Web Design And Investment For Small Business

This morning in a San Francisco warehouse Google had rented out for the occasion, the search and social giant unveiled new and upgraded features for Google+, their social networking platform. A blog post released to coincide with the event reveals details of the upgrade, which brought 18 more Google+ features.

 This announcement means a slew of photo and video upgrades, most available this week.

Google+ appears to be taking a run at the iMovies with improvements to Auto Awesome, which they promise “can help bring your story to life in many ways.” Auto Awesome Movies gives users the ability to have movies complete with effects, transitions and a soundtrack created automatically, using the photos from an album.

Other Auto Awesome Movies features include different styles and filters users can apply over the video with a swipe and finer controls for video length, soundtrack, etc.

Google+ Photo Enhancements

Some of the changes apply to Google+ photo editing and storage on the network, while others are within the Auto Awesome tool. On photos, Google+ upgrades include:

• Full size backups and background sync for Google+ for iOS, to automatically upload photos as they’re taken.
• Over 1000 new search terms to improve Google+ photo search, expanding upon the deep learning photo surfacing search unveiled at Google I/O.
• The ability to dial auto enhancements up or down, or to exempt an album entirely.
• HDR Scrape, a new setting as part of SnapSeed to allow users to control filters strength.
• A new filter called Analog Efex Pro for the Nik collection (premium service, $149) of pro photo editing tools.

The Missing Link" is a Search Engine Watch exclusive reader-driven Q&A column with veteran content publicist Eric Ward. You can ask questions about all aspects of links and link building and Eric will provide his expert answers. Submit your questions here, and you may be featured in a future installment!

I run a small SEO agency. We have a client for whom we are about to upload a disavow file to Google. The file contains only the URLs we are unhappy with. The client asked me what would happen if we also included URLs containing backlinks to one of his competitor's sites in that disavow file. Would this have the effect of causing his competitor's site to drop in the rankings, because the URLs pointing to his site had been disavowed? And if this is true, what's to keep any site from doing this as part of a negative SEO campaign against their competitors?

– Nervous About Negative SEO

You bring up a fair point, and there have been cases where negative SEO has been shown to work.

However, there is an assumption in your question we should clarify. The question could be rephrased like this: "Do disavowed URLs lose all negative (or positive) impact for all sites they might be linking to?"

I received the following feedback from Google:

"When a URL is disavowed, it is done so only when a site owner is logged into Google Webmaster Tools, and on behalf of a site that the logged-in user has verified they own/control. So any disavow file that is uploaded is associated only with the site that user controls, and no other sites will be affected."

More often than brands would probably like, we’re given opportunities to learn about social media crisis management through the highly visible fallout from the experiences of others. This weekend, social sharing platform Buffer was hacked, resulting in a Saturday afternoon and evening crisis for the start-up.

I wouldn’t say it was a positive experience for Buffer, but I will say this: it turned out okay. Not awesome, but okay. That’s about the best you can hope for when hackers cause an interruption in service for your customers that lasts several hours.

Buffer Responded to Spam Hack Saturday Afternoon

Over several hours, I watched as Buffer communicated with media, customers and their greater social audience. Few were bashing the brand; in fact, the social buzz was largely positive across their channels. Customers praised the company for their transparency and timely communications. I was amazed to see a Buffer rep, Andy, tweeting in response to each and every mention they received at the peak of their crisis. Staff were communicating across their blog, Twitter, Facebook and through the media, to ensure customers were fully informed.

Buffer co-founder and CMO Leo Widrich took the time to discuss his company’s social media crisis management strategy with us just a day after it happened. “It was really incredible to see how everyone on the team just tried to find a way to help our users, whether in comments, with Tweets, on Facebook and via email,” he said. “I'm incredibly grateful for the people on our team and how they've responded here.”

Internet marketing isn't always the easiest thing to do. However there is one key to effective internet marketing that far too many people overlook. So, what is it that they don't do? They don't make a plan. To be fair, a lot of internet marketers think they have a plan, but saying "I'm going to make some money" is not a plan.

Perhaps that's one of the primary reasons why franchises are so popular. They present a very detailed plan for just about every aspect of running a business. But we are talking about internet marketing, not a traditional bricks and mortar business. So, what you really need for effective internet marketing is a business plan.

Let's be blunt, creating a business plan is going to take time and effort. Without one, however, you will be wandering aimlessly through your business and bringing in money in a way that's too hit or miss. You may do okay without one, but you won't see your full profit potential unless you have a business plan in place. Think of it as the difference between having a hobby and having a real business that makes you money. If you want it to be a hobby, then that's up to you; maybe you don't really need a plan.

Your plan is a sort of road map to help you define and reach your goals. A good way to start your business plan is to think of where you want to end up, then start working backwards from there. What steps will you have to take? How much will you make? How will you make it? How much will you invest? What marketing methods will you use to promote your online business? Answering questions like these will help you make a good plan.

Before we get into this article let me first state, link building is not dead.  There are a lot of opinions floating around the web on both sides; this is just mine.  Google has shut down link networks and Matt Cutts continues to make videos on what types of guest blogging are OK.  If links were dead, would Google really put in this effort?  Would anyone get an “unnatural links” warning?

The fact is, links matter.  The death is in links that are easy to manipulate.  Some may say link building is dead but what they mean is, “The easy links that I know how to build are dead.”

What does this mean for those of us who still want high rankings and know we need links to get them?  Simply, buckle up, because you have to take off your gaming hat and put on your marketing cap.  You have to understand people and you have to know how to work with them, either directly or indirectly.

I could write a book on what this means for link building as a whole, but this isn't a book, so I'll try to keep focused.  In this article, we're going to focus on one kind of link building and one source of high quality link information that typically goes unnoticed: referrer data.

I should make one note before we launch in, I'm going to use the term loosely  to provide additional value.  We'll get into that shortly but first, let's see how referrer data helps and how to use it.

The Value Of Referrer Data

Those of you who have ignored your analytics can stop reading now and start over with “A Guide To Getting Started With Analytics.”  Bookmark this article and maybe come back to it in a few weeks.  Those of you who do use your analytics on at least a semi-regular basis and are interested in links can come along while we dig in.

The question is, why is referrer data useful?  Let's think about what Google's been telling us about valuable links: they are those that you would build if there were no engines.  So where are we going to find the links we'd be happy about if there were no engines?  Why, in our traffic, of course.

If you have a website then you already know the importance of traffic. Traffic is to Internet marketing as location is to real estate. It's the only thing that really matters. If you cannot generate targeted visitors to your site, you will not make any sales.

Usually the owner or designer of the website is the person designated to drive traffic to the site. The chief ingredient in generating traffic is the search engine. Of course, you can use advertising, but it's going to cost you. Using the search engines to generate targeted (interested in your product) traffic is the least expensive method known.

Unfortunately, many website owners do not understand the importance of search engine visibility, which leads to traffic. They place more importance on producing a "pretty" website. Not that this is bad, but it is really secondary to search engine placement. Hopefully, the following list of common mistakes, made by many website owners, will help you generate more targeted traffic to your site...after all, isn't that what you want.

1. Not using keywords effectively.
This is probably one of the most critical area of site design. Choose the right keywords and potential customers will find your site. Use the wrong ones and your site will see little, if any, traffic.

2. Repeating the same keywords.
When you use the same keywords over and over again (called keyword stacking) the search engines may downgrade (or skip) the page or site.

3. Robbing pages from other websites.
How many times have you heard or read that "this is the Internet and it's ok" to steal icons and text from websites to use on your site. Don't do it. Its one thing to learn from others who have been there and another to outright copy their work. The search engines are very smart and usually detect page duplication. They may even prevent you from ever being listed by them.

Google’s autocomplete function is a complicated matter. Scratch that. The web’s content as a whole is a complicated matter. Or is it the world we live in that’s complicated? Actually, it’s a little of all three. And nowhere is this more apparent than in a recent campaign by UN Women, which demonstrates perceptions held across the globe about what women should and should not do, using Google autocomplete as the catalyst.

But what’s Google to do? Censor free speech? Well, that’s tricky. People will always hold strong beliefs offline, which will be reflected in the content that lives online. And Google isn’t going to change that without first censoring free speech.

What about suggesting something before a person has even finished typing his or her query – is that something Google should be policing?

Should Autocomplete Exist?

Many people use Google’s autocomplete function on a regular basis and find it helpful. In fact, this study by Rosetta back in 2011 showed autocomplete was one of the most-used features in an eye tracking study.

Autocomplete suggestions are served up by an algorithm that takes into account the popularity of certain search phrases, the localion of the person searching, the freshness of the search query and a person’s previous searches.

Marketers sometimes use the info in autocomplete to get a sense of what the majority of people are searching for when using a keyword or set of keywords.

At face value, Google autocomplete doesn’t sound all that bad, until you start talking about important issues like the misogynistic suggestions that are surfacing and referenced in the ads UN Women put out.

Should Google Censor Autocomplete Then?

Well, Google has and does censor autocomplete and the connected Google Instant feature (serving up results before a person hits enter) at will. There is a rumored blacklist of terms that Google won’t assist searchers in finding results for in autocomplete or in Instant.