in a state of unrest for years now, the Local Search Engine Optimization industry has grown and continues to do so. This is according to statistics revealed by a recent survey (between March and June 2011) of over one thousand SEOs by BrightLocal.com (please note that the survey is ongoing, and will continue until December). Statistics Reveal Growth So, how does this BrightLocal.com survey come to reveal that Local SEO is growing? Well, the statistics speak for themselves. Here are some of the highlights from the survey findings thus far: “Local SEOs are handling more clients now than they did 12
Watch the Video Here! Hey everyone, it’s Jason Hennessey from Atlanta SEO agency EverSpark Interactive. Today, I’m going to talk a little bit about link building. Link building is what we call an off-page factor, which means it is something that helps your search engine ranking but doesn’t actually live on your site. If you think about it, the reason the search engines- especially Google - would value incoming links from other sites makes sense. If other sites link to yours, it indicates that they view you as an informational source, or an authority. Being considered an authority on the web is even more important
While many SEOs and businesses religiously follow the Official Google Blog as well as Google Webmaster Central and Google Inside Search blogs to keep up with any recent algorithmic changes to the search engine ranking system, few actually know how it works. Google recently posted a video in an effort to illuminate that very process, and after watching closely we think that there are several things worth paying close attention to. Google Lets Us “Look Under the Hood” Even if its just a small change to the algorithm, Google goes through a rigorous scientific and collaborative (across multiple departments – analysis, engineering, etc) process to
On this blog, we have often discussed the importance of social media. The Google Caffeine update, after all, looked for a “wider footprint” from websites. Essentially, Google wanted to see outbound links on sites to active social media presences (like on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn). This is how social media has affected us within our SEO bubble. But within our marketing bubble, we also recognize social media’s importance for branding and business in general. This is why a recent Pew Internet survey is essential for understanding just why social media is an integral part of any marketing (and even SEO) strategy. These adults are
Ever since Google + arrived on the social media scene and the +1 button continued to receive updates (becoming faster and more useful), we have known this day way coming. And now, it has finally arrived (well, it did yesterday). Google has fully integrated its version of the Facebook like with its fast-growing social network. Google inches closer to world domination with this latest integration. What does this mean? Since its June launch for websites, tech-bloggers and webmasters have been anticipating an expanded functionality for the +1 button. According to Google, more than a million sites utilize the button, which has garnered more than 4 billion
PageLever is a service used for Facebook analysis. Recent findings by the service indicate that 34% of traffic coming into Facebook pages comes from search engines (and YouTube). What’s even more interesting is the breakdown of which search engines these referrals come from. The most referrals come from Google, while the second most come from Yahoo (though the percentage is much smaller). PageLever found this data by studying only the larger 1,000 Facebook pages, as each studied had more than 10,000 fans. This makes sense, because the larger brands would have a more integrative Facebook presence and likely a larger volume of visitors via
Thursday will bring significant changes to Facebook, and possibly even to Google +. With more content control, security and sharing options, Facebook’s upcoming system update will change the arms-race currently occurring within the social media world. What will Google + do, what innovations will be sparked, in response to Facebook’s announcements today? Who will win the epic battle? Facebook inches up to take the lead, but we wait with bated breath to see what Google's next move will be. Remember the recent uproar over the discovery that all our cell phone contacts were in fact migrated and available on Facebook? Also, remember when there was
As an Atlanta SEO Agency with a Video Project Manager and a green room on site, we never miss an opportunity to discuss the opportunities available to businesses through video production. With content becoming ever-more important with each Panda iteration run by Google (internationally, now!), many tend to focus on the writing portion of content and disregard the video component. However, a new survey reveals that a majority of Americans are on the video-sharing platforms, watching, laughing, learning and creating. This should be reason enough to take part in the YouTube Revolution. However, videos are also important because they can be just the ingredient