Why JC Penney got Spanked by Google

So as you may or may not know, JC Penney, one of the largest clothing retailers in the world, got in big trouble with Google just a few months ago. Due to some major issues with their… style of internet marketing, Google slapped all JC Penney links to the back of their search engine results. Let’s explain.

Link building is a popular trend when it comes to internet marketing and search engine optimization. It’s always nice to have lots of different pages linking to your website and Google recognizes/rewards this. So what was it that got JC Penney busted? Link-baiting, a common “black-hat” SEO technique that had hundreds of spam websites linking to JC Penney products. (This tricks Google and other search engines into thinking the company website is more popular online than it really is.) While “black-hat” SEO tends to have a quick return and great results, it’s also a great way to get your website blacklisted. JC Penney is still feeling the wrath.

Seriously though… go to Google and look up a simple clothing item (I searched “black sweater”) and see how many pages you have to go through. Then try looking up “department store” and see how far back Penneys is with that criteria! Shocking eh?

So what does this all mean?
SEO is serious business, and doing it right can do wonderful things for your business online, but done carelessly can ruin your online presence indefinitely. So in the long run, if you are looking to market your business it pays to let the professionals do it. Even if it takes a little longer for search engine marketing to take effect, it’s always better to put on the “white hat”.

Or you can get kicked back to page 60…

Google Places and Your Business’ Online Success, Part 2: Optimizing Your Places Listing

You’ve undoubtedly seen Google Places at work already. Let’s say you’ve recently looked for a florist in Womelsdorf, Pennsylvania and so you typed in the search term “Womelsdorf florist.” The florists with letters (A, B, C, etc.) by their names? Those were Google Places listings.

Google Places offers just seven top spots on any given search results page. You want your business to have one of the seven letters in front of it, otherwise your competitors (those with the letters) could very well get your business.

Here’s how to help your Google Places listing get “letter worthy.”

As you fill out your Places listing, fill it out completely. Upload photos. Upload videos to YouTube and be sure your Places listing has links to those videos. Fill out the form Places gives you to describe your business as thoroughly as you can.

You’ll want to be sure you use a street address for your business that Google can verify and place on Google Maps.

Use the phone number as listed in your phone directory for your Google Places phone number.

Be sure the directory information you place in Google Places is the same information you placed in any other online directory. Google’s going to check and Google does not like inconsistency.

No keyword stuffing. Just Do. Not. Do. It.. Do not! Yes, you can put keywords in your Places description, but don’t try to stuff it with keywords. If Google catches the stuffed keywords — and it will! — it will remove your listing.

Google is going to call your business line to verify your phone number. Make sure someone is there who knows you’re filling out your Google Places listing to answer the phone.

Work to get other websites to link to your Places listing. Called “citations” in Google-speak, these help Google believe your site is “popular.” Popularity results in a higher ranking. You’ll want to create other listings in other local online directories and also at other review sites such as Four Square, Yelp, YellowPages.com, Citysearch.com, etc. Write and send news releases to your local newspapers and hope for coverage (and that the paper has a link from its online story about your business to your site).

Ask people to review your business at your Places listing.

Offer special offers at your Places listing. In other words, give your customers a good reason to visit your Places listing. The tried and true discount coupon can work wonders here.

Finally, if you don’t already have one, get a well-optimized website for your business. Update it often (Google “likes” websites that change/update often more than static, “brochure-type” sites).

Interested in learning more about how your Google Places listing can help your business shoot to the top of the search engines? Call GoiMarketing.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

How to Rank High on Google Places

We talked in our last post about how getting one of the top seven listings in a Google Places page can be a great way to get your business and services found by people in your local area.

In fact, Google Places can be quite powerful for one important reason: Google Places results often are listed above Google’s organic rankings!

Many of the techniques you use to get at the top of Google Places are similar to organic SEO: making sure your site has frequent updates. For Google Places, this could include — but is not limited to — customer reviews, information on discount offerings, DIY tips, notification of sales, contests, and so on. You even can upload videos and photos of your business to your listing.

You’ll also want to be sure to ask your happy clients to submit positive reviews and praise to sites such as Kudzo or Best of the Web. Offer to write their review for them — be sure to show it to them before posting, of course — and then post it to these review sites yourself. Be sure you have a link to your site, of course.

Backlinks, as usual, are imperative. In fact, getting backlinks from locally authoritative sites will go a long way to promoting your Google Places listing. What are “locally authoritative sites?” These are directories from local trade associations, your local chamber of commerce and other review sites.

If you’re in an area where there are plenty of, using the example above, divorce lawyers, those seven top Google Places slots could be filled quickly. This is where it will pay you handsomely to pay attention to details. Fill out your Google Places form completely (Google gives preference to those who do). The service allows you to place up to 10 images, so be sure to get 10 images. Post videos of yourself on YouTube talking about your business, showing off your staff, talking about your product or business. Be sure to place links from your video to your Google Places profile.

Getting a good slot on Google Places is a terrific free way to help new customers find you. GoiMarketing.com can create a listing for you, and shoot video, etc. to help your listing rank high. Contact us today; we look forward to hearing how we can help you grow your business and your revenue.

Early 2011 Online Marketing Trends. Part One

It’s still early in 2011. What are the online marketing trends for the beginning of this year?

We believe social media marketing will grow from the somewhat experimental phase it went through in 2010 to tactics that companies will integrate fully into their overall marketing strategies. Expect to plan, research and measure your efforts more and more this year.

Be prepared: search engine optimization is going to become a bit more challenging as the year progresses. Google is starting to face stronger competition from Bing, as well as the social media sites of LinkedIn, Twitter and especially Facebook. So it’s going to be harder to get your products and/or services appearing on Google’s first page since Google undoubtedly will continuously modify its search algorithms as it works to fend off the competitors mentioned above.

Speaking of social media, expect advertising on Facebook, Twitter, etc. to soar. Facebook, for example, is a great place for marketers to find targeted and niche markets for businesses’ products and services. Expect to see advertising opportunities that will capture these new customer niches. More and more companies are quickly seeing that social media is a great place to find new customers.

Are you ready for mobile marketing? The iPhone, the Android and the iPad all mean that more and more people are accessing the Internet via a smartphone. We believe that you’ll see mobile marketing continue to grow beyond text and e-mail messages. We believe companies are going to have to ensure that their websites look good on the smaller screens of smartphones and pads. Mobile everything (e-mail, messaging, websites, and applications) will be a big focus for marketers this year.

Our next post will discuss a few other early 2011 online marketing trends.

The online marketing world changes constantly. It’s well nigh impossible for a business owner to keep up. That’s where GoiMarketing.com comes in. Our business is online marketing. We keep up on the changes so that you don’t have to. Contact us today.

Traditional Advertising Media: Still Worth Considering

Online marketing does bring you a terrific return on investment. In fact using such affordable marketing tactics as website optimization, article marketing, social media marketing, etc., guarantees that your message will be online forever.

Ads in newspapers, magazines, etc. last just as long as the amount of time you paid for them to run. Run an ad in a newspaper on Sunday and it’s gone by Monday.

Still, there is value in offline marketing. Here are a few:

Newspapers know they’re getting hit hard by online marketing so in an effort to keep apace, they’re lowering their ad rates. If you decide to place ads in a newspaper, place tracking codes on them to see which are most effective (you’ll need to ask new customers how they heard of you, of course; or you could require that they clip the ad and present it to you for a special offer). Consider placing an ad in the classified section — serious buyers check the classifieds. Be sure to have a URL in the ad that points to a specific page on your site. And don’t forget to ask your sales rep for reduced ad rates.

Placing an ad in a glossy magazine adds considerable credibility to your business. You may want to place several smaller ads in smaller publications instead of blowing your budget on a large ad in one magazine. In fact you might want to think about running a lower priced ad in the classified sections of several publications, especially if your product or service is geared to the budget conscious. Your product is deemed “more frugal” in the classifieds than it would be in a display ad. If you’re selling a luxury product, opt for the display ad. Don’t be afraid to tout your ad on your website: “As seen in Such and Such Magazine.”

Television can be a terrific way to get people to go to your landing or sales page. Be sure to stay away from prime time — way too expensive. If you’re going to advertise in several markets, you may want to consider signing on with a media buying service; these often buy unsold ad time for pennies on the dollars

Billboards aren’t as effective as you may believe. But if your billboard is in a good location, such as near an exit or, better yet, near the exit to get to your business (“Two miles on the right!”), they can be helpful. Aim to keep your ad’s message to no more than five words and use one large graphic.

Did you notice that most of the “traditional” media ideas above are good for referencing people “back” to your website? A good website is essential to your business’ success. When you want a great website, contact GoiMarketing.com. Websites are what we do, and we’d love to create one for you that brings you new business. Contact us today!

Five Reasons to Hire an Internet Marketing/SEO Company

Have you decided you need to market your business online? Good for you because online truly is where the action is today:

• About one-third (94 million) adults use the Internet every day in the U.S.
• Of those 94 million, 64 percent (a bit more than 60 million) use a search engine each day.
• 64 percent of Americans use the Internet to search for local businesses.
• What’s more, people searching online for products and services offered locally often want to purchase them right now.

If you’re not where your customers can find you, you’re losing business to your competitors who are.

An Internet marketing  — also sometimes known as a search engine optimization (SEO) — company can help you get found online. You could do this yourself, if you have weeks and perhaps months to learn it well enough so that you’ll see results.

But a professional and well-established Internet marketing company can get you found by hundreds if not thousands of potential customers in the time it would take you to get up to speed on the ever-changing Internet marketing techniques.

Here are five good reasons to hire an Internet marketing company:

1) The company can create a great opt-in landing page for your business. Internet marketing is all about creating relationships and if a prospect fills out the form on your landing page, that will then allow you to…

2) …send e-mail messages regarding your business to the prospect. These e-mails will contain such messages as notices of sales, free products, seminars, etc. The idea is to be “seen” in a prospect’s inbox regularly. Doing so and offering information of value to your prospect will help him or her trust you. Trust begets sales. A good landing page probably won’t result in an immediate sale, but you won’t be able to engage in a terrific e-mail marketing campaign to prospects without it. And it’s the great marketing campaign that sooner or later — and probably sooner than you think — will make your prospect a buyer.

3)  Speaking of relationship building, your Internet marketing/SEO company undoubtedly will want to get a social media marketing campaign underway for you. The company will set up accounts for you at the major social networking sites (LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook) and get you started. Remember that the purpose of marketing on these sites isn’t to sell but to build relationships. The buying will come.

4) Pay-per-Click. This can be a terrific way to get more visitors to your site quickly (as in hours). It also can be a great way to bring prospects who could easily end up becoming buyers if you run your PPC campaign well. Your SEO/Internet marketing company will research the correct keywords to use in your campaign, keywords that will help get your ad on the first page of Google and other search engines’ results pages.

5) Keywords are key with SEO. The right keywords used in the right way on your website (in your title and meta tags, in your website’s copy, etc.) can go a long, long way to getting your site appearing in the top one or two pages of search results. Put your patience cap on, however — it can take several weeks or months for your site to appear in these top-ranked”organic” search results.

Take the next step and contact GoiMarketing.com. We are a leading Internet marketing/SEO company and we can help your website get found, get noticed and make sales!