Google plus has not been around quite as long as some more popular Social Networks such as, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,  and Foursquare. But, don’t let this fool you Google+ has a very powerful use that not many people talk about. At least in the blogs and social circles that I am in.

What I am referencing to is its SEO abilities, I read an article a while back that discussed that Google’s  algorithms are placing more weight on social content and links from its own Google plus rather than Twitter, and Facebook. 

So much so that some of the Social Networks  put together a petition asking for a more equal playing field. It makes sense that Google is putting more weight on its own Social Network . But it seems unfair to other Social Networks trying to get a piece of the pie. It also seems weird because Google’s algorithm  likes things that are popular, and things shared on Twitter,Facebook, and  Four Square; they are much more popular and social than Google+ 

So recently I was doing some reading in regards to SEO and some myths, and one of the things that amazed me most was the fact that certain people think that SEO is dead. Search engines have been around for quite a while and are one of the top sources if not the top source for helping people find information they need, and as long as there is search engines there will always be a need to use SEO.

Social media in recent years has come along and been another source of back links for websites. It is much newer than search engines and as of right now does not carry as much weight as other traditional SEO tactics such as, guest posting,blog posting, and content generation. It most likely could become more of a factor though as we move forth. Due, to the fact that Google likes to give results that are  fresh, relevant, and popular to its users. What better way to due this then using Social Media; to gauge the pulse of people using it.

See the video below as Matt Cutts talks about this

I wanted to write about this because I rarely see people in the SEO field talk about this. Using your competition for links, what I mean by this is basically using a tool such as Open Site Explorer.  Open Site Explorer is a great tool because it allows you to See any websites back links, where they have got them from, anchor text, and 301 redirects and much more.

It really amazes that this is not talked about, what better way to acquire great links than to use your competitions links. What is great about this is the fact that in no way is this frowned upon by Google’s Webmaster Guidelines . Just make sure when you do this that your competitions links are “good links” meaning make sure their not from link exchanges or paid links and such.

SEO today is more important than ever to a  businesses success. Gone are the days of when you would look into your local print yellow pages for information about what you wanted such as, local barber shops, ,or local restaurants. Search engines have become the number one way people find information about anything whether its how to choose a workout, what something is, and to how to spell something etc. This is truly where any business can capitalize.

A recent study from 2011 showed that A #1 position in Google’s search results receives 18.2% of all click-through traffic.The second position receives 10.1%, the third 7.2%, the fourth 4.8%, and all others are under 2%.A #1 position in Bing’s search results averages a 9.66% click-through rate.The total average CTR for first ten results was 52.32% for Google and 26.32% for Bing.

From this we can clearly see that it is critical that any business should be trying to get at least in the top three in search results, if not the number one result. Because the chances of your business being seen and receiving a click through rate are slim when out of the top ten results. SEO is not going anywhere any time soon,it would be advised if you are not tech savvy or SEO savvy to get someone or a company to help you out.

Image credit to raiden 

The old practice of link building was basically you would try to get a link from any and every site that would link to your site. To put this into clearer terms this basically means if you had a website that you talked about and wrote about sports on, and had a link coming from a site that had to do with computers this would be “considered” a bad link. At the time it was just considered a link because Google did not enforce bad links.

Even though in their webmaster guidelines they state “It is not only the number of links you have pointing to your site that matters, but also the quality and relevance of those links”. Until now with the recent Google Penguin Update  .

I am more amazed that it took Google, so long to finally enforce this. People have been doing Black Hat SEO for years. So its good for them to finally make some much needed changes, this probably still will never stop black hat SEO, but its a good start . Also, I find it interesting that people would have not put forth the effort before to realize that they had band links before this algorithm hit. I hope from this update people will finally learn that it is not about quantity of your link backs, but the quality.

image credit to oxygen marketing 

It amazes me how all these sites are ,so mad at Google with the recent Google Penguin Update. Google sets forth guidelines which, any SEO and other online marketers should and can follow. It is good to finally see Black Hat SEO’s finally getting penalized for using such tactics as Link Exchanges, Spun Content, and using irrelevant links.

What I feel bad most is for the people that pay others to do SEO for them. What I mean by this is the fact you have outsourced your SEO services to someone else, and you trust them to do it. You’re probably not very informed though, so you believe them when they say “we will get you 1,000 backlinks”.

Not knowing that some of these backlinks could be from not irrelevant sources and such. Say your site was about a sports, and you have backlinks from a site that talks about Viagra. This is going to certainly hurt your rankings now more than ever with the recent update.

credit to National Positions for the image