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Sunday, March 30, 2014

March 2014 New Google Algorithm Update

 
New Google Algorithm Update March 2014?
 
 
At first, I thought my SEO software was lagging out. On March 25th, I noticed a drop in 18 of 27 accounts that we manage. After some research and talking to other SEO specialist, I've come to the conclusion that Google made an update. Is this the "soft" Panda update? Funny, we always practice white had methods and abide by Google policy. Even so, we saw drops on 18 accounts. There's not much about it at this time but we know something's going on.
 
I talked to dozens of SEOs in the past week and all of them were reporting lost traffic and rankings. Some of them manage 50 or more websites and saw decreases on all their accounts. The more research I did, I noticed that black hat SEOs were reporting that their traffic is up! WTF! How could this be? Well, it wouldn't be the first time. It appears that black hats have won another round.
 
Most of our accounts are a year or older. I believe I speak for everyone else when I say that seeing all your hard work down the drain because of a Google update is BS. What can we do? Throw the game plan away and start from scratch? Perhaps it isn't as bad as it appears. How can you practice exactly what Google preaches and still fail to please the search engine giant? It's not like we have another search engine to go to. Google knows we're along for the ride, so what gives?
 
I saw one of our prime accounts drop from 8.08 to 3.64 in website strength. Nearly all our accounts dropped from 3-4 to under 1-2. Why we search for answers, many of you may not even realize what's going on. Most webmasters don't have high dollar SEO software. Sometimes I wonder why we even do. Maybe someone can gladly comment and shine a light on this mess for us all. All I know is that we're not alone and some big authority websites have lost a lot during this new Google update.
 
So, what now? After 7 years of this, you do what we always do. Pick up the pieces, tell your clients and start climbing the charts again. This is the life of a SEO. If you're new to it, get use to it. We benefited from all the link changes last year, so perhaps it was our turn to get plugged this time. I'm sure we'll find out sooner then later. The recent spike of interaction notes that this change has effected a lot of companies and freelancers I would assume. I'll keep you posted as soon as I find a reliable source for information, "Google."


4-02-14 Update
 
I don't know about everyone else, but it appears that the chatter has calmed down and our results have returned since last week's episode. Very weird occurrence. Perhaps it was an April's Fools joke from Google? As of now, 16 of 18 websites have returned to normal and (5) have increased significantly since the drop. I haven't had time to get online and review anything yet, hopefully I can in a few days. I'll let you know what I find. I'll be monitoring my odd out websites to see if they rebound. We'll keep you posted.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Social Media Marketing Techniques


SMM TIPS AND TECHNIQUES
 
Social Media Marketing has several great benefits that can help you grow your brand, network and increase your SEO rankings. As more and more people operate and connect with one another on social media platforms, it brings a great opportunity for you to promote your business, services and products. For social media marketing to be beneficial to you, a plan and approach is needed. Anyone can make post with text, pictures, info graphics and videos. Anyone can follow, like, share, tweet and comment. The key is learn what works and what doesn't, usually involving test runs and careful analysis. The biggest factor for a business marketing on social media platforms is targeted the right audience.
 
This social media marketing video and post mostly pertains to those who are not familiar with SMM and those that are new to social media marketing. I believe another important aspect outside of an target audience is finding out which social platforms will benefit your company the most. Of course, this is going to depend on the type of business you have and what sector you operate in. Major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are a given but you may not have the time or budget to operate on all three social websites. What do you do? It only makes sense to use the social platforms that will benefit your business the most.
 
You have to forgive me for my videos. I'm still new at this, a little shaky but listen to what I have to say. I've been running a case study on the impact of social media influence pertaining to SEO results. The case study is only a few months old and I will post it once I'm done in the next few weeks. What is the influence score of social pertaining to SEO results? I believe it's 7-8 percent. My personal belief and according to my case study, I believe this can range from 3-15 percent, 3 being for small social metrics and 15 for being large social metrics. This is what my case study tells me about a new website with little SEO influence during a 6 month old span.
 
None the less, social media marketing is becoming more valuable in terms of search engine optimization. Authority is important when it comes to your social profiles. The link your promoting, likely your business URL, plays a role in the value of your social media accounts also. You build authority to your social media platforms by building your social network, just like building a website and growing rankings. The social media marketing techniques below will help you build that authority.
 
More SMM Techniques
 
  • Be active on all your social media platforms.
  • Make sure your post are descriptive and informative.
  • Encourage others to share your post.
  • Share, like, comment and engage on other profiles and communities.
  • Follow respected and authority accounts within your niche.
  • Update your social accounts regularly.
  • Mix your post up with text, videos, info graphics and pictures.
  • Don't be afraid to post something controversial.
  • Link your other social profiles together if you can.
  • Join communities and groups.
  • Comment on post that are in your niche and in your expertise.
  • Build links back to your website and share relative links.
  • If you build a valuable profile, others will come.
  • Have free giveaways or specials to draw attention
  • Always be professional, your image is on display.
 
 
 
Remember, it's extremely important to know what is working and what is not. Once you know, you're going to save money and time, possible increasing your bottom line in the process. Run test and carefully document what works and what doesn't. If you do so, you'll find which social platforms work best for you and what type of post get the most interaction.
 


Saturday, March 22, 2014

SEO Tips When Dealing With Broken Links


Broken links can be a big nightmare for webmasters if the situation gets out of control. The good news, there's a ton of great link checking tools to help you find broken links. If you operate on Wordpress, there's several different plugins that you can use. Google Webmaster also has apps for checking broken links. Dealing with broken links can be a hassle, especially if your making changes.

We recently did some work for an old client and he told us that he went from 0 broken links to 9,000 broken links overnight. Big red flag, right? "What did you do," I asked him. "Nothing." You don't go from 0 broken links to 9K broken links overnight unless something big changed. When I finally went into our software and checked the backlinks, every link was a 404.

So, what did I find out? My client operates an e-commerce website and they did an upgrade. They added a new "shop" feature within Wordpress and it added "shop" to every URL. It caused the entire URL structure of the website to change and caused everyone of his links to bring up 404 codes. Although this wasn't my client's fault, his rankings did fall. If the change was overnight, he probably wouldn't have dropped traffic and rankings so much. Since it took him a month to call, he lost most of his linking domains and dropped 3K indexed pages on Google.

CHANGING YOUR URL? BETTER BE PREPARED
 
If you plan to change your URL anytime soon, you better prepare to make the appropriate link changes. This can cause a whirlwind of events that can plummet your SEO rankings, not to mention your user experience. In the case above, my client's entire website was down from broken links. All the major links that we acquired in the previous year was erased during the 3.5 week process. We saw a traffic loss of 76 percent and it took a full month to recover from the traffic. The rankings still haven't recovered.
 
Although my client wasn't at fault, it shows you what can happen when you have that many broken links. This is the same reason most webmasters never change their URL. You should always be sure to use the right URL before you start building your website. As you can see with this case, you never when something can happen. In this case, his e-commerce provider was at fault. I won't mention any names but I know the website has went down (2) more times since.
 
BROKEN LINKS AND SEO
 
Broken links are not good for SEO or user experience. If your website has broken links, they need to be fixed. Yes, your SEO rankings can be affected but your also missing out on traffic. If you continue to have broken links and your website strength falls, you may also lose valuable link partners and associations. Not to mention losing valuable traffic that can hurt your bottom line.
 
Be careful who you choose to do your SEO also. We've had a few different clients that had SEO services done and they went in and changed permalinks. Without thinking or perhaps lacking real SEO skills, they made a big mess that we had to clean up. Before you make any changes to your link structures, you may want to consider the consequences of doing so. 

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Affordable SEO Services

Affordable SEO

If you're looking for affordable SEO services, we can help. Hale Associations has been offering affordable SEO services for 7 years. With SEO packages starting at only $150 a week, we're one of the most affordable SEO companies in the world. If you include our free SEO consultations, free SEO evaluations and our 24/7 SEO support, the value of our search engine optimization packages is that much more valuable.

Every website needs SEO also known as search engine optimization. SEO techniques are used to develop your website, build traffic and grow your online presence. There's hundreds of search engine optimization techniques that can be used to grow your website. The key is evaluating your website and determining the specific needs of your website or blog.

Trusted SEO Services

If the need has come for you to hire an SEO agency, you need to make sure they can provide you with the SEO services you expect. You want to choose a SEO company that provides exactly what they offer. At this day and age, everyone is called a SEO. However, a title doesn't make you a SEO expert. You have to be careful who you trust and depend on to help your website and blog grow.

Over the years, Hale Associations has provide SEO services to hundreds of websites and blogs. We've worked in dozens of different niches and we've optimized websites according to their needs. As SEO continues to change, you need to make sure the SEO is changing with the times. In 2013, we saw the landscape change and the effects of negative link building that hurt thousands of websites. It's changes like that can make your website successful.

SEO In 2014

SEO is always evolving and one of the most important aspects is keeping up with all the changes that involve search engine optimization. SEO in 2014 is not the same as in 2013 and before. Hale Associations continues to only use white hat SEO methods with great results. Google made a lot of changes in 2013 and these changes molded the landscape going into 2014 and beyond. If your search optimization services isn't up to date, your results may not be as effective before.

The biggest element of SEO that changed in 2013 was link building. Link building was tough before Google made all their changes in 2013. Today, link building remains to be one of the toughest aspects of search engine optimization. So many webmasters were hit in 2013 with link penalties that damaged their rankings and website. Many webmasters have abandoned their websites and moved on.

High quality content remains to be the best way to increase your search engine rankings. I read a great article the other day on content and how content ranks in search engines. Everyone has a different opinion in regards to content building. How many articles should I publish? Should I keep my blog updated daily or weekly? How long should my content be? The article I read discussed the content that ranked on the first page of Google. How many words did the average article have that ranked on the first page of Google? Can you guess? 500? 1,000? 1,500? These aren't even close. Try 2,600.

Years ago, you could publish a few hundred words, build a few links and rank at the top of Google. In 2014, most of you won't unless you have an authority website. The point, SEO is always changing and you have to keep up with these changes. If you're hiring an SEO, make sure they know what their talking about. Make sure they are aware of the constant changes in SEO. Don't make the mistake of hiring someone that takes the title of SEO, It's your responsibility to make sure you get a real SEO expert.

Our Promise

At Hale Associations, you receive affordable SEO services from real expert SEO specialist. You get the comfort of working with a small SEO company that has your best interest at heart. Big major SEO companies can cause your website and business to be lost in the crowd of hundreds and thousands of clients. At Hale Associations, you're always put first and your business will always be in the hands of real professional search engine optimization experts. You'll never have to wait days and weeks for an answer to your questions, our customer service staff ranks among the best in customer care.

We're always here to help you succeed and we have the experience and trust to help you grow your website in the quickest most effective way. To get a free consult and evaluation today, be sure to give us a call at (304) 752-3433 or fill out our contact form above.







Thursday, March 13, 2014

SEO Tips And Techniques-Relative Associations

Learning Search Engine Optimization
 
Learning search engine optimization is crucial to all webmasters. Having a basic understanding of SEO and SEO techniques will help you build a successful website. At Hale Associations, we enjoy helping others by providing SEO tips and techniques. Today, we're going to be discussing relative associations. We always appreciate your feedback and time, don't forget to leave us a comment.
 
RELATIVE ASSOCIATIONS FOR SEO
 
Let's talk about relative associations and how it can increase your SEO rankings. Do you know why we're discussing relative associations rather then just associations? This is due to recent changes with Google. One SEO told me that relativity is the new PR. I thought about it for a few minutes and it actually inspired me to write this post. When your building links or associations for your business or website, you have to make sure it's relative and related. Hale Associations is in the SEO niche. Yes, we can play around with keywords such as social media marketing, do follow links and many other terms related to SEO. However, if I'm building links, I don't want to build links to unrelated or unassociated niches.
 
As of March 2014 and looking forward, you want your link building efforts to go to related associations. Joining business associations related to your niche is a great way to build website authority and strength. If I take my SEO business and I'm wanting to build links, I want to build links in business associations for SEO. If you have a real estate website and you're trying to build links or built your authority, linking to credible business association list and directories in real estate is a great way to so it.
 
STAY WITHIN YOUR NICHE
 
I know it can be tempting when your running your link building campaign and you come across a PR7 website that is unrelated to your business or website. You look up the link and it's a do follow link. Of course, this will not hurt your website but don't make it habit. So many webmasters fall in this trap. They go for all the high PR non-related associations and directories. Your website is not worth the risk, you keep this up an you're going to get penalized.
 
Business association links are great for your website and great for building trust. You just need to make sure their related. Don't get yourself in trouble. I don't care if they have categories or not. A good quality niche directory listing can do a lot of for your rankings. Stay within your niche and you're going to be fine.
 
CHOOSING THE RIGHT KEYWORDS
 
You need to make sure you're choosing the right keywords when you start going through Google searching for niche business associations and directory listings. You can use a lot of different SEO techniques when your link building or searching for quality directories. I believe the most important SEO tip I can give you is choosing the right keywords. You want to choose your best keywords, the keywords that have a good high score and plenty of traffic. I recently brought on a new SEO client and his main keyword is IT Consultants. I've been doing SEO for 7 years now and I know IT Consultants, IT Consulting are great keywords. I went to Google search, searched for "IT Consultant Business Associations." Plenty of great results, quality IT associations and many of them were free. I signed him up to around 10 or so, all were do follow and we seen good results in a few weeks. Remember, some links can take weeks to post.
 
Point taken, you can find quality associations in your niche, do follow links for your link building efforts and they can increase your website authority. This can be extremely beneficial if you have a new website or struggle with rankings. Choosing the right keywords is important, so make sure you're choosing the right set of keywords or phrases.
 
BUILDING LOCAL LINKS IS EFFECTIVE
 
Building local links within local business association listings and directories can be a great idea for your website. In terms of SEO, you really can't go wrong going local. Of course, the bigger your city, the better your results but it doesn't hurt to build local for your SEO. You always have local citations you can do also. If you do live in a small city or community, think about building it under the closest city to your business. Hale Associations offers freelance SEO services to the world. Even through I do, I still promote locally. It doesn't hurt. I'm located in a city with a few thousand people. There's not many people searching for SEO services in Logan, West Virginia. Although this is true, we still offer services here and we're a local business. That has value in terms of SEO and a justified business decision.
 
FINAL THOUGHTS
 
Association list and directories, local or niche related, it is an effective SEO technique. Remember, stay within your niche. Targeting less PR website is ok. If you have all links from PR4-7, Google will get you. Your linking profile, including anchor links, it should be diverse with a bunch of N/A and PR0 website and less higher PR websites. You don't have to pay for great quality business association links, it just takes some extra time searching and doing all that SEO type of work. Nothing wrong with building local, it has more value then a link or article.
 
As always, thanks for visiting my blog. If you have any questions, want to add to this article or you want to throw me under the bus, leave a comment! Hale Associations provides freelance SEO and web development services. If you're in need of our services, give us a call or send us an email. If you enjoyed my article, please take the time to share it. I enjoy helping others with SEO and web development solutions. I hope you've found this article useful and thanks for your time.