It is amazing how many so-called SEO companies are falling by the wayside since Google is getting more sophisticated with respect to identifying legitimate entities and individuals rather than online sock puppets and other irreputable business models.
It seems more and more companies are being penalized for all of the automated and spammy linking techniques that may have worked a few years ago, but can actually get a website penalized today. The whole machine generated linking thing was always suspect, so we would at times wonder why we are manually creating good content and posting them up to single locations on the web while others were blasting thousands of duplicate copies using tools that would complete that distribution in a matter of seconds.
Google sure has its hands full with the spammers, but is gaining the upper hand with new tweaks to the algorithm. Panda 2.0 and other iterations to the search ranking algorithm is giving more credence to reputable sites with social followings and legitimate business locations.
As we have always done everything manually, it is becoming easier to help local businesses rank in this manner and beat out competitors while not jeopardizing their hard won gains in organic search traffic.
At the end of the day, Google does not want to look bad for serving up a given URL, so in the interest of having their search results be more reliable and relevant, they have to weed out all of the bad apples and try to surface legitimate local businesses.
Those Pesky Calls from Google?
I am sure many of you have recently received that automated message that announces: "Your Google Listing needs to be updated" or some such. In this day and age, it is amazing that phone spam still works or is even still allowed for that matter as it is disruptive. This automated message then goes on to connect you to some voicemail in the U.K. or connect you with a live operator in the Phillipines or India. They are trying to get at your personal information and also sign you up for spammy services which will just cost you more time, frustration and money not to mention giving your credit card number out to operations like this. Google does not phone businesses up in this manner and someone posing as Google will eventually get slapped by the FTC - although their jurisdiction to stop such culprits offshore is limited.
Don't fall prey to all of the so called online experts that have surfaced recently, but trust your local business marketing to a local company that is a real business and has been helping businesses in the GTA increase their leads and sales online.
Call Webmad for information on web design and increasing your visibility locally and get your business found online.
