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Google Freshness Update – What it Means For You

by Leonard Jackson on Monday, November 7th, 2011 in Google

3 Comments

The Google Freshness update is right up my alley. For those that know me I like to stay on top of what’s current and fresh. Whether it’s in music, technology or world news I like to stay on top of what’s happening and new or what is soon to come. I’m probably not alone, people in general would like to know what’s going on in the world around them. That’s why radio, tv, the internet and now social media have become so popular.

Now as you’ve all probably heard by now Google has released another update. For those that haven’t the other day, Thursday, November 3rd Google released the Google Freshness Update. Now before you all get worried about your search results this is not as big as the Google Panda update (also known as the Google Farmer because of its effect on content farms). While they say it’s going to affect around 35% of search queries, and Panda only affected 11%, a lot of sites are not feeling it like they did with the Panda update. That’s probably because most of us are not trying to rank for terms in niches that are constantly changing or maybe it’s because you’re keeping your blogs and websites current and fresh.

What is the Google Freshness Update?

The Google Freshness update is The Big G’s way of making sure you (the searcher) has access to the “Freshest” content available. With today’s world and the way we are using the internet these days it seems that everyone wants to stay up on the top topics that are going on in the world. Things like current events, celebrity gossip, what their friends are talking about and also experts in the areas that they are searching for. Let me give you a few examples.

Say someone types in “great gift ideas for Christmas” they don’t want to know what was popular 10 years ago. They want to know the best gifts to give this year. Trust me, you go and get your kid a toy for Christmas that was big 10 years ago they’re going to be something upset. But now with the Google Freshness Update You can just type in the search query above, without a time stamp (2011) Google is going to know that you want information for this Christmas coming up and therefore saving you from getting your kid a Power Ranger and therefore saving Christmas.

The Google Freshness update is also going to make sure you are given the most up to date, up to the minute news and current events from around the world. Now when someone searches for a term about one of today’s top news stories Google is going to give you the freshest stories according to when they were posted. Take a close look at your results and you will see that the time stamps on the results will go back according to time and date. While the first result might say 18 minutes the last one may say 18 hours or even 2 days before the date of the search depending on the popularity of the search query.

If you would like a more detailed explanation on the methods Google is using for the Google Freshness update Justin Briggs does a great job of explaining it in his post; Methods for Evaluating Freshness. In this article he goes into deep analysis of how Google looks at the inception date of a document and does a great job at describing how the Google Freshness update uses social media and information from microblogs to make sure the user always has access to the freshest and current results.

How is the Google Freshness Update Going to Affect Us?

Now what does the Google Freshness update mean to you and your fellow marketers? Depending on the search terms you want to rank for it could mean nothing at all but if your websites search queries are targeting terms that are regularly changing then this could be a problem. I don’t see it as being a problem at all; I think this is a great improvement for everyone that’s using the search engine for finding current information. And for those of us that work online whether it be in SEO or Internet marketing in general, as long as you keep up with maintaining your blog or website with current information you should be fine.

But those that think they can put up a post or two and hope to rank and stay on top of the search engines are going to feel this update the most. With the Google Freshness update, if you’re not keeping your website or blog current and up to date with the freshest content possible, don’t expect to keep your rankings or rank at all.

Tags: seo

How to Choose the Best Local SEO Keywords

by Dev Basu on Tuesday, October 25th, 2011 in Blog

1 Comment

Without links and keywords the internet stands still. So, for our local seo clients we are always digging into keywords and their ideal use.  In a nutshell, keywords and keyword phrases are the driving force behind raising search engine ranking and drawing site traffic. Sounds easy doesn’t it? However, successful SEO marketing encompasses a great deal more than “pick and place” keywords. The following SEO keyword strategy will help to achieve more localized results.

Choosing Relevant Keywords and Keyword Phrases

The first step in an effective SEO strategy is choosing keywords and keyword phrases that are relevant to your niche. Targeting keywords that deal with health won’t help if you’re selling automotive products.

Also, you don’t want keywords which are too general or broad in their scope. Although “automobiles” may be a high ranking keyword, it won’t do much good for your automotive product business because such a search will result in too vast a selection of sites for customers to draw from. You can localize your keyword list even further by using phrases such as “automotive parts in St. Louis” for example. Choosing keywords and phrases which deal specifically with your product or service and your target area are what you’re after.

In order to create a list of viable keywords, sit down and do some serious thinking about what you would use to search for your specific products or services. Put yourself in your clients’ shoes and determine what questions they might ask and how you might solve their problems. Draw similar advice from family and friends, and visit competitors’ sites and see what keywords they are using.

Utilizing Free Online Tools

Once you have your keyword list, turn to one or more of the free online tools available. Google provides some of the best, but others such as Word Tracker are good as well. There are also various software products which you can purchase to help with choosing keywords. However, it’s advisable to avoid them as the rules and criteria change frequently and these tools can quickly become outdated and provide misleading information.

Since Google is the most popular search engine, we’ll use their keyword tool for this example. Go down your list of keywords and plug each one into the Google keyword tool. A list of keywords will be generated which show both “Local Search Volume” and “Global Search Volume”. Export these lists into a spreadsheet and eliminate all keywords which are not relevant. When you’ve weeded out your list, you can begin the process of determining the best keywords to use. The idea is to keep the keywords which are both relevant and popular yet have a low competition factor.

Determining Keyword Value

A keyword’s competitive factor is achieved by determining its value compared to other sites. To do this, run each keyword through a Google search to bring up its results. For instance, a search for “automotive parts” produces “About 64,700,000 results”.  Even though this is a large number, it refers to all pages on which “automotive products” appears. To reduce this number, we simply need to transform our original keyword into a title using the operator “allintitle: automotive parts”. A new search now reveals 216,000 sites which have that verbiage in the title. Since titles are strong strategic elements in SEO ranking, this number will help determine the keyword’s value.

Add this value to another column on your spreadsheet and continue with this process until you have created a value for all keywords listed. You will then want to keep all keywords which have both a low “allintitle” value and a high “Global Search Volume”.

Although there is much more to an effective SEO strategy, this will give you a strong jump on the competition. By building these keywords and keyword phrases into good content on your site, you will grab a larger portion of those customers looking for your product or service.

This guest post has been provided by the Local SEO experts at http://localseo.org/.

Benefits of SEO for Small and Medium Sized Businesses

by Vlad Rascanu on Monday, April 11th, 2011 in Blog, Featured

4 Comments

I entered the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) world about half a year ago. While progressing at a fast pace in the industry I reached a point when I stopped and wondered if small businesses even understand the benefits of SEO. I follow industry experts’ tweets, I read blogs, and I read industry related magazines on a daily basis and mostly, I realized that everyone in the industry talks about the latest strategies, the love/hate relationships they have with Google and their infamous updates that force them to change their SEO strategies every so often. However, if Moe the Plumber landed on any one of the websites I read on a regular basis, he will probably not understand how SEO can benefit his business.

Well, Moe, this post’s for you.

How can Search Engine Optimization help your business?

1.       It will increase traffic to your website.

I know, this is the most basic and obvious benefit of SEO.

There isn’t much to debate over this point except that “more traffic” + “higher quality of traffic” = more sales. If the traffic to your website does not increase after implementing several SEO strategies then you’re doing it all wrong. Keep on reading the web to find the right strategies or hire someone to give you a hand. Chances are that if you’re busy fixing houses, doing paper work, or running a business, you may not have as much time for this whole “SEO thing”. Leave this part to the geeks who read up on SEO on a daily basis and you just worry about all the other aspects of your business.

2.       You’ll be able to track your Return On Investment (ROI).

You’ve probably heard the old saying “I know half my marketing works, I just don’t know which half”. Luckily, that statement only applies to Traditional Marketing. With SEO, you can track exactly what your ROI is .

We all know that the first place in Google will get you approximately 40% of the clicks and we can all easily find out the total number of searches for specific terms in a month. If you know your own conversion rate and your average sale price then it will be very easy for you to calculate your own return on investment.

You can also find out who filled out a quote request on your website and what path they took to get to that page so that you can focus most of your energy on high conversion keywords. No more costly trial and errors where you keep advertising in different traditional medias and you have to wait a few weeks to find out what worked and what didn’t.

With SEO, you know ahead of time what keywords you need to target and in order to increase your conversion rate, you can use several tools to test out different landing pages. With enough traffic coming to your website, you can test several landing pages and get your results in a matter of days.

You can also set up call tracking on your website. This is where an SEO company will set up a specific phone number on your website that only those coming through search engines to your website will see. This will help you identify exactly how many leads you get from your SEO campaign and you can easily calculate if it’s worth the investment for you.

These are just some examples of how SEO makes it very easy for you to calculate an ROI.

3.       It will increase your brand awareness and improve your brand image.

What do you think of the company or the professional that shows up first in a Search Engine when you’re looking to buy something or to hire someone’s services? You’re probably going to think highly of them and view them as industry leaders, someone that you can trust. Being first in Google will not only increase your awareness in the industry, but it will also bring you many clients as the top spot in Google gets around 40% of all the clicks for any given search.

SEO will allow the corner shops, the small startups, and the small players in an industry to compete with the multinational corporations and the large local companies for the first spot in Google. You may not have the multi-million dollar budgets that some companies do, to compete with them in the traditional media, but spending a few hundred or thousand dollars a month can definitely allow you to compete with them online. After all,  67% of consumers make their purchase decisions online and then proceed to buy off-line.

Food for thought: Being at the right place at the right time is what search engine optimization is about. Capturing the click when a customer is ready to buy is cheaper, easier, and makes a lot more sense than advertising them when you are ready to sell.

Tags: seo for medium sized business, small business search engine optimization, small business seo, small business seo benefits

Infographic: Owning Your Local Web Presence

by Dev Basu on Monday, March 21st, 2011 in Blog

2 Comments

Local Search Expert and Unofficial Google Places employee Mike Blumenthal has put together a fantastic infographic that pulls in the intricate nature of local search optimization in a very digestible manner.  Mike’s infographic also offers up an overview of online marketing, and a glossary of the different terms used in local search optimization and what they mean to you as a business owner.

Here’s an embed of the infographic. See the longform version of Owning Your Local Web Presence at Mike’s blog.

Web Equity Short Infographic: Owning Your Local Web Presence

Web Equity by Mike Blumenthal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.blumenthals.com.

Tags: local search infographic, smm

Google’s Algorithmic Slap: Content Farms Are About to Wither and Die

by Dev Basu on Friday, February 25th, 2011 in Blog, Featured

2 Comments

Yesterday, Google released what is being touted as the Farmer Update, which is essentially their response to cracking down low quality search results and spam, by effectively removing sites that generate and promote content which is either duplicated, syndicated, minutely re-purposed, or which isn’t substantive.

In an effort to improve the quality of their index, Google’s battle against spammers isn’t new by any means, but it has been heating up over the last year. In part, this is due to major content farms such as Demand Media, Mahalo, and even the Huffington Post creating content en masse which barely passes Google’s duplicate content filters.

12% of US Search Results Will Be Affected

Although Google makes over 500+ changes to its algorithm or ‘secret recipe’ for ranking search results, this change will be its biggest yet, with other such changes having occurred in 2003′s Florida Update,  and 2009′s Vince Update . To put this into perspective, several billion search results will be impacted and sites which do not offer up content that passes Google’s algorithmic filters stand a lot to lose.

Who’s Impacted?

Although the Farmer Update isn’t categorically targeted towards Content Farms, they do stand the most to lose in the search rankings. As per Google’s blog post the update  ”is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful.” By this definition, the following types of sites will be affected:

  • Content Farms – Examples include Demand Media, eHow, Huffington Post, Mahalo, and Article Marketing sites.
  • E-Commerce Sites which do not have substantive or unique content on product descriptions. This is typical of data-feed driven e-commerce sites.
  • Scraper Websites – Websites which syndicate or scrape content and repost it.
  • Coupon Driven Websites - Like E-Commerce sites, these do not generally provide substantially unique or useful content.

Are Canadian Businesses Going to Be Affected?

Canadian businesses which sell within Canada are not affected at this point in time as the algorithmic test are only taking place on US Google.com results. However, Canadian businesses who sell through to customers in the United States may be affected if their websites are deemed to have low-quality content, as per Google’s algorithm.

Typically, there aren’t the same type of large content farms found in Canada like there are in the United States. However, businesses small and large should be aware that prior and existing search engine optimization campaigns which may have involved content marketing strategies which are not likely to pass Google’s new algorithmic filter, will be de-valued.

How to Survive Google’s Algorithmic Slap

As per Google’s blog post, high quality sites with “original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on”, will tend to rank higher in the search results, and effectively be rewarded for their editorial contributions.

For almost anyone who depends on organic search traffic, this change necessitates the need for higher quality content creation with the key focus involving the creation of unique, substantive, and useful content. Interestingly, Google’s blog post confirms that it’s algorithmic change ‘smart’ and thinks like its user do. In an extract from Google engineer, Amit Singhal’s blog post, he mentions:

“It’s worth noting that this update does not rely on the feedback we’ve received from the Personal Blocklist Chrome extension, which we launched last week. However, we did compare the Blocklist data we gathered with the sites identified by our algorithm, and we were very pleased that the preferences our users expressed by using the extension are well represented. If you take the top several dozen or so most-blocked domains from the Chrome extension, then this algorithmic change addresses 84% of them, which is strong independent confirmation of the user benefits.”

Wanted: SEO Specialist/Link Building Ninja to Join Powered by Search

by Dev Basu on Monday, January 24th, 2011 in Business

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Powered by Search is experiencing rapid growth in our client base and we are looking for a talented SEO Expert/Link Builder to join our team. If you have a zest for link building, a passion for search, and hunger to learn and work with some of the best internet marketers in Canada then we’re looking forward to hearing from you.

About Powered by Search Inc.

Powered by Search is a leading provider of Search Engine Optimization, Local Search, and general Internet Marketing services. Our clients range from SMB’s and SME’s to large corporations seeking consultancy in internet marketing, e-commerce, and increasing visibility through search engines.

Powered by Search’s team actively writes about SEO and Local Search and is also a recommended local search consultant on GetListed.org. We are only 1 of 2 Canadian companies to have contributed to the definitive source of Local Search information at the 2009 Local Search Ranking Factors Survey. We are also a Google Adwords Certified Partner and amongst TopSEO’s Best in Local Search companies in Canada.

What We’re Looking For

Our rapidly growing online marketing agency requires a talented Search Engine Optimization Specialist who is well versed in all areas of internet marketing. Are you a link building ninja who takes pride in the website you’ve ranked? If so, then we want to talk to you.

Powered by Search offers a fast paced, young and exciting environment where the candidate will have an opportunity to work with clients from a wide array of industries such as:

  • Law
  • Hotels & Hospitality
  • Real Estate
  • Medical
  • Education
  • Technology Startups
  • Contractor & Commercial Services

Our superstar SEO specialist will be responsible for strategizing and implementing online marketing campaigns for multiple clients at a time. The candidate will also be required to report campaign progress and troubleshoot any client queries.

Your Responsibilites:

Analytical:

  • Keyword Research, Link Analysis, Search Engine Results Analysis, SEO Audits and Site Reviews

Creative:

  • Blogging, Content Creation Ideas, Documentation of SEO Implementation, Sharing your SEO Knowledge with our team and clients.

Technical

  • Intermediate knowledge of HTML, XML, PHP required. We don’t expect you to code, but we do expect you to understand code.
  • Implementation of code samples. Eg: placing tracking and conversion scripts. Working with FTP, SSL is also an asset.

Candidate Requirements:

The right candidate needs to be well versed in all aspects of Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing. We love a person who is in the know and isn’t afraid to voice out his opinions. So if you’re out there on Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon or write your own blog, we already like you!

However, the following requirements are essential to being a superstar in this role:

  • A Bachelor’s degree or a College diploma. We don’t care in what!
  • Exceptional verbal, written, and interpersonal skills.
  • Ability to work full time in our Toronto office 5 days a week.
  • At least 1 year of hands-on work experience in search engine optimization with a track record for successfully improving both individual rankings for keywords/phrases and improving overall site traffic through wide scale application of best practices. The right candidate will have got their hands deep in the trenches of link research, requests, building, and acquisition.

NOTE: We are not accepting resumes for candidates residing outside Canada. Work at home related or virtual workers resumes will also not be accepted. This job opening is strictly for candidates who either live in the Greater Toronto Area or are willing to relocate to the Greater Toronto Area from elsewhere in Canada.

Supplemental Requirements (Things we consider to be an asset)

  • Experience in running intermediate level PPC campaigns is an asset.
  • Knowledge of Local SEO and Maps based optimization.
  • Experience in running social media campaigns.
  • Sales experience in pitching SEO and online marketing programs.

Why Work for Powered by Search Inc?

Powered by Searach Inc offers its employees with an exciting, fast-paced and challenging environment with an opportunity to grow within the company. Our successful candidate will have a chance to work with some of the largest companies in Canada which will enhance their search marketing portfolio.

We’re offering a competitive salary for this entry level position (based on experience), in order to attract exciting candidates. In addition, we also provide:

  • 2 weeks of annual paid vacation
  • Christmas Bonuses
  • Paid training and skills enhancement packages.
  • Possible commuter bonuses.

How to Apply

  1. Create a cover letter indicating your background and experience in the industry and why you would like to work with Powered by Search. We encourage personality and discourage drab cookie cutter templates.
  2. Tailor your resume to show case SEO/SEM projects where you had a direct role in generating rankings, traffic, leads, and conversions.
  3. Include your salary requirements in your cover letter. This position has room for growth but we need a specific range to consider your application.
  4. Send your resume and cover letter to hello@poweredbysearch.com . Please note that we will not be accepting phone calls or any other forms of applying other than via email.

We wish to thank all applicants for their interest but only those with qualifications consistent with the job requirements will be contacted. 

Tags: powered by search, seo link ninja salary, seo specialist, seo wanted, wanted link builders, wanted seo, wanted seo expert, wanted seo specialist

Covered by the RIC Centre for our SEO Seminar

by Dev Basu on Monday, December 13th, 2010 in Blog

1 Comment

At Powered by Search, we enjoy being invited to speak at events about the topics we’re passionate about. This week, I spoke to a group of very engaged business owners, entrepreneurs, and graduate level students at the RIC Centre’s Growing Your Business with SEO and Social Media seminar. They put up a press release of the event shortly after, which we’re republishing here.

Expert tips for business at Search Engine Optimization & Social Marketing seminar

Social media and search engine optimization have been the buzz words in business in 2010, says Dev Basu, President and CEO of Powered by Search.

Basu, along with panelists Krista LaRiviere, Co-Founder and CEO of gShift Labs and Roy Pereira, President and CEO of Shiny Adswere keynote speakers at the final Growing Your Business session of 2010: Search Engine Optimization and Social Marketing December 9 at the University of Toronto Mississauga Faculty Club.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is currently the leading online tool businesses use to recruit clients and customers on the web. Google accumulated an astounding 16.4 billion searches worldwide in the month of June 2010, according to Comstar.com, and it’s no wonder page ranking is on business moguls’ lips. But according to Basu, recognized as Canada’s foremost search optimization guru, basic page ranking techniques aren’t enough to drive traffic to a website. Although it is fast, scalable and easy to control, users don’t trust paid page rankings or top results, he says. And 90% of search users zone in on organic and local results.

“While people love to buy, they don’t like being sold [to]. Essentially, [they] don’t trust an ad. That’s why people don’t click it,” he said.

Basu suggested that smaller businesses with tight budgets move their websites over to a free content management system such as WordPress, Expression Engine or Drupal to further optimize their sites. Building links and credibility so that suppliers, venders and local directories link back to a company’s website is an important step. So is ensuring that the site operates in a trusted domain and includes the essential components of a search engine friendly website: texts, links and images.

Krista LaRiviere and her company gShift, specializing in offering web presence optimization software, and aspire to make search engine optimization accessible to everyone.

“Our vision is to change the way people think of and perform organic search engine optimization. We want the entire world to be able to do their own organic search engine optimization. We want non-technical marketers to be able to do it and non-technical business people to be able to do it.”

Google Analytics is one solution. It’s a free tool many companies use to enhance search engine optimization. Google Analytics helps aggregate, track, manage and explain how a user’s website is being searched. One important component that businesses often overlook is key word selection. What clients type into search tool bars often does not match the key words businesses insert into their web pages. Tools such as Google Analytics and WordStream list what key words are being used by potential clients, explaining why a company’s page rank is lower than their competitors. Narrowing the choice of key words to indicate a unique product or service offered by a company, filters search users and increases clicks.

What about popular social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, boasting millions of users? Roy Pereira’s advertising technology company Shiny Ads relies on search engine optimization and social media to generate 90% of their inbound revenue. Pereira has moved on from using traditional marketing focused on micro websites and trade shows that he claims are no longer effective.

“Twitter is fantastic. It’s all text and it is all very searchable. It’s a great way to increase an awareness of what you’re up to as well as what your product is. Sending out a press release or [posting] the title of your press release on Twitter is alright, but it’s… a little spammy… [This] is so much more natural,” Pereira commented.

Tools such as Twitter reveal individual voices and personalities of those employees who represent a company, encouraging an open and honest relationship with potential clients, something that has now come to be expected in everyday business practice.

The Research Innovation Commercialization (RIC) Centre and the Ontario Center for Environmental Technology Advancement (OCETA) jointly host the 10-event series, which runs from September to June 2011. For a complete schedule visit riccentre.com

About RIC Centre

The Research, Innovation and Commercialization Centre (RIC) is a non-profit organization that provides business and technical services to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to commercialize their innovation.

RIC Centre provides commercialization support to new entrepreneurs and seasoned business people to take the next great idea to market in advanced manufacturing, aerospace, life sciences and emerging technologies sectors.

RIC Centre is a member of the Ontario Network of Excellence (ONE). Funded by the Government of Ontario, ONE is Ontario’s innovation system. The ONE is made up of regional and sector-focused organizations designed to help Ontario-based entrepreneurs rapidly grow their companies, and create jobs. For more information visit oneinnovation.ca. Please visit www.riccentre.com for more information.

Contact
Pam Banks
Commercialization Director
Research, Innovation and Commercialization Centre (RIC Centre)
Phone 905 273 3530
Email: pam.banks@riccentre.com

Tags: shiny ads serch engine ranking

Canadian Local SEO Citations – The Ultimate Guide

by Shagun Vatsa on Thursday, November 11th, 2010 in Blog

4 Comments

We’ve all seen some drastic changes in the local search sphere since late October. With Google formally rolling out its “Places Search” initiative and effectively eliminating the local 7-pack results,  both businesses and local search optimization providers alike have been experiencing volatility in the new rankings.

While the local search ranking algorithm may have changed with the introduction of “Places Search”, some key elements still remain unaltered such as the importance of building citation links.

Most of my fellow local search industry buddies, including myself have published our own lists of Canadian citation sources over the past few years. Earlier today, in one of our email threads, Mike Blumenthal came up with the idea of publishing a summary of all citation resources together. Moments later, I had my WordPress tab open and jumped at the opportunity of creating the ultimate resource for Canadian citations on our blog.

Before I go ahead with the list, here’s a quick recap explaining the importance of submitting a business to these citation sources:

  • Increases the different number of sources to which your Place Page can be linked to, eventually increasing your dominance in local SERPs
  • Gives your business a wider platform to reach out to your target audience
  • Allows you engage with your community, increase brand awareness, build trust and consumer loyalty
  • Consumers can leave their feedback via reviews and recommendations on such sites
  • Some of these listings get indexed quickly, allowing you to maximize and dominate your citations in search results

So here it is, the ultimate resource for all Canadian citations published!

  1. The Canadian Guide to Local SEO Citations by Dev Basu
  2. The Guide to Canadian Citations for Local Search by David Mihm
  3. The Canadian Guide to Local SEO Citations Updated by Shagun Vatsa
  4. Canadian Citations – Mid-Year Updates by Jim Rudnick
  5. Google Maps: Citations, Reviews & User Content by Matthew Hunt
  6. Local Search Rankings in Canada by StepForth Web Marketing

Happy citation building icon smile Canadian Local SEO Citations The Ultimate Guide

Tags: seo, seo canada, seo citation, seo citation sources, seo citations, top 20 seo, vatsa

Sprouter Selects Toronto SEO Company Powered by Search as Search Marketing Partner

by Dev Basu on Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010 in Blog

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Sprouter, a community portal for budding entrepreneurs and start-ups has tasked Powered by Search to grow its traffic and member base by utilizing Search Engine Optimization and Site Architecture best practices.

03-November-2010 – Powered by Search, a leading Toronto SEO company has been selected by Sprouter, a web 2.0 community portal for entrepreneurs and start-ups, to conduct a Search Engine Optimization audit and recommendations playbook, aimed at creating a more search engine friendly website.

Powered by Search will conduct a Technical SEO Audit followed by recommendations addressing best practices in site architecture, keyword research, content optimization, link development, and the overlap between social media and PR with relation to search engine optimization.

Key goals of the initiative will include modifying elements of the existing content management system to be more search engine friendly, increasing overall website traffic, and creating a publicly searchable database of Sprouter’s users on popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

Powered by Search’s core strengths and expertise in conducting large scale enterprise SEO audits will help Sprouter gain new members via being more visible in search engines for key site attractions such as the Sprouter Q&A, Events, and Sprouter Weekly newsletter.

“Since Sprouter is a small startup company we need to take advantage of the power of organic search,” says Sarah Prevette, Founder/CEO at Sprouter.com. “Dev and the team at Powered by Search have been quick to identify our strengths and weaknesses with regards to SEO, and we’re excited to see the recommendations they put together.”

Dev Basu, President and CEO at Powered by Search shared the following comment regarding the newly forged relationship with Sprouter: “We’re thrilled to be working with Sprouter – Their commitment to excelling in organic search is proof that the very best in breed of social and community portals still need to have sites that are open, usable, and most importantly findable by the search engines. As social media sites get larger and scale their base of users, being able to get new content and member profiles ‘found’ by the search engines becomes increasingly difficult if you don’t have a search friendly architecture to begin with”.

Powered by Search is a full service, award winning internet marketing company based in Toronto, Canada. Independently ranked among the Top 3 Local Search Optimization companies in Canada by TopSEOs in 2010, Powered by Search is also a Google Adwords Certified Partner, SEMPO member, and only 1 of 2 Canadian companies to be featured in the industry standard Local Search Ranking factors study. In addition to conducting enterprise level SEO site audits, Powered by Search is well recognized and quoted in industry publications for its expertise in organic search engine optimization, web analytics, call tracking, and rich media search optimization.

Tags: powered by search, press releases, seo companies in toronto, seo company, seo toronto, sprouter, sprouter seo

Google Adwords Chat Support and Customer Support

by Dev Basu on Friday, September 17th, 2010 in Blog

2 Comments

If you’re frustrated with your Adwords and need customer support, what’s an SMB to do if they can’t find that information easily? Google hasn’t won any customer service awards recently, but over the years they have improved the level of service from being non-existent to being somewhat hard to find. Here are three resources to get in touch with them, in order of the shortest response times:

Google Adwords Chat Support

Get in touch with an Adwords rep after filling in information regarding your campaign and your particular adwords issues. Service is generally very fast, and most reps are transparent and provide insightful advice on your account. Email transcripts are also available. If a rep is unable to solve your issue on the spot, they will take down your details and contact you with a specified time frame.

Here’s the link to  Google Adwords Chat Support

Google Adwords Forum

The forum is the best place to get multiple opinions on your Adwords issue from other users and Google staff alike. It’s also a good place to learn tips and tricks related to Adwords.

Here’s the link to the Google Adwords Help Forum

Google Adwords Feedback Form

Sometimes you’ll notice a competitor having ads up that are against the TOS or ad guidelines. If you’re up to complaining about these slipping through the system, you can use this feedback form.

What to Do When All Else Fails

Hire an Adwords Qualified consultant or company to review your account, suggest changes, and either restructure it to improve performance or manage it on an on-going basis. You can find a list of qualified partners through the Google Adwords Partner Search.

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