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Web traffic is the lifeblood of customer acquisition in our world of instant information and mobile communication. Alas, the phone book is no more, and the game of getting found by customers is much more complex than placing a single listing in a single book. But the game can be won with Google Tools, a suite of applications that help you put your website at the top of the search results for terms your customers are already typing into the search bar when they look for what you sell.
The Google Tools suite helps us create client websites that quickly climb in the Google results for specific searches. It begins with a Google MyBusiness listing, which, properly optimized, puts basic information about your company at or near the top of those search results in short order. Google Web Console allows us to index your site in search-bot-friendly ways, to find errors that could be holding back your SEO power, and to connect to Google Analytics. Analytics shows us comprehensive data about your site’s traffic and facilitates goal-driven SEO. Google AdWords is one of the most sophisticated online marketing tools ever created, allowing us to effectively target your audience with the right search-based advertising, in the right searches, at the right times.
The Two Parts of Google Tools (SEO/SEM)
Marketing with Google Tools consists of SEM—or Search Engine Marketing—and SEO—or Search Engine Optimization. Both take advantage of Google Analytics data, but each part of the system allows US Logo to apply the information in a different way.
AdWords is Google’s SEM suite of applications, and there’s no faster way to reach the very top of the search results than AdWords.
Search engine optimization, however, is a more complicated undertaking in which we make your website more attractive to search-bots, and it can be very effective in bringing huge traffic to your website.
Google MyBusiness
If there is a new “business phone book,” it’s Google MyBusiness. This part of the Google Tools suite literally puts your company on the map, displaying location, hours and reviews. It’s the little map box that pops up near the top of the results when you type in a product or business category into the search bar. We’ll help you optimize your Google MyBusiness listing with information that’s not only accurate and search friendly, but consistent (it needs to be consistent to the letter) with your website and with other online directories. This plays a huge role in reaching the top of search results for your category and keywords.
Google Search Console
This webmaster tool provided by Google gives us an in-depth look at what’s working and what isn’t working in your site’s SEO. Some issues that affect the way search engines index (and reward or penalize) your site are not visible to the human eye, but Search Console’s algorithms compare the code and content of your site to the standards favored by Google bots and make suggestions on obvious and not-so-obvious problems that may be making your site less than search-engine-friendly.
Putting Google Analytics to Work for Your Website
Analytics tells us a lot about who is visiting your website and what’s bringing them there, including:
- What city, state and country they are in.
- What type of devices they’re using when they visit your site.
- How they’re finding your site, i.e., Facebook, organic search, etc.
- Where they’re clicking within your site.
- How they’re navigating the site, and what parts of your navigation are helping to convert visitors to leads or customers.
- How many of them are visiting your site and when.
- How long they’re staying on your site, and which pages are holding them longer.
- How well your AdWords campaigns are working.
- What keywords people are using when they find you organically.
- What those people’s other interest are.
Google Analytics allows us to gain a clear picture of what’s working and what isn’t working in, both, your organic search results and your AdWords campaigns, so we can strategic changes as the web changes.
Google AdWords and Pay-Per-Click Advertising
When you hear us use the term “pay-per-click advertising,” we’re talking about AdWords—or Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns can bring instant traffic to your site, jump starting your online business on “day one.” With Google AdWords, you bid for a place among the top few sponsored listings on search engine result pages (SERPs), and there’s a bit of an art to managing your AdWords campaigns in a way that finds the right kind of traffic without breaking the bank (some keywords can be REALLY expensive).
AdWords should be done in close coordination with your SEO efforts, echoing the same keywords and keyword groups used in your organic marketing. US Logo offers comprehensive plans to get your SEO and SEM working together in ways that harvest the biggest bang for your PPC buck and boost your organic search engine placement, as well.
Understanding Google Algorithms
The inner workings of Google’s algorithms are eternally shrouded in mystery, and new revisions occur all the time, in the ways they rank websites. This programming is kept secret because Google knows that, if we web marketers fully understand their programming, we’ll simply adjust our site content and SEO accordingly, which in Google’s eyes is cheating. But these algorithms are typically released with enough information to see what they’re trying to do for web searchers, and then further analysis can often tell us what kinds of course adjustments to make when a new algorithm update comes online. Here’s a nickel tour of the Google algorithms we track so we can make beneficial changes to your website when the rules change:
- Penguin 4.0: Used to fight against spam sites that create false links to maximize web traffic.
- Panda Update: A search filter designed to penalize sites with poor content.
- Fred Update: Penalizes sites with too many ads, thin content or content that is not aligned with the search terms found in back links pointing to the site.
- Pigeon Update: Provides more useful, meaningful results for local searches.
- Hummingbird: Reads sentences and context on your page to confirm that it’s relevant to your keywords and useful for web searchers.
- Pirate Update: Identifies content on your site that infringes on someone else’s copyrighted material.
- Payday Update: This algorithm is targeted to clean up search results for traditionally spammy queries such as pornographic, payday loans, etc.
- Mobile Friendly: This algorithm is designed to give a boost to mobile friendly sites in Google’s search results.
There are more algorithms, but these are the ones we monitor daily because they most affect the success of our clients’ websites. Call US Logo (316) 264-1321 or email orders@uslogo.net to leverage our knowledge of Google Tools for your company, and start getting more of the right traffic to your site.
