Author Archives: Ryan Clark
Google Caffeine Slowing Down Google Crawling Rates?
I’m sure you’ve come here for a reason, you’ve also noticed the large drop in Google bot crawling activity going on in the past week or so. I’ve noticed it across just about all of my sites, and I’m hearing nothing but Google cursing coming loud and strong from webmaster forums across the web. While right now there is just mainly speculation as to what’s going on of course, but I thought I’d open up another avenue of discussion right here. While I have yet to hear something drastic happen to someones site, but it’s quite early to tell what is going on. Please leave your thoughts in the comments, or links to other useful webmaster discussions on the topic…apart from my links below of course!
Related Reads & Resources:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4152972.htm
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/022389.html
http://www.v7n.com/forums/google-forum/195076-google-bot-having-troubles-crawl-sites.html
Ecommerce Sites and Google Mayday
A lot of you know I do a lot of Ecommerce Link Building and it can be a sour lover sometimes to fight the uphill battle against Google. The recent Mayday update from Google took a good look at the long tail search arena, and hit a few Ecommerce sites harder than a lot of people expected. I’ll try and give you folks a few pointers to either keep your long tail traffic, improve it or gain back the losses from the past 45 days.
There are a lot of iffy factors that come into play with online shops, and for those who handle them as a one man team know they’re life is already hell. The duties included with running the shop online are plentiful, and marketing is not really something a lot of you folks have time to handle. Now when your traffic gets hit by a large, noticeable amount, what is a person to do? I currently have several Ecommerce clients, and only one had a strange issue within the past month. I’ve had the chance to also look over my shop online which didn’t take a hit, it is well on its way to double the natural search traffic this month!
Content Fit For A King:
The one very important, and obvious factor that I noticed right away was the structure of the shops content. My clients with lengthy, unique descriptions above the fold saw nothing but improvement in the SERPs. Matt Cutts mentioned that this is specifically what they were going after;
This change seems to have primarily impacted very large sites with “item” pages that don’t have many individual links into them, might be several clicks from the home page, and may not have substantial unique and value-added content on them. For instance, Ecommerce sites often have this structure. The individual product pages are unlikely to attract external links and the majority of the content may be imported from a manufacturer database. Of course, as with any change that results in a traffic hit for some sites, other sites experience the opposite. Based on Matt’s comment at Google I/O, the pages that are now ranking well for these long tail queries are from “higher quality” sites (or perhaps are “higher quality” pages).
So that’s definitely something to worry about for people with thousands of products. I only have shops with 40 or less products, so I’ve been lucky enough to have unique content for each of my pages. I have had a couple hotel chains come to me after being hit, too many of the same short info pages for their hotels.
My product pages also bring in my social media from around the web such as embedded Youtube videos on the product, the latest tweets and customer reviews which add unique content value. You would be surprised how many Ecommerce sites I see without customer reviews allowed. It’s easy enough to manage to get something going because it also can inspire the confidence needed to make that shopper complete the sale.
Internal & External Linking:
Mr Cutts also mentions that the pages were often not linked well, and this is something I almost always see. Great examples of doing it too good are of course Zappos and Overstock.com, so give them a real good look into for inspiration. While external link building takes time, you can start with a few easy internal link building options.
– provide links from your blog to internal pages…blog about your products!
– provide internal links from related product pages
– add more content to already indexed pages…then yes, add a few related internal links
As for link building, you should be utilizing all avenues that relate to your business including business directories, guest blogging, social media and content marketing. Keep things flowing at a normal rate and you’ll eventually get to the point where the snowball effect takes over, and your rankings grow in due time.
Related Reads:
http://pro-webs.net/blog/2010/06/02/google-mayday/
http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/article.php/3887726
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ6CtBmaIQM
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4125460.htm
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-googles-may-day-update-what-it-means-for-you
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-mayday-update-a-closer-look-at-impact/21384/
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4144824.htm
http://searchengineland.com/google-confirms-mayday-update-impacts-long-tail-traffic-43054
http://www.redflymarketing.com/blog/view-from-the-other-side-of-the-may-day-update/
http://econsultancy.com/blog/6092-google-may-day-update-five-tips-for-e-commerce-sites
http://www.buckdat.com/2010/06/did-google-fix-mayday-effect-on-june.html
Check.in For The Location Based App Freaks
I had thought with the advent of Twitter that my time was now doomed. Not only did I have to blog, handle clients, make videos and write reports. But, now I have to manage my location based apps to make sure I have a decent following. There’s no doubt that Foursquare, Facebook, Gowalla and Yelp are seeing huge growth from location based check-in apps. Businesses of any size should have already started marketing any of these platforms because local search domination will be mainly achieved through these means…well, that’s what I think anyway. I would not want to miss out on the shift that is taking place right now, so check out Check.in to handle multiple check in logins on location based apps.
Starbucks + Foursquare = Win
So I’m sure you’ve all ready by now the success Starbucks has recently had with Foursquare…well let’s just say social media in general. While I believe the numbers don’t really match up, and they’re most likely over playing Foursquare’s role, but still there is a wake-you-up lesson to be learned here. The discounts they offered to the Mayor’s has affected me personally…why? Well I’ve been getting crazy discounts from not only my local Starbucks, but many other restaurants in the area. I’m seeing my non marketing friends embracing Foursquare just for the deals, so it’s safe to say you can no longer avoid Foursquare.
Resource Furniture Markets Itself
I can honestly say I`ve never been huge into furniture, not until recently anyway. I recently saw the video posted below, I was blown away…by furniture! Resource Furniture makes some of the neatest, most customizable furniture for the modern era….that I`m aware of anyway. Here in Vancouver we`re all pretty much in condos, so this style of furniture really caught my eye. After realizing I just spent 30 minutes studying a product because of that video, I thought it might make an interesting post.
The company has been around since 2000, but there web presence has only recently started building traction. When you have a product that produces content like that, then you`ve got a winner. It`s actually rare I get to work with a site where the product is unique enough to do the link building(gee I wonder why :). This company only needs to create some ripples before they turn into waves. I would try and remind yourself to check back in on this company in 6 months time to see just what leveraging social media has done for their link profile.
This video below came out recently and since then they have seen some great growth. If you`ve got a cool product coming out keep this in mind, learn how it`s done properly and get to it. Once you get that ball rolling, you`ll only have to focus on building your business, and not spending time marketing your brains out.
Remember the Milk.. and a Whole Bunch of Other Stuff
I just wanted to quickly give as much praise and props to the folks who’ve created Remember The Milk. I have come to realize how handy this web and mobile app is to keep my personal, and professional life in check. Sadly our human brains don’t utilize its full potential, so who couldn’t benefit from this? There is a free version of RTM, as well as a $25 USD/Year price for the pro account. You can also get the iPhone app, it’s on Android as well as a Blackberry app to keep track of things on the go, although it also comes at a price, it isn’t very much. Sadly, our new staff member Simon is left out of the fun since his Palm Pre isn’t quite cool enough to play along.
Promote Your Company On Manta.com
Every once in a while I come across a business directory that is above and beyond what we usually come to know as a “directory”. While I don’t advocate the submitting your site to 2000 web directories all over the web, but rather get your site reviewed and approved by a real human. While Manta.com is a business directory for small to mid-sized businesses, it really goes above and beyond that title. It’s really more of a business resource center for businesses of any size. Manta provides a wealth of content both video, audio and contextual to stimulate, help or empower your business mind. Currently you can submit your company for free, but sadly this is only open to US companies at the moment…but I’m sure that will change.
