Rich Snippets are simply HTML code or formats you use to
help the search engines provide extra information about
your content. This added information can make your page’s
listing much more visible/useful in the search engines,
especially Google.

While Google clearly states on its Webmasters Tools page
that using Rich Snippets WON’T affect your rankings in
their search results or even guarantee that your markup
will be presented in their search – Rich Snippets may become
very important for the “amount” of traffic you receive from
the search engines.

Why?

Mainly because using these “Rich Snippets” will make your listing
much more visible in the search engines. It could give you a
competitive edge over your rivals, especially if they’re not using
the markups. For example, your product listing or review, could be
presented in the search engine with a “starred” rating and/or the
price displayed, as well as other information about your company
or business.

All this extra data is presented in the SERPS and makes it much
easier for the searcher to read/find the information they’re looking
for in their search. It also makes it more likely they will click
your link if they see all this information displayed… even if your
listing is not in the top spot but further down the page.

Using Rich Snippets could make your site or page “stand-out” from
the crowd and get you that vital click.

Here’s a Google video explaining Rich Snippets:

Google will recognize three types of formats when crawling/indexing
your pages: Microdata, Microformats and RDFa. You can find Google’s
explanation here: Rich Snippets

Currently the kind of content supported are:

Reviews
People
Products
Businesses and organizations
Recipes
Events
Music

Plus, you can also use a Rich Snippet or Markup for Videos using
either Facebook Share and Yahoo! SearchMonkey RDFa. Find out how
here: Video Rich Snippets

Here’s a Google video explaining “Product Rich Snippet”

Here’s another Google video explaining “Review Rich Snippet”

Finally, once you get all your Rich Snippets and Markups in
place on your webpages, you can check them through this
testing tool from Google:

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

Remember, there’s no guarantee that Google will use your
snippets, but fully optimizing your content or site simply
means you must use these markups in the future. Besides,
if you run a review or product site, just the possibility of
having all this extra information displayed in Google or
any search engine is well worth the extra work.

Helping People Succeed Online Since 2002!

Kind Regards,
+Titus Hoskins

www.bizwaremagic.com

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Just when I thought Google couldn’t pull out any more
surprises – they start 2012 off by rolling out “Google Plus
Your World”. This really personalizes your Google search,
especially with it comes to all those Google+ profiles
and posts.

Your searches in Google can now relate directly to the
people and topics you care about in your life. Google will
now show “personal results”, “profiles in search” and “people
and pages” in their results and autocomplete.


http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/search-plus-your-world.html

Google is reasoning that behind each search query there
is a whole community which the searcher might want to
follow or join. It gives Google search a much broader
application when it comes to finding information on the
web.

Nothing wrong with that but…

Many are saying Google is too self-promotional by just
using their own Google+ system – why not include Twitter
and Facebook profiles as well? Actually, there are
several ongoing disputes regarding this matter and whether
or not Google has complete access to data from Twitter
and Facebook.

Here’s an interesting video with Google executive chairman
Eric Schmidt where he states they’re not favoring Google+
in the results. You can judge for yourself:

Regardless of this argument, a much more beneficial question
will have to be…

What does “Google Plus Your World” mean for your site’s traffic
and/or online marketing?

First, now more than ever, you simply have to have a Google+
profile for yourself or your company. The traffic and SEO benefits
are simply too great to ignore. You must have a Google+ account
and promote it along with all your other social profiles such
as Twitter and Facebook.

In addition, you should be making regular Google+ posts with
photos… as all these will now show up in Google search. This
is another fast way to get your content displayed on Google.

Keep in mind, once someone is logged into Google, their previous
clicked sites and activity will show up at the top of the
listings. This makes organic search and rankings less important
because any site can now be at the top; build up a large
active community around your site and you will get more
repeat traffic from Google.

Just like every savvy online marketer knows how to get their
content into Google News within minutes, now we also have
Google+ as a direct way into Google search. Marketers and
webmasters should take advantage.

This also opens up another door when it comes to marketing
on the web. As studies have shown, personal “product recommendations”
from friends and family do play a major role in what products
we finally decide to buy. Factoring in the whole new “Google Plus
Your World” element will give marketers another road to pursue.

All this can mean much more targeted traffic to your site
and a greater opportunity to build a list of prospects (community)
around your site’s topic. The same goes for any company
or site promoting their products on the web.

In the near future, we should all be prepared for Google’s
next moves. Especially in the area of Authorship Markup and
how it plays into these new Google+ changes to personal
search. In addition, be prepared for Rich Snippets to play
a major role in Google SERPs, but that’s another topic for
a future newsletter.

For now, everyone should be exploring Google+ and taking
advantage of what it can do for their site or company in Google’s
new “Plus Your World” universe. Just personalize Google’s
new changes to meet your own needs.

Helping People Succeed Online Since 2002!

Kind Regards,
+Titus Hoskins

www.bizwaremagic.com

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Authority vs Mini-Sites, My Marketing Strategies For 2012

As you probably already know, 2011 was a real wake-up year
for my online marketing techniques. The Panda Updates by Google
dispensed total havoc on my main source of traffic and sales
- article marketing.

In article directories like Ezinearticles.com, I saw many of
my top ranked articles in Google fall from the radar, lowering
my traffic and search rankings. As a general fall-out, my main
site also took a big hit in the amount of search engine traffic
it received from Google.

However, thankfully, I did not put all my eggs in the one basket.
Over the years, I did build 9 or 10 mini-sites, mainly springing
from topics on my authority site – these sites were not affected
by Panda and some actually rose in rankings.

Keep in mind, the Panda Updates was first called the “Content Farm
Update” and was meant to lower or de-rank sites which had a variety
of topics covered within one general site. Google judged this content
to be of little or poor quality and decided to penalize these types
of pages and sites in its index.

Many webmasters and site owners have questioned Google’s reasoning
here, why should some low quality pages bring down your whole site.
Chances are extremely high, your site’s visitors will never see these
pages… it’s like saying you can’t have visitors in your home because
you have a messy attic or basement.

In addition, pages and sites which were overly SEOed or over optimized
for the search engines were hit hard in these latest series of Updates
by Google. So too, was duplicate or non-original content. In the past,
I made the mistake of placing my articles on my sites as well as in
all the article directories… this confuses a search engine such as
Google and makes it hard for them to rank the original source of the
information.

When one door closes, another one opens.

While I am still working hard at re-designing my main site and have
not abandoned 10 years of hard work… I am cleaning out the attic and
fixing the basement. But, I have long learned on the web, you have to
adjust your marketing tactics to take advantage of what’s working
at the moment.

Actually, finding an exact domain name or search term, which has around
5-10k visitors a month or less and then building a small “high quality”
mini-site around the topic is a proven marketing tactic since the web began.
These highly focused sites often get ranked on the first page of Google
within weeks, even days.

With little or no promotion on your part!

This comes from the strength of your exact keyword domain – if you have
the domain/site for “buybluewidgetsonline” – changes are extremely high
you will get listed in Google for that phrase on the first page, if not
the top spot.

Again, this all comes back to Google satisfying its customers, if a
searcher finds what he or she is looking for by clicking your link,
Google has no choice but to list it in their index. Satisfy enough
of Google’s searchers, and your site will rise to the top.

Now, we are talking about mainly “low competition” keywords because
we are talking about small amounts of traffic. (You can use Google’s
External Keyword Tool to find exact-match keyword domains.) However,
if this traffic is highly targeted and results in good conversion rates (sales)
it is definitely worth your attention and expense.

Most times, the exact keyword domain, will trump your competition’s
SEO (link building efforts) in the majority of cases. You end up with
a site listed at the top of Google for your targeted keywords.

In 2012, I will be exploring and building more mini-sites to see
how they perform over the long term when compared to my main (bigger)
authority sites. Will keep you informed of the results.


Helpful links:

Use this page to check the Authority of a site or page:

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org

Are Exact Match Domains Too Powerful? Is Their Time Limited?

Google Caffeine: Will Keyworded Domains Inherit The Web?

Helping People Succeed Online Since 2002!

Kind Regards,
+Titus Hoskins

www.bizwaremagic.com

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How To Use A Google Sitemap?

A sitemap is just a list of all the URLs or pages
on your site. Search engines use these sitemaps
to help index your site.

That’s basically what a sitemap is and what it does.

If you have a small site (less than 500 pages)
one of the fastest and simplest ways to get
or generate a sitemap is to use this site:

http://www.xml-sitemaps.com

Go to that link and put in your site’s URL
and it will generate a sitemap for you within
a few minutes. It will give you an XML file of
all the URLs on your site.

Upload your XML sitemap file to your server
where your site is located. Then check this
file in a few browsers such as Firefox,
Google Chrome… to see if it is displayed
properly.

Few other things you might want to do to make
sure search engines find your sitemap. You can
submit your sitemap to Google’s Webmasters Tool.

In addition, you can give a “Priority” to how
you want the search engines to rank your page
WITHIN your own site. Your main homepage would
be “1″ and the other pages can be prioritized
to the way you want them.

Of course, there is much more to Sitemaps then
this simple example. What if you have a site
which is constantly updating and adding pages
each day?

Then you’re probably going to have to install
a sitemap generator on your server – which
can get a little complicated, especially if
you’re not good with handling scripts.

But if you want to find out more about sitemaps
try here:

Google Sitemaps Explained

Helping People Succeed Online Since 2002!

Kind Regards,
+Titus Hoskins

www.bizwaremagic.com

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Image via CrunchBase

Recently, a guest speaker at the Pubcon search engine
marketing conference, stated: “SEO will be dead in around
6 months!”

Of course, that statement was supposed to shock and
draw attention to a curious question. Can the mighty
Google finally have some serious competition on its hands?

Before you start shaking your head, that speaker’s
name was Leo Laporte of “This Week In Google” or TWIG
for short. So this is someone who probably has a closer
eye on Google than you or I.

Don’t know about you, but for the most part, I am
way too busy figuring out Google’s latest Algorithm
changes, to wonder if the whole foundation is about
to crumble. But this competition is something I never
thought of as even being competition.

The “David” in question here is Apple’s Siri Technology
which they bought in 2010 and introduced on the iPhone 4S.
Siri is part of the iOS 5 and is a natural language software
that processes and answers your questions.

Siri is like your own personal assistant who gets to
know your individual preferences and adapts over time
to truly personalize your results.

Basically, Siri will search out information for you and
personalize the results to your liking and taste. It
can use speech and text to give you the answers to all
your questions.

At its core, isn’t this something that Google is
currently doing? Answering questions and supplying
information?

The big question…

Can Apple’s Siri do a better job than Google?

At the moment probably not, but what about a few
years down the road? Apple has a massive data center
in North Carolina collecting information (sound familiar)
that can be honed and perfected to deliver precisely
what’s needed.

What if this Siri Technology is opened up for
third party applications and developments? What
if those other parties have a vested interest in
promoting and using this new language technology.

And what if Apple removes all Google search from
its countless mobile devices and replaces it with
Siri search?


Of course, Google is not some helpless little
competitor that can be easily defeated. It
has huge resources to take Apple on in an all
out war for control of the web. We already see
Google taking that battle to Apple with the
Android and other devices such as the Chromebook.

Google is also moving into speech and may even
“outdo” Apple when it comes to semantic speaking
search. Needless to say, no one is counting Google
out just yet.

However, many are saying Siri has “personality”
and is already connecting with its users in a way
that Google search hasn’t. Plus, Apple is well
known for turning technology into very usable
“must have” everyday items, but is there
enough Steve Jobs DNA left to continue this
trend?

Let’s face it-

Apple showed us how to use the Walkman.

Apple showed us how to use the Smart Phone.

Apple showed us how to use the Tablet.

Can Apple show us how to use a search engine?

Ultimately, it is those search users who will
decide how the future of the web plays out.


But getting back to the more serious question
at hand – how will all this new “spoken” search
affect online marketing and SEO? How can one
optimize their sites for Siri? How do they
make sure their product or business comes up
when a Siri user asks a question?

Forget the battle between Apple and Google, it
is this SEO question which will be the major battle
and concern for webmasters and online marketers in
the coming years, if not months.

For further information try the Forbes article
below:

Forbes – Why Siri Is A Google Killer

or here:

20 Ways Siri May Forever Change Education

Helping People Succeed Online Since 2002!

Kind Regards,
+Titus Hoskins

www.bizwaremagic.com

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On the official Google Blog it was recently announced by Google that
they will now be using or listings more recent, dare we say newsworthy,
content in their listings. This will give Google searchers much more
fresher results and is based on the Caffeine changes which Google
introduced a few years ago.

“We completed our Caffeine web indexing system last year, which
allows us to crawl and index the web for fresh content quickly on
an enormous scale. Building upon the momentum from Caffeine, today
we’re making a significant improvement to our ranking algorithm that
impacts roughly 35 percent of searches and better determines when
to give you more up-to-date relevant results for these varying degrees
of freshness.” This was posted by Amit Singhal, but that 35% is not
as large as first suspected and was further clarified.

“Update 11/7/11: To clarify, when we say this algorithm impacted 35%
of searches, we mean at least one result on the page was affected,
as opposed to when we’ve said noticeably impacted in the past, which
means changes that are significant enough that an average user would
notice. Using that same scale, this change noticeably impacts 6 – 10%
of searches, depending on the language and domain you’re searching on.”

Regardless, this means small web owners and webmasters have another
Google hurdle to deal with and for many business with limited resources,
constantly updating a site with daily/hourly content, is simply not
possible. These small sites will, no doubt, be the big losers in
this recent Google Fresh Update.


Google Fresh Winners

As reported by Webpronews and SearchMetrics we have a list of some
obvious sites coming out with more Google Visibility are:

- Youtube which takes a big jump!
- MySpace
- Gamin.com
- Engadget.com
- Buy.com
- Squidoo.com

Just as you would expect, sites which are regularly updated with
fresh content are the big winners. You can go here to see a larger
list of Google Fresh Winners.

How to Cope With the Google Fresh Update?

Many SEO experts are already suggesting that you start updating
your site more often with daily content – if at all possible.
Many also suggest that you develop a strong online community
around your blog or forum… this will automatically update
with fresh content contributed by your users or members. Even
quality “comments” can be a way of adding fresh content on an
hourly basis. You can also build a panel of regular moderators
who can control the whole enterprise.


Create Active Blog/Forum Communities

On a smaller scale, those websites with limited resources, can
call for articles/posts from their visitors in return for a link
back to their sites. This has always been a good way to build fresh
content. Although, in a Post Panda web, you might want to make sure
all those posts/articles unique to your site.


Current Sitemap?

At the very least webmasters should make sure they have a current
Sitemap on their site which they can also submit to Google Webmaster
Tools. This sitemap will have Timeframe indicators (Timestamps) which
should note the freshness of your content. If you want help with creating
a sitemap try here: Google Sitemaps Explained.



Google News Sites

Other big winners in this Fresh Update will be the Google News sites,
which are hand-picked by Google and are regularly crawled for news
and content. Webmasters should make sure they are submitting their
content to these sites on a timely basis, especially if your own site
is not daily crawled by Google.

Here’s a List of Google News Sites which you can use to make
sure your site and content is getting noticed by Google.

Helping People Succeed Online Since 2002!

Kind Regards,
+Titus Hoskins

www.bizwaremagic.com

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Is This Google’s Boldest Move Against SEO Yet?

Years ago, when I first started with my online websites I
had no clue “whatsoever” about SEO or even keywords for that
matter. But it didn’t take me long before I was daily checking
my traffic logs to find out what “specific” keywords searchers
were using to find my site and webpages.

Naturally, most of my then modest traffic was coming from
Google, so I concentrated all my time on those keywords. I
soon found that visitors using certain keyword phrases clicked
my affiliate links more often than regular traffic… and a
large percentage of those clicks resulted in a sale or lead
for my promoted company.

This one technique is how I have earned my money from the web.

I took those targeted keyword phrases and wrote articles/blog
posts around those keywords to make sure my site or webpage
rank in the top 5 in Google for that phrase – the higher the
better. For long-tail (3 or 4 words) keyword phrases this is
quite easy because usually no one else is taking the time and
effort to rank for these keywords.

But the “key” to all this working is the search data in my
traffic logs coming from Google. What if Google suddenly
encrypted or kept this data secret? It would be game over
right?

Well, Google has done exactly that – started encrypting
certain keyword search data. At the moment, this encryption
is only being applied to around 10% to 12% of search data -
from those logged in members of Google search.

However, is this just the start of Google eliminating all
keyword tracking and referrer data returned to webmasters?

Google says no, this is just a “privacy issue” related
to their logged in members. They want to keep those
searches private.

Webmasters, SEOs and marketers are not so sure and doubt
Google will stop at just 10%… mainly because Google
usually rolls out stuff to test the waters before they
dive in completely. Is the same scenario happening here
- could we see the end of keyword tracking?

Even more alarming, Google has stated that their Adwords
customers will still get this keyword data. Now we can
see a much more viable reason Google is eliminating this
data. If marketers/webmasters can’t get this information
from free organic search, paying for this information
via Adwords can be more than economically feasible.

It also makes the Google Adwords program much more
valuable and attractive – remember, this is Google’s
bread and butter flagship. This ship has just become
much more golden.

There is an ongoing debate in the SEO community about
all of this and Google’s true attentions. One of those
places is Neil Shearing’s blog here:

Google Killing Keyword Tracking?

If you want to find out more about this issue, just
click the link. You can also add your own opinions
and/or views on this topic – which has the possibility
of changing the web forever.

Helping People Succeed Online Since 2002!

Kind Regards,
+Titus Hoskins

www.bizwaremagic.com

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In the past there have been a few cases when I needed to
recover deleted or lost content from the web. Now I keep
several backups of all my sites, but I can remember 2 or
3 years ago, when the server hosting my main site crashed
and everything was lost.

No big deal, I just had to upload my site again to a different
server, which I quickly did. Couple of hours of work and I
was back in business. However, this site had a WordPress
blog and database which were also deleted when the server
crashed. I did not make regular backups of this database…
something that was inexcusable but hey, we all make mistakes.


What to do?


I had a lot of unique content and postings on that blog,
it was a vital part of my overall site. Besides, having
all this content suddenly go missing would not help with
my search engine rankings. Too many “not found” links
or files is especially frowned upon by Google, where the
visitor’s experience is paramount.

That’s when I remembered hearing about the “Wayback Machine”
somewhere along the line… could they possibly have copies
of my lost blog content?

To my surprise and delight, this site had numerous full
captures of my site going back many years, including the
WordPress blog. All I had to do was retrieve this content
and re-post it on the new server. Now, because of the coding,
you won’t be able to directly download the HTML files for
this content – but all your text, links and content is there.

For me, this site was and is a true lifesaver. It really is
another backup of your web content that you may not even be
aware of, especially if you’re new to the webmaster field.

The URL for the WayBack Machine is:


web.archive.org

Later, I learned some savvy online marketers even use this
site and service to find online opportunities which are worth
pursuing. This marketing strategy goes along the following lines.

These marketers research expired domains for something that
they believe can be viable and profitable. They then use the
WayBack Machine to see if this extinct domain and site has plenty
of original content that can be used. These domains may even have
plenty of existing backlinks and PageRank. If everything looks
enticing, they buy the domain and contact the previous owner to
buy the old content and/or site.

Keep in mind, there are virtual versions of “house flippers”
on the web. They find/buy old websites and fix them up to keep
in their own portfolio or to sell. Sometimes it is just a matter
of framing the lost content in a different light or angle to make
it shine.

Regardless, the next time you’re scratching your hair out because
you have lost or accidently deleted content from the web – don’t
panic. And before you put your head in that gas oven, try the
WayBack Machine.


It can really be a lifesaver.

…

Here’s a great free site for checking to see if webpages
are unique and original. You can also check to see if anyone
is using your own content…

http://www.copyscape.com

Helping People Succeed Online Since 2002!

Kind Regards,
+Titus Hoskins

www.bizwaremagic.com

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Ouch Google! That Really Hurts… My Reactions To
The Latest Panda 2.5.2 Update

Last week, for the first time in over 10 years, one of Google’s updates
hit one of my sites. Most of my other sites weren’t affected and the ones
with the “keyword specific” domains actually when up in the rankings.
Also those sites which were narrowly focused on one topic or subject
area fared the best.

This was the Panda 2.5.2 update as some webmasters are calling it.

Matts Cutts of Google, warned there would be “minor flux” in the
listings over the next couple of weeks, but there is nothing “minor”
about it, especially if it was one of your sites that lost the traffic.

I take these Updates in stride and try to keep my sense of humor about
the whole thing, but it usually means I have to do more press releases,
unique articles, videos, blog posts… to get some of the affected keywords
back up higher in Google. However, this couldn’t come at a worst time
as we’re heading into the lucrative holiday shopping season.

Years ago, Google did the same thing, made major changes to its listings
just about now. They promised webmasters they wouldn’t do the same thing
again, but here we go…

I honestly believe that when Google makes changes to their algorithm and
put these adjustments live – they have no way of predicting the outcome
and how drastic it will be for some very good sites.

Anyway, if you want to read more of my views and reactions to this latest
Panda update go here:

My Reactions To Panda 2.5.2 Update

I also give links to several Search Engine Forums where webmasters
are discussing this issue and what to do about it.

Helping People Succeed Online Since 2002!

Kind Regards,
+Titus Hoskins

www.bizwaremagic.com

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