Submitting A Reconsideration Request

Many SEO agencies have strong opinions on reconsideration requests and use of the disavow tool.

So you are in a hole with your organic visitor levels due to previous SEO history. I am uncomfortable with people in SEO pretending that they're whiter than white when really everyone has either experimented or carried out link building that manipulated the SERPs because (a) Google indicated to you to think that everything was down to links and (b) it worked and there was / still is an economy providing loads of cheap links. You've done some link removal work, you've disavowed some links. You've even developed a genuine PR and content marketing plan along with improving on the user experience of your website.

Will submitting a reconsideration request help or work? In the case of the 'unnatural links' message via Google Webmaster Tools, then the answer is yes if you have completely addressed the issue i.e. all of your spammy backlinks have been cleaned up.

So it works...how do you submit your reconsideration request to Google? Sit back and watch Matt Cutts, Head of Web Spam at Google tell you what should be included in a proper reconsideration request:

This Google Webmaster Help video from Cutts can be summarised into 3 main points:

1) You have stopped buying links

2) You have put measures in place to ensure that paid link activity stops (give examples of past 'bad' work and processes that are now in place to prevent spammy SEO from occuring). Use of Google docs (spreadsheets) is recommended for the analysts to view with the knowledge that you are not sending links with malware.

3) Provide a lot of detail of the processes undertaken (the link removal, the disavow and the corrective action moving forward) and convince Google that you are worthy of the penalty being lifted.

SEO - OLD SCHOOL VS NEW SCHOOL INFOGRAPHIC

The key to SEO in 2013 is integrating with user experience, social media marketing and truly high quality content

Interflora brand penalty is lifted by Google

Interflora Brand Penalty Lifted

The SEO world got its knickers in a twist when news broke on Interflora getting a brand penalty on Google.co.uk. As if 2012 wasn't a clear enough message on buying links. Was it worth it Google? For the past week getting Mothers Day flowers sorted was a tiny bit trickier...although I bet Interflora's CTRs on Google Adwords brand clicks was healthy enough last week :-)

Anyhow, Interflora are back in the hot seat for their most valuable brand name (see below screenshot):

Interflora are back in #1 position after 11 days of lurking on page 2-4 of Google SERPs

A quick 'before and after' ranking report show that Interflora are also showing signs of getting back to where they should be for the generic too:

Interflora brand and generic keyword rankings reprieve (04/03/2013)

The SEO world chatter will have created lots of nice natural brand back links for Interflora.co.uk
:-)

The Offlineosaurus

Why Offline Marketing is not Dead

Marketing a product or business in today’s emerging market can be challenging when faced with such a large selection of suitable platforms. With the obsessive popularity of the Internet, it can be easy to overlook some of the time-honoured traditional marketing strategies, in favour of more technical options, but could businesses be missing a trick by doing so? 

Online marketing is a very popular industry at present and it is likely to remain so indefinitely, whilst traditional methods of marketing still have relevance in today’s market, but they are not paying off in the same way that they used to do. Merchandising, promotions, direct mail and television adverts are proving not nearly as affective as they were ten years ago, and more businesses are now focussing on inbound and online marketing. But, with this in mind should businesses abandon their offline marketing strategies altogether? The simple answer is no. 

Creating an offline marketing plan can still be of high importance as long as you change its purpose. This means that your marketing strategy should focus on helping to promote your business’ online visibility and presence. 

Television has become a less effective medium for selling products, whilst at the same time online advertisements are still developing their profitability. The solution therefore is to use television adverts to draw people to your website. For example, at the end of the TV commercial, post a Twitter #hashtag so that people can talk about the advert online, and create a Facebook page dedicated to the ad and your company. 

Prioritise a link to your website on the TV advertisement whilst making sure that your audience has a suitable landing page in conjunction with the campaign. One way of doing this is to create a blog relating to the content that you’re using and keep it regularly updated with key content.

Offline marketing will only provide people with a short snippet of whatever you are selling them, but once you get people online, you then have the resources available to help promote and talk about your product in as much detail as you want to. People will hopefully check out the information then use it to make a final purchasing decision. Sponsorship of a major event is a great example of offline marketing that will never go away - always remember this marketing method as reason why 'digital' and 'offline' are gradually blending into one.

Make sure that all of your offline marketing strategies include a clear call-to-action. This means you should outline clearly exactly how a buyer can go about obtaining a specific product from you and where they can obtain it from. Make sure that your offline advertisement entices your audience and leaves them wanting more; you can then use online marketing to allow people to complete the task and fulfil your call to action. 

Focus on using your online marketing to promote offline events. For example, if you are attending a trade show, use online material such as your blog or social media sites to promote it. Whilst offline methods such as pamphlets and newspaper ads are still a good idea, you must make sure you lead people back to your website, blog post or social media site for further information. 

Online and offline marketing have their own strengths when it comes to promoting a business. The key is to build up the value of your online content, then use offline methods to draw people’s attention to your online marketing campaign. Offline marketing still contains a lot of value but the key is to recognise where that value lies and then run with it.

Google Webmasters will identify bad links for you

Are you still stuck on page 200 for your leading industry volume search terms? The reverberations of Google's algorithmic changes are still being felt by many small businesses.

Are you an 'unnatural links' victim? Whether you built the links yourself or not I believe you are a victim...just as Google has proved to be a victim of its own success in organic search. Presuming that you've:

1). Removed links but kept some that you believe have some type of unmeasurable value
2). Implemented the disavow tool to blast some bad links
3). Still found yourself in a hole

...then you might find this +Matt Cutts video quite interesting - further support is on the way:

Doing Awesome in Online Reviews

How you can excel in online reviews

He knows that you know that I know that you know

 

Reviews, testimonials, endorsements - is this something that you could do better? If there is room for improvement, creating a sustainable action plan will help you sell more - without any major marketing investment. 

It is my belief that this process can be summarised in 3 basic steps:

1) Prioritise where you want to be reviewed (external, third party review platforms). The variables are your industry type and whether you are targeting consumers or businesses. However, the key here is to prioritise 1-2 trusted, third party websites. Here are some examples:

Business: Marketing consultant in Leeds

www.linkedin.com (endorsements and recommendations) - a natural choice, as your connection base builds, the social element of LinkedIn will amplify any positive feedback that you receive. 

www.google.com/local - the corner stone of local SEO, you can gain added search engine visibility by having more (natural) Google reviews than your competitors 

Business: UK national multi location car dealership 

www.yelp.co.uk - have a Yelp profile for each location - 2 benefits: Yelp is a Google review partner (SEO benefit) and the new Apple Maps takes a feed from Yelp against its business listings. I love Yelp.

www.judgeservice.com - get a Judge Service profile for each location - the major benefit being that the site has a specialism in automotive. 

2) Set a low monthly review target. Your prospects will want to observe the date and time of reviews and will be impressed with up to date feedback - it simply more relevant to their personal buying process. 1-2 old reviews on a website that are a few years old can come across as a token gesture.

3) Get someone to help out. Getting the reviews in on a regular basis in low volumes is a discipline that may not be viable. Be honest - if you are not going to sustain the discipline - then outsource it. This can work fantastically - a third party' market research analyst' (could be an intern or YTS employee) emails customers with a mini survey and collates the responses. This resource can  invite them to publish the review either on your website, a third party review site - or both. They won't hesitate about annoying people with s small, rational request - they will just do it. 

I have carried out this work for a customer and the beauty is not only its simplicity but is its effectiveness. I sent out the following brief note to X of the company's existing customers and got a fantastic XX% response rate:

Outsource review outreach -  the result was amazing content

Comments welcome!

Google Adwords Email Signup extension

I saw this today (25/01/2013) - a logged in Google account combined with the Google Adwords subscribe ad extension that is still being piloted. Pretty strong direct response advertising from +GoogleAds 

It will be interesting to see if this is the year for Google Adwords to roll this extension out to their advertisiers.