Tag Archives: seo

Google Doesn’t Rank Websites

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This is Part 4 in a series of posts on getting your massage blog ranked in Google. You can read the other posts starting here.

It may come as a surprise that Google doesn’t rank your website, but it’s true…

Google and the other search engines don’t rank your website as a whole, but rather rank individual pages within your website, or in this case your blog.

So it may not always be the home page of your blog that shows up in search results. In fact, it will likely be a specific blog post that shows up in the results.

What does that mean to you? It means that you can increase your chances of catching Google’s eyes dramatically by creating a variety of pages on your site each with a different focus. It’s also important to have backlinks, not just to your home page, but to other site pages as well. Let me give you an example to make this more concrete…

If have one page that lists all modalities I use in my practice (including reflexology), It would be difficult for Google to consider that page important if someone went online and searched for “Dallas reflexology” because all modalities have equal billing.

However… if I create a page about “Dallas reflexology” and have other posts on my site that look at various facets of reflexology and reference my “Dallas reflexology” page with a link,  then suddenly my page has a very clear focus for people searching for “Dallas reflexology”. Google sees that as being relevant information for searchers and will likely rank that page highly in the search results when someone types that term into the search box.

Now that you have an basic understanding how Google is going to rank your blog pages, start your list of terms that people are likely to type when looking for your services and every once and a while use one of those terms as the theme for a blog post.

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Basic Blog SEO – Part 3

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As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) to get your blog pages ranked, Google looks at two things to determine how high it will rank your blog pages in the search results:

  1. The content of your page (called on-page factors)
  2. What others are saying about your website (off-page factors)

In my last post we looked at the on-page factors, that is, the words on the page. (If you haven’t read it yet, it might be a good idea to look it over before reading this post.) Today we’ll look at the off-page stuff…

Off page stuff

Now let’s look at the stuff that’s not on your site and that Google factors into their ranking. These factors could account for 60% to 70% of your ranking.

The guys that developed the Google search algorithm had a simple idea that they took from the field of research. When you look at a scientific research paper you’ll find that the writers will cite information from other researchers. The more a researcher is cited in these papers, the more important she is considered to be. The most frequently cited researchers are considered experts or authorities in the field. That’s the same principle that Google uses to determine the real value of a site.

If lots of other sites are making references to your site by publishing links to your website, then Google makes the assumption that your site must be important and one that should be ranked more highly in the search engines.

Google looks for and keeps a record of how many links there are to your site (called back links). It also considers the source of those links, (i.e. do they come from other reputable sites?) and looks at the words that are used to link to your site (called the anchor text) to get additional clues as to what kind of content those links point to.

The Real You…

After all this analysis Google has essentially two snapshots of your site, one that shows what your site looks like from your perspective (on-page factors) and one that shows what your site looks like to the outside world (off-page factors).

Just as in real life, the way we see ourselves and the way others see us don’t always match. So Google combines these different viewpoints to get a more accurate idea as to what your site is about and the value of your pages. Then the Google engineers add some other secret special ingredients and come up with a ranking for each of your pages.

This is the third of four posts on optimizing your massage blog for Google. Subscribe to the BodyworkBiz blog to get new posts sent to your inbox automatically.

Top Five Search Terms for the BodyworkBiz Blog

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So far in our discussion of basic search engine optimization for your massage blog we’ve looked at “on-page” factors and in particular keywords.

It’s important to measure the things you do to grow your business. I have Google Analytics set up to give me reports on the performance of my blog. One of the more fascinating reports is the search terms people use to find your blog.

Here are the top five search terms for the BodyworkBiz blog over the past year…

  1. massage logos
  2. michael jordan
  3. man eats airplane
  4. turd
  5. eric brown massage therapist

The fact that “turd” is more highly sought after than me is only somewhat disturbing. It comes from a quote, “If it’s not working, you can’t polish a turd.” and is accompanied by a great picture of turd polish.

Likewise the Michael Jordan post is a simply a quote.

Massage therapists are obviously interested in creating logos for their business and I’ve done a couple posts on the topic. This one got the most traffic.

I don’t know what inspires people to look for the term “man eats airplane”, but it is an interesting story and ties back into getting things done in your massage practice.

What’s the takeaway?

Blog posts often get found for searches using “long tail keywords”. These are odd phrases and combinations of words that are somewhat unique. These are not always keywords that have commercial intent. For example, if someone types in “online massage business course” it’s clear that they are looking to purchase an online business course. That’s commercial intent. The person who types in “man eats airplane” has informational intent. They are looking for information about a man who eats airplanes, not for business courses.

So if you want to use your blog as a search engine optimization tool and have your posts show up for searches with commercial intent, it’s important to write posts that contain those commercial phrases. For example is someone is looking for a massage therapist in Broomfield, they are going to type in phrases like “massage Broomfield” “Broomfield massage therapist” or “massage therapy Broomfield”. So find a way to incorporate those phrases in your blog titles, file names and content.

Also be sure to include your name and your business occasionally throughout your blog posts or publish press releases to your blog that contains information about your business in the event that someone knows to search for your name or your business name.

I’ll discuss SEO for your blog posts in a future article. So if you are not subscribed to this blog, take a minute to sign up so new posts get sent to your inbox.

Getting Ranked in Google – Part 2

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Be sure to read Part 1 before reading today’s post.

Part of getting a top ranking page in Google is providing content related to what searchers are looking for. This on-page stuff is responsible for 20% to 30% of your ranking. So it’s extremely important that the content is relevant to a searcher’s query.

I’ve talked about “search intent” in an earlier post. Providing valuable information and viewpoints is an excellent way to showcase your expertise. Ideally, however, you want to connect with people who are wanting to purchase massage, so at least some of your pages should have commercial intent. That is, you want people who are looking to spend their money on massage to find you.

So if you are a massage therapist in Dallas, what are searchers in Dallas going to be typing into the search box when they want a massage?

You don’t need to be a genius to figure out that they will likely type “massage Dallas”or if they are an informed consumer, “massage therapy Dallas” into the Google search box.

So at least some of your blog pages should have “Dallas massage” or “Dallas massage therapy” as a topic or theme.

What else might they type into the search box that has commercial intent?

How about “massage therapist Dallas” (title search) or “reflexology Dallas” (modality or service type search) or “massage downtown Dallas” or “hotel massage Dallas” (location-specific searches)?

So compile a list of some of the most likely search terms and create a blog post using those words as the theme of your post. Try to use them in the post title, headline, and once or twice in the body of the post.

For example, you may want to have a separate page with some information on each modality you offer (Dallas reflexology, Dallas facials). Again, Google will see each of these pages as being very much related to the searcher’s request when they type in those particular terms into the search box and will rank that specific page high in the search results when someone has a specific need they are looking to fill.

Matching words in your blog post with search terms is extremely important. If you type the words “massage and sleep disorders” into Google, you’re likely to see this page of the ABCs of Massage Therapy blog in the first page of search results because it was optimized for that term. Type in “massage and insomnia” and it’s unlikely to show up.

In terms of getting ranked at the top of Google, it doesn’t really matter to Google that your site looks beautiful. What matters most is that your site is relevant to what the searcher is looking for.

So it’s our job that we help Google identify what you do and how you can help the searchers who use their search engine. That’s what makes our website super sexy in Google’s eyes and is the basis of Search Engine Optimization for you blog.

This is the second of four posts on optimizing your massage blog for Google. Subscribe to the BodyworkBiz blog to get new posts sent to your inbox automatically.

Getting Your Blog Posts Ranked In Google – Part 1

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Google essentially looks at two things when deciding how high it will rank your blog pages in the search results:

  1. The content of your page (called on-page factors)
  2. What others are saying about your website (off-page factors)

On-page stuff

The Google computers have the job of analyzing as many pages on the web as they can possibly find. When they find a page they look at all the words and start indexing these much like an author would create an index for a book.

They look at single words and groups of words and note how frequently they occur and where they occur on your page (ex. in the domain name, headlines, picture captions, etc.) By looking at the text like this they can determine with a certain level of accuracy what your any page is about.

So when it’s all over and done Google has a comprehensive index of each page of your site and they store that index information on their servers for reference when someone does a search.

Side note: Here’s something you may not know: When Google does a search, they don’t search the web. They simply search their index. Google spends a lot of time, money and computing power on creating their index, just like authors take time to compile the index for a book so you can quickly and easily find where the information you’re looking for is located in the text.

The basic plan from Google’s perspective is to pull up pages that match the searcher’s query as closely as possible.

This is the first of four posts on optimizing your massage blog for Google. Subscribe to this blog to get new posts sent to your inbox automatically.

What’s an RSS Feed

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One of the unique features of a blog is what’s called an “RSS feed”. The RRS stands for “really simple syndication”. Without getting technical, an RSS feed is really just a easy way to publish or share your blog content.

For example, if you go here: http://www.squidoo.com/massage-therapy-logos and scroll down to the part that says “More Business Tips” you’ll see how I’ve inserted my RSS feed into this page so that my blog posts are updated automatically.

You may find opportunities to use your RSS feed in this way and some people may want to subscribe to your blog using an “RSS reader”.

What’s also interesting is that many website owners will look for RSS feeds to publish (or syndicate) on their own sites. So it makes sense to list your blog URL and RSS feed in various blog directories to make your blog easier to find.

An RSS feed is a link. The BodyworkBiz Blog RSS link looks like this: http://feeds.feedburner.com/EricBrownBlog. You may need to go into the settings of your blog to find your RSS feed.

If you are using blogger your RSS feed should be:

http://blogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss (replace blogname with the name of your blog)

If you’ve installed WordPress on your site the RSS feed is usually:

http://yourdomain.com/wp-feed.php (replace yourdomain.com with your own domain name)

Tomorrow we’ll look at submitting your blog URL and RSS feed to directories for higher rankings and more traffic.

What You Should Know about the New Google Plus Local

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One of the easiest ways of getting found at the top of Google over this past year has been a free Google Places listing. What you may not know is that Google recently completely changed the face of Google Places.  As a matter of fact, it is no longer Google Places.  It is now Google Plus Local – a drastic overhaul of the previous Google Places platform.

The good news is that Google Plus Local has the power to completely revolutionize the way you are used to interacting with customers via Google Places.  You might be surprised to find that the more you learn about Google Plus Local, the more excited you are to use it, and this is your perfect starting point for learning more.  Here is a guide to what local businesses should know about the new Google Plus Local:

Social Networking.  Google Plus Local is a major upgrade from the previous yellow-pages concept of Google Places.  In order to claim your Google Plus Local page, you must first create a Google Plus account.  This means you are automatically linked in to the entire Google Plus social network – a vast community of businesses, customers, and potential customers that you can interact with in a variety of ways, from posts to private messages.

The new review format.  One of the primary focuses of Google Plus Local is customer reviews; however, Google Plus Local reviews are more advanced than what you might be used to.  Fortunately for you, they also come with some great advantages.  Customers who leave reviews on your page must be logged in to their Google Plus accounts; this means there are no more anonymous reviews, which in turn means you are less likely to receive malicious or spam reviews.  You can also communicate with reviewers directly.

User ratings.  Additionally, reviewers will have the opportunity to rate your business more thoroughly and accurately, using the new Zagat scale (as opposed to the previous 5-star scale).  The Zagat scale asks that customers rate your business from 0 to 3, in a number of categories related to your business, in order to calculate an overall rating of 0 to 30.  This system is much more telling for potential customers, and much more revealing for businesses looking to improve.

What happens to your Google Places listing?  Google makes the process of switching over to Google Plus fast and simple, by allowing you to transfer your Google Places listing information over to your Google Plus Local account.

I’ll be posting more details of this important change in the coming weeks and will provide you with some specific how to advice for maximizing the benefit from your free Google listing.

Major changes for Google Places

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With all the changes going on with Google’s ranking formula, using search engine optimization (SEO) to get your site highly ranked in Google has become extremely difficult for any business, let alone a massage business.

As a result, I’ve been encouraging massage professionals to use Google Places. It the fastest and easiest way to get your business found at the top of search results. These are the results with the map and the little red push pins you see whenever you do a search for a local service, ex. “Denver massage therapy”.

Although there are a lot of factors in getting your listing to rank highly, claiming and filling out your free Google Places listing is the first place to start.

Yesterday, something interesting happened to search results for local business. Google announced the launch of Google+ Local and removed the typical Google Places results.

Do a search for massage in your area and see if you notice anything different. Here are the changes for “spa Aspen” …

What you see above is the old Google Places on the left and the new Google+ Local on the right. In a nutshell, here’s what has changed:

  • There is a new Local: tab in Google+, making it another area for users to search for a local destination
  • Google+ Local pages will be seen in Google search, Maps, and mobile
  • Google+ Local now allows businesses to use all the same social tools found in and Google+ Profile. This includes posts, videos, photos and the ability to find and filter business based on the reviews and recommendations from family/ friends in your circles.
  • Zagat reviews (which Google bought last September) has replaced Google Star Ratings with Zagat’s 30-point rating scale.
  • Reviews are now going to be added through Google+ users’ account. This means that the ability to post anonymous reviews has been removed. Reviewers need to be logged into Google+ to leave a review. Note: Old reviews are being brought over to the new Google+Local Pages, so no worries!

Google has been increasingly integration its social networking platform Google+ into its other services. This is another move in that direction and increases the  integration of local listings into Google+.

It looks like could change Google Places significantly. But there’s no need to panic. In fact, chances are you haven’t even optimized your free Google listing.

I’ll follow the developments and report back to you on how you can best benefit from these new changes and maximize your ranking with the new Google+ integration. Make sure you are subscribed to this blog, subscribe to the BodyworkBiz newsletter, or simply subscribe to my Facebook updates by clicking the button below.

Make sure you take advantage of these changes. If you take action now, you’re going to benefit by getting a leg up on your competition.

 

Google turns things upside down

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How do I get my site ranked in Google? That’s what people have asked me for years. And until about a year ago, the answer was relatively simple. Until that time, it was relatively easy to force your rank up using some pretty straightforward, tried-and-true SEO methods.

However, since last spring Google has pretty much turned SEO (the processes used to get your site ranked) on its head, really. The biggest ranking changes were rolled out between March and August, 2011. But it didn’t stop there.

Google has continued to update after update, about twice monthly, since last summer. It’s nearly impossible to keep up with their changes and work through the implications.

Although keywords will always remain an important factor in ranking we’ve known for many years that Google has been tracking user activity and basing more of your ranking on how a searcher interacts with your site.

For example, if a person types “massage atlanta” in Google, clicks on a site and then immediately comes back to the search results, then that’s an indication that the site was not useful for that term. On the other hand, if they click on a link and stay on that website for several minutes then it’s more likely that they’ve found what they are looking for and engaging with that site. As a result Google ranks that second site higher based on the user’s activity.

What does that mean for you, as a small business owner trying to get found online by potential clients? I’ll tell you in a moment, but first some news…

The Google Knowledge Graph

Google introduced the Google Knowledge Graph just a few days ago. Essentially, it has taken what it knows about user behavior, maps it out and presents you with search results based on what other users have found useful in the past. It’s a whole new way of creating search results that are meaningful for users. Here’s a little video that describes what your search results will contain in the coming weeks…

What’s that mean for me?

Actually, not that much. So there is no need to freak out.

You have a local business site, not an informational site and Google treats local businesses like yours differently. It’s still important to write your pages around keyword phrases (the terms that people use to find you) and get links back to your site. More importantly, you need to focus more time and energy on Google Places and other review sites. In the new world of Google, this is the easiest way for you to get found by potential clients.

If you’d like more information on how to do that, subscribe to the BodyworkBiz newsletter, get blog updates sent to your inbox or subscribe to my personal updates on Facebook where I’ll give you this kind of information in an easy to understand way and help you get found in Google. Just click the subscribe button below:

If you find these updates helpful, do me a favor and tell your friends by using one of the sharing buttons below. Or tell me what kinds of things you’d like to know about in the comments section below and I’ll write about these in future blog posts.

 

Google Places Describes You

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Google Places is one of the easiest ways to get your site found at the top of Google rankings. And it just keeps getting more and more interesting. Now Google is rolling out descriptive words for your business within the listing. These are taken from sources all across the web, such as reviews, web pages and other online references, and they can help people quickly identify the characteristics that make a particular place unique.

If you haven’t claimed your free Google listing yet, do it today: http://www.google.com/places/