Google Analytics: The Report You Must Run (part 1)

There has always been a great deal of confusion surrounding Google Panda. And that makes total sense. It's quite irritating, confusing, and has negatively impacted so many websites out there.
The Panda algorithm update should have been given the appellation of "Octopus." Why? Because Google Panda has so many tentacles. Certainly, everyone is aware that Panda targets "low-quality content," but exactly does that phrase mean? How does one distinguish low from high quality content? The answer isn't as transparent as SEO experts would like. A lot of parameters are in play, and with the dynamic, constantly evolving nature of Google's search engines, the parameters change often as well, making it very difficult to achieve any sort of predictability. But not everything is entirely unknown. There are certain behaviors or courses of action that SEO experts have identified as injurious to one's SEO ranking. That list includes: duplicate content, content that is thin, doorway pages, poor-quality affiliate content, technical issues that lead to thin content, cross-linking schemes, and so on.

The point is that the act of identifying and breaking down why Panda knocked you down the rankings is incredibly difficult. It is a handful for SEO experts, so there's no question that it is almost inconceivable for an amateur to accomplish such a feat. Many business owners are trying to get to the bottom of what knocked them down the rankings. The impact that Panda has had on their businesses has been a painful blow, one that certainly limits the number of leads in the pipeline. The recovery process for this undesirable event takes many months, possibly years, depending on one's competition.
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Using Twitter to Boost SEO

If you have a business that you'd like to promote online to generate leads, and you are not familiar with Twitter, then it's time to change that. For those few who are still in the dark, Twitter is a social media site that helps you share ideas and information instantly, without barriers. And for businessmen - individuals who want to get their name out there on the market - what better tool is there to use in today's world than a social media platform that gives one the ability to reach out to millions of people worldwide in just seconds? The answer is that there isn't a better tool. Twitter is the one. With Twitter, you can follow people in order to catch their tweets (short messages) as they send them out. You can also have them follow you so that whenever you send a message out to the Twitter world, your followers will see what you wrote in their feed. With that said, it is vital to stress the importance of increasing the number of followers that you have. The more followers, the wider the reach of your tweets. If you are a Houston Web Design Firm offering wonderful Web Design services, it'd make sense to want to make yourself visible - to let the market know that you are out there and that you can meet the market's web site design needs. Twitter will help such a company do just that - reach out to people and let them know that their services are available if needed. Below is a graph that displays how much Twitter has grown over time. The improvements have been astronomical.
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Fresh Content: How it Influences SEO Rankings (part 2)

4. How Creating A New Page Affects Freshness

Rather than altering a single page, websites include totally new pages after a while. This happens to also be the case for the majority of blogs out there. Sites adding brand new pages at a faster rate earn a much better freshness score than sites that add new pages on a less frequent basis. Several SEOs say that you ought to add twenty to thirty percent new pages to your site every single year. By doing this, it offers an opportunity to generate fresh content that is also relevant, though it must be said that one shouldn't neglect old relevant content just to get this sort of attention. Don't remove an article or any other content that is clear, accurate, relevant, precise, just because it is not new. Freshness is important, but there is a limit to how much emphasis that should be put on it. There is an Aristotelian mean at play here - a perfect amount, so to speak. And when it comes to focusing on freshness, experts like the Houston Web Design firm Networtech suggest that adding new content for the sake of adding new content does more harm than good.

5. Subtle Changles to Important Content: It Makes A Difference

Alterations made in what the majority would consider "important" parts of a page or post will improve the freshness quotient differently than if the content were altered in a less important area. Content that is less important includes ads, navigation and content that is far below the place we call "the fold." Vital content is most typically in the area above the fold.

6. Rate of Brand New Link Growth Helps With Freshness

If a page on a website sees an uptick in the number of places its link is displayed on the web, this could be a sign to search engines that the page is relevant and significant - more than those that get shared very little. For instance, if individuals begin linking to your personal site because you are going to tie the knot with your wife, your site could be considered more relevant and significant, and of course fresh, in the eyes of the major search engines. With all that said, a rather dramatic increase in the number of places your link is displayed on the web can result in Google and other search engines to consider you a spammer. And by no means do you want to be identified as such. With said label, your SERP rankings will drop precipitously. If you maintain authenticity and focus on getting yourself up the SERP ladder ethically, like web design and online marketing firm Networtech, you will see the success that this Houston Web Design firm has achieved at some point not so far from now.

Fresh Content: How it Influences SEO Rankings (part 1)

When it comes to SEO, content freshness is among the most important factors that Google focuses on to decide where to place your website listing on its search engine results pages. Google measures every single document for freshness. It then gives a score to each page, based on the type of search query. Although several queries demand fresh content, Google still uses older content for other queries. This is incredibly important information for online marketing and web design firms. Knowing this is of great value. There are three types of search queries that need fresh content: recent events, events that recur on the regular, frequent updates. Examples include:

• Recent events: "Trayvon Market vs. Mike Zimmerman"
• Recurring events: "UEFA Champions League Scores"
• Frequent updates: "Honda Civic reviews"

It is important to note that the specifications of how Google's search algorithm functions is still fairly nebulous. It is still mostly speculation, based on a limited amount of information; still theories, but certainly grounded in reason and logic. Nothing trumps actual experience. Taking some time to experiment, using trial and error, is highly recommended. Doing so can bring to one a deeper understanding of how the search algorithm operation. It's just that it may take a good while - perhaps over a year - to learn something significant, but don't let that time span discourage you. The knowledge extracted will be a burst of illumination that can and will accelerate exponentially. And this, no doubt, is knowledge that can be utilized to improve impressions and conversions.

1. Freshness by Inception Date

Any particular webpage is given what is called a "freshness" score, depending on its respective inception date. It is incredibly important to note that this score decays over time. The freshness score can help expand the visibility of a particular morsel of content for certain search queries; however, its visibility wanes as the content becomes older.

2. Document Changes Affects Freshness

It isn't just how old a webpage is that influences the freshness factor. What plays a huge factor is how much change one makes on his or her own website. For instance, the alteration of a minor sentence will not have nearly as great of a freshness impact as a larger change.

3. Rate of Document Change

Content that is altered on the regular is scored differently than content that is altered less frequently. The frequency of content alteration is another factor that makes a big difference SEO-wise. For example, take a look at the homepage of Fox News. It makes updates to its website every single day, including on weekends. Fox News will get a higher score in the eyes of Google's ranking methodology than a website that makes updates once a week, even if that one article gets greater hits than the hits Fox gets on all of its articles combined. True, that one article will be ranked higher than any of Fox's articles, but overall, Fox will be rated just as high, if not higher, thanks to freshness of content. Of course, the content still has to be valuable and view-worthy. An article with nothing but keywords that is just incoherent will not do.

To be continued.

AdWords Update: Say Goodbye to the Exact Match (part 2)

In the PPC-world of today, flipping off those close variants on an actual exact match keyword would permit ads to solely be displayed for "ladies clothes" and not for any of the other misspelled variants. Although this greater "net-approach" of closer variants holds a great many pros, the majority of very sharp advertisers tend to avoid this strategy. The reason for that is that you can't assure what keyphrases you'll be spending your ad budget on. Below, we have listed a few instances of 1. close variant matching on keywords occurring when the budget has stringent constraints, or 2. if there exists a chance for a less expensive cost-click:

• [surgery] ---> [surgeon]
  Query - “cosmetic plastic surgery anaheim”
  Keyword - cosmetic plastic surgeon anaheim
• [cardiology] ---> [cardio]
  Query - “cardio prevention program”
  Keyword - “cardiology”
• [fire] ---> [firefighter]
  Query - “german fire helmet”
  Keyword - german firefighter helmet”

Indeed, a vast majority of the above matches are similar in spelling but they are also quite dissimilar in meaning. An individual looking for "cardio" likely is not searching for a doctor who does heart transplants, or a team of cardiologists. For the user who has now drifted away from close variants, it is necessary to keep an incredible amount of attention on those account(s). Not doing so can not only leave a bunch of money on the table, but also be very costly and deplete one's budget on irrelevant search terms that won't get you any clicks or conversions. Impressions are always nice, but there is no point in getting an impression if you are absolutely certain that your audience has no interest in what it is that you have to offer.

The thing that makes exact exact matches and phrase matches so wonderful is the fact that users can actually assure that a person doing a search used a particular phrase which caused an ad to trigger. But what is the silver-linnig? It is this: with voice and mobile search, you will more often than not capture those conversions that you did not before. Even though you may think that you've got it all down and that your campaigns have been fully optimized, this matching will force you into deeper and deeper dives that hopefully uncover a profitable pay per click pocket. All this has given experts reason to believe that what is in store for advertisers in the future will be something greatly different to what exists in the present. Since the Hummingbird update, along with the shift toward a more object-based advertising approach, experts argue that we are heading in the direction of a "keyword-less world."

Networtech Consulting Group has emerged as one of the top-notch online marketing and web design firms in the market. They build professional, intuitive, aesthetically-pleasing websites at incredibly affordable prices.

AdWords Update: Say Goodbye to the Exact Match (part 1)

Google has just declared that in early October, AdWords advertisers won't be able to deselect close variants anymore. Every single campaign will now be including these variants, making them necessary and no longer optional. Though, other than that, the process and the way in which these close variants function will be the same. This may be alarming to a great many amatuer advertisers. Having to refamiliarize oneself with the advertising process may be arduous and time-consuming, and the time it takes to understand the changes will be time that isn't being spent advertising. Fortunately, at Networtech Consulting Group, a flourishing Houston Web Design and Online Marketing Team, these changes are well understood, and so the online marketing and advertising done at Networtech will not need to slow down one bit.

And Why Is This Significant?

If you're a paid advertiser enjoying total control of a campaign, you're a bit out of luck. By late September, this feature will no longer exist and will no longer be available to you.
How about we begin by looking at what a "close variant" actually is. A close variant is a veritably interesting handy feature that permits matching to be present on misspelled words and iterations that are quite close to the keywords existing in the campaign. It is a fantastic tool for anyone seeking to save a bit of his or her time. With it, you can gather a greater coverage & reach than you otherwise could have. Every single campaign, by default to supposed to have this particular setting turned on, but it can be shut off manually if one prefers not to use it.
A plurality of campaigns are organized in this way. An example of one of these close variants would be an advertiser with close variants turned on using an exact match term of "ladies clothes." The ad will also show for the following terms:

• laydees clothes
• laides clothing
• ladeez cl othes
• laideez clothez
• laideys clothes
• ladis clothz
• leydiz clothes
• ladees clothes
• leydys clothes

Click here to read part 2 of this article.

Google Analytics: An Introduction

Google Analytics is a tool that automatically collects facts and statistics about a website's traffic and traffic sources. It also measures the conversions and sales that the website is generating. With this information, businesses and organizations can identify where they stand in terms of the online market share - whether their online marketing stategies are a valuable return on investment. Web Design and Online Marketing companies swear by the value that Google Analytics provides. Networtech, for example, has been using Google Analytics since its inception. It has helped them boost their ROI and market share, making them a highly regarded entity in the Houston Web Design domain. Covered below are some of the frequently asked questions pertaining to Google Analytics and the value it provides.

Why should I gauge my website metrics at all? Of what use is it to me?

Learning what your website visitors like about your website can help you in achieving your business goals. How? Say you are selling clothing on your website. You've got one page dedicated to men's clothing and another page dedicated to women's clothing. Google Analytics can tell you which pages are being clicked on most frequently. With this knowledge, you can identify which gender is more interested in what you offer. This information can help you, say, recognize that increasing the amount of marketing done towards women may yield a positive ROI.

So how do I sync Google Analytics to my actual website?

Getting started is fairly simple. Go to the Google Analytics home page and create an account. Just follow the account setup steps. When you've taken care of that, you'll be given a snippet of Analytics Hyper Text Markup Language. You want to insert the HTML code into your website. This is basically how Google Analytics gains access to your website's usage stats.

What are Google Analytics "Goals"?

Once you've installed Google Analytics' tracking code, you've got to identify which key site visitor action-steps you want to keep an eye on. These are what are called your Goals - and by measuring which kinds of content attract the most visitors, you can gauge whether or not your goals are being met. Listed below are the 4 main types of Goals:

• Destination: A specific location within your site.
• Duration: The length of time a person remains on your website before exing out of the browser.
• Page & Screens Per Visit: Which pages a visitor goes to during a single visit
• Events: An action that a visitor has taken during the course of a visit. This can be an ad click, a social media share, or a video play/

Is there a way for me to find out how people discover my site?

Is this valuable information? Of course it is! Knowing what is attracting visitors to your website gives you incredibly valuable online marketing insight. Google Analytics has a feature known as a Keywords report. This report displays which keyword search terms generate traffic to your website. You can use this keyword data to better your website's search engine rankings. You will increase your awareness of the people who are linking to you when, where & why. By recognizing what draws folks to your site can assist you in giving them exactly more of what it is that they want, which ought to increase engagement - encouraging repeats and more frequent, long-lasting visits.

Is there a way for me to see which browsers and devices folks view my website on?

The section called Google Analytics Audience is where you can go to see the 'browsers used' statistics: the browsers people use to view your site. Here, you can also find out what devices people use: smart phones, tablets, PCS, etc. With this knowledge, you can choose to optimize the browsing experience for a particular browser or device, like an iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy.
And so you have it - a list of some of the most frequently asked questions. There are many more, but for now, these five will help you best develop that basic understanding of what Google Analytics is, how it works, and why people should use it.

Google AdWords Optimization

Far too many advertising campaigns are not profitable right from the get-go. In fact, a few of the most successful AdWords campaigns lost hundreds of dollars in the first several months of testing before a turnaround was made.
Most would consider this wasted money. Most would fail to see that those first several profitless months were actually an invaluable investment in market research. The data collected from those months would typically be used to:

• juxtapose those profitable popular keywords to those which were not
• launch a brand new campaign using a yet to be used medium (e.g. direct mail)
• make a quick change to the business strategy before losing more of your funds

Improving A Campaign While It's Up & Running

First and foremost, it is important to check your account on a regular basis. Even when you think there's not much work to be done, that everything seems to be in place and that there isn't a need to make any changes, it is vital that you remain on top of things. By that, I mean, checking the status of your keywords at least every other day or so - just to make sure that the Quality Scores are still high and that you're either not leaving money on the table or, even worse, throwing money away by investing in irrelevant keywords that lead to high bounce rates. Even someone with very little understanding of how Adwords works has the mental capacity to understand that a keyword with a Quality Score of 8/10 is better than a keyword with a Quality Score of 4/10. So staying vigilant and active, is by far the most important thing I'd like to stress. It's far too easy to get carried away and take it that everything will just take care of itself.
Networtech is a web design and online marketing company located in Houston, TX. Click here to read the rest of this article.

Google Pigeon: Google's Latest Search Algorithm

So if you haven't heard already, Google has updated its Search Algorithm. Its name is Pigeon. Why Pigeon? Because this particular Google update is a local search update. Pigeons tend to fly home. And so the name pigeon was chosen by the trend setters for that reason. If you don't get it, don't worry. The name of the update isn't all that important. The thing that is important, the better question to ask is: "What does this mean for my business's SERP rankings? How does Google Piegon change the game of SEO, if at all?"

About the Update. What We Know So Far.

Pigeon puts far more stock into location, meaning that search results tend to display more of what is nearest to where the searcher is located at the time of the search. This will be visible in the Google Web & Google Maps search results. For instance, if you type in Web Design, and you are currently in Houston at the time of your search, Networtech will be displayed near the top of the page, because it is a Houston Web Design Firm. If you were in, say, Seattle, Networtech will no longer show up as part of the local search results. Instead, companies like UrbanInfluence and Seattle Web Group will be displayed.
It's difficult to go into the specifics of how precisely Pigeon works. For now, we can only be satisfied with knowing what it does, and how it affects our businesses. Google tries to stay very hush-hush about the actual specifics of the Google Algorithm. They haven't commented on what percent of queries will be affected by Piegon, and they also haven't given us much information on whether certain web spam algorithms were brought into effect.
For now, we are still trying to learn more about how Pigeon has changed the SEO game. There is plenty to explore, and only a limited amount of time. Stay tuned. We will write plenty more about the newest search algorithm once we dig deeper into what it does and how its changes impact online marketing and search engine optimization.

Eye-Tracking – Insights Into Advertising and Design

Who ever thought tracking eye movements would become such a refined area of focus? Marketers and advertisers are digging deep into this stuff, trying to learn more about typical eye movement patterns. The goal is to predict where a person will most likely look at or pay most attention to. Why would this matter? Because advertisers want to make their products stand out more in ads. They want people to focus on the product and not the many superfluous details. Anything in the ad that distracts the viewer from the ad is considered a bad placement in the eyes of advertisers. Bad placements are far too common. Just think about the last time you looked at an advertisement. Did you notice your mind wandering about something totally unrelated to the product or service displayed? Chances are, even if you can't remember a single instance, it has happened to you many times.
With eye tracking technology, advertising experts are trying to limit the amount of time your mind wanders when looking at their ad. Online marketing and advertising has now become not only an art, but a science - a discipline demanding a universal, logical, empirically verifiable methodology. Online Advertising and Design will only continue to become more and more advanced. Read More.

Writing for SEO Without Sounding Like A Robot

Many SEO specialists assume that just because the target audience is difficult to identify, that it is not so important to create content that is appealing to others. Why? Because what is appealing is subjective, they say. And to appeal to one sector of your audience means that you must exclude another. Just forget about appealing to an audience, they say; instead, focus on keywords. Only keywords. Clearly, this is a hasty generalization. The logic is: because the target audience is difficult to identify, and because so many people have so many preferences, trying to write an article with a certain preferred style in mind is of no value, and for this, focusing on the audience isn’t as important as focusing on the search engines, because at least with the search engines you know some of the specifications that need to be met for an article to be of quality. This is clearly flawed reasoning, but sadly it is the kind of reasoning that is all too prevalent in the SEO world. Read More.

Why SEO

What is the point of having a custom made beautiful website when nobody can find it?
Our internet marketing team in Raleigh works to ensure you will appear on the top of search engine results where your potential customers are looking.
Let us help you with you Web Design and Search Engine Optimization specially if you are in greater Houston area.