Google Local Makeover: Local '7 Packs' Gone!

Old Google Local Search Result

7-Packs Now 3-Packs

Whether you call it Google Map Listing, Google Places Listing, Google Local Listing, Google Plus Listings, Google My Business Listings, or the Google '7 Pack', the set of seven listings that frequently appear at the top of Google local search results has changed notably in recent weeks.

It was predicted that sooner or later Google will switched to 3-pack from 7-pack layout when google first rolled out 3-pack listing for restaurants, nightlife, entertainment and hotels, back in November 2014 in the US search.

Google has been testing a new local listings format and officially launched the new format a couple of weeks ago. In the language of a Local Search Engine Optimization Expert, the 7-pack is now a 3-pack. The local pack is not just showing fewer business listings, It is also eliminates the address and phone number from individual results and redesigned to fit more with the mobile user interface.

Here is a picture of the new local pack, displaying only three results:

New Google Local Search Result

Exact Addresses Removed

Google has removed specific addresses from their local listings, instead only showing the street name. This requires a searcher to either click through to the website or the map listing in order to get the exact address.

Phone Numbers Removed

Google Searchers will no longer have easy access to the phone number of the business. They now need to click through the listing or get the number from the website. The mobile version (detailed below) doesn’t display the phone number but does have a “Call” option for each listing.

Google+ Links Removed

Google has also removed the Google+ links that we have all become familiar with. Because Google has pushed for local businesses to claim their page officially, this change is pretty interesting.

Business Category Added

The Business Category you choose for your listing is now showing in local search right below your business title. Category is critical to being considered relevant on any given search result and should be chosen carefully.

Store Hours Added

They have also added in store hours, including opening and closing times, depending on the time of day of the search.

Reviews No Longer Labelled “Google Reviews”

Gone are the labels on the reviews listing them as “Google Reviews.” Now they are simply called “reviews” with the number of reviews for each business still included.

No Flyouts

We are used to being able to scroll over local listings to see the local card for the business displayed on the right hand side. This no longer happens, to see the “Card”, you have to click through to the secondary local page.

Why The Change?

According to a Google spokesman: "We are constantly exploring the best way to bring a better search experience to our users. This update provides people with more relevant information, including photos, reviews and prices, for searches that have multiple results for a given location."

Where Clicks Go?

Unlike the previous layout, clicking the business name no longer takes you to the business' website. Instead you are redirected to an new expanded view of the local listings with the selected business' profile highlighted.

It should also be noted that while desktop results provide icon links for directions and the business' website, mobile searches provide a 'click to call' icon instead.

Mobile Google Local Search Result

How it Looks on Mobile?

Mobile also sees the complete address moved, with “Call” being the notable option here.

What Does This Mean for Local Businesses?

Well, that depends on how heavily your business relies on Google Local Listings and where you ranked before the change. If you relied heavily upon your local listings and were ranking fourth or lower, you may see fewer leads.

On the other hand, if your business ranks in the local top three listings, Google has effectively removed four of your nearest competitors and that could earn more clicks, calls, and visits for your business.

This also means that if you’re not in the top 3 listing, then you better start working on your local SEO Contest. I believe the update will now place an even higher emphasis on getting reviews and building out your citation profile.

Summary

If you are entirely relying on Google's local listings to drive traffic to your website, you're doing it wrong anyway. The businesses that are most successful with generating leads from search are those that are ranking well in local as well as organic listings. While Google's local listings used to be an option for those who ranked well, they now represent nothing more than a degraded user experience for your customers and Google's.

8 Ways to Protect Your Site From Google Panda Penalties

Back in February of 2011, Google released a major update to their search results ranking algorithm known as Google Panda Update. The significant algorithm update aimed to lower the rank of "low-quality sites" or "thin sites", and return higher-quality sites near the top of the search results.

As of today, Google released 28 panda algorithm update and last one (Panda 4.2) was July 17, 2015. you can read about all google algorithm update from Moz Google Algorithm Change History Timeline.

If you run a website or blog and want your site stick to the top of Google’s search result, Here’s My Tips to Protect Your Site From Google Panda Penalties. Alternatively, you can read Google's Quality Guidelines.

1. Write Fresh and Quality Content, and Don’t Worry About Length

If you read SEO guides (many of which are outdated SEO Guides), you may find ongoing debate about what will be content length for website pages and blog posts,.

What is The Ideal Content Length?

Actually there are no rules, except opinions. Some experts believe 300 to 500 words work best while others say content should be 1,000+ words.

In my opinion, Making content larger or shorter doesn’t guarantee success or failure; your content should be as long as it takes to deliver the message to your user, and no more.

I've seen many websites ranking higher with a very little amount of text. So don't worry too much about content length, make sure you write fresh and quality content regular basis.

2. Identify Redundant Content and Remove Them

Do a quick check on your website if there's duplicated and outdated information on it. This kinds of content can hurt your website ranking and lead to penalty, now might be a great time to clean it up.

Here are a few tips to Identify Redundant or Obsolete Content.

When review or write content, Ask yourself

• Is this page/post necessary?
• Does the information exist elsewhere?
• Is it still current and relevant?
• Does it do/say something?

3. Create Natural Link Profile

A natural link is a link obtained when a visitor shares your site on his or her own website, blog or other site. Let’s say the purpose of your site is to discuss cleaning services and you writing a article about "carpet cleaning service toronto".

You might link your article to some carpet cleaning mainstream media articles and internal link within your website. What you probably wouldn’t do, however, is link directly to competing sites trying to fill the cleaning niche. In a post-Panda online environment, this is a mistake.

Google Panda is all about Quality and Relevancy. Your site Quality and Relevancy ca be increase by linking to other related sites and content whether they’re your competitor or not. Your readers will surely appreciate it, and hence, The Google will too.

4. Target Natural Keywords

Outdated SEO advice may refer to something like this: select one or two keywords most closely related to page or post and insert them into the content as much as possible. This tactic was really good before panda update, But by panda algorithm Google see right through this, and treat it as a Unethical SEO Practice.

If you want to rank for a phrase like “clean my carpet,” you do not need to repeat the term exactly in your website, instead you may use "immaculate my carpet," which will google see similar to “clean my carpet,” If you use “immaculate” instead of “clean,” you'll have opportunity to rank for both phrases.

Why?

Because, Google’s algorithm uses Latent semantic indexing (LSI), which help Google identify patterns in the relationships between the terms and concepts contained in an unstructured collection of text. LSI is based on the principle that words that are used in the same contexts tend to have similar meanings.

5. Pay Attention to Website Navigation

It's under google's website design guideline. Improving your website navigation can have a positive impact on your site ranking. No amount of excellent content will be worth anything if your users can’t find their away around your site.

Navigation Best Practice:

• Keep menus consistent and logically arranged.
• Use internal linking whenever appropriate.
• Verify there is text navigation, not JavaScript or Flash navigation that spiders can’t see.
• Make sure you at least have text navigation on the bottom of the page if there aren’t any spiderable navigation links in the top navigation.

6. Avoid the Shortcut Methods

A lot of SEO experts claim that they have short cut method (Usually they keep it secret from their client) to rank higher on SERP.

Shortcut method may works on very short-term basis, But there’s a risk involved in tricky shortcut method.

What and Why?

The problem occurs when google's spider finish analyzing your website and find tricky method that you/your expert implemented to dodge google.

The only way to get rid of it and get your rank back is if you find your SEO expert did or doing any Shortcut Method on your website, abandon the expert and clean your content.

7. Stop Guest Posting

Don't get me wrong, I still believe that Guest posting is an effective and killer way to build authoritative links. But it shouldn’t be the one and only one strategy for your website marketing.

Remember what I already said about Natural Link Profile And a site with a too many links from one source (like guest posts) may penalize your website.

Also, There's a very real risk that Google will belittle links coming from guest posts. There’s too many people guest posting on an industrial-scale and it has footprint.

8. Anchor Text Diversity

The question of Anchor Text Diversity is heavily debated. In the past, experts believed that Anchor Text Optimized Backlinks is the key to dominate in the search rank. Again, Anchor Text Optimized Backlinks doesn’t look Natural Link Profile to user or Google.

Today Anchor Text Diversifying for link is a must. Since Google use Latent semantic indexing, you don't have to worry much about anchor text. Use mix of brand, domain, webmaster name, and keywords as anchor text more often.

Panda actually is less about backlinks, but more about quality and content. I deal with manual penalty removal for my client website, but this is another pair of shoes and has nothing to or with panda or penguin.

Did you receive a manual penalty message within the Google Webmaster Tools? Please leave a comment below.

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Content marketing planning and effective marketing tactics in 2015 [Infographic]

In 2015, it seems that content marketing still reigns supreme when it comes to the most commercially important digital marketing trend. Yet according to following infographic, the biggest challenge content marketers face is measuring content effectiveness, while an overwhelming 56% of marketers don’t have a content marketing strategy!

So, what is the latest Content marketing planning and effective marketing tactics in 2015? Check out this infographic created by Jane Hunt, along with her team at JBH Marketing to summarize the key issues and give examples of what's working and what isn't.

PPC vs SEO : Which One is Better For My Business?

When it comes to increase website traffic through search engine, you have two basic options: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising or Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I love SEO and PPC and have been using both Marketing strategies on a mixture of clients for over seven years, yet I'm often asked which one is better. Today I'm going to share their major differences, advantages and disadvantages with you.

Pay Per Click Advertising on Google, Bing and other sites is a quick and easy way to get listed on their search result for the keywords that are related to your website. Unfortunately, PPC is expensive and you can get traffic for free by achieving high rankings in the search engine organic search results.

In Search Engine Optimization, You will need to follow SEO best practices to get higher ranking and display more often in search engine result. It may take time to reach the top of the organic results, but the free, highly targeted traffic will probably prove to be well worth the investment.

What is the difference between PPC and SEO?

Position: Search Engine Optimization focuses on organic search results which are displayed in the main body of the search engine result pages. PPC listings are displayed as the ‘sponsored links’ at the top of the page or on the right hand side column.

Organic search results include all web pages which the search engine determines to be relevant to the user search query, while PPC reflects a targeted Search Engine Marketing Campaign and may show results only in a specific geographic area, time specific, user Operating systems, Carriers and few more.

Promotion Results: With an organic Search Engine Optimization campaign, a new website may take 1 to 18 months to show up on Search Engine Results. However, SEO results in continuous traffic over a longer period of time.

PPC can give an initial boost in traffic and is useful when launching a brand new website which is not yet appearing in organic results or you want create a buzz. However, when you stop the PPC campaign, the traffic stops immediately.

Perception: Organic Search Engine Optimization results in an Search Engine Marketing campaign are seen to be unbiased and have a higher level of credibility. SEO rankings are unpaid and based on the relevance of the webpage to the keyword but with PPC, the more you bid on a given keyword; the higher your advertisement is displayed for that search. The higher the position on the SERP page (Organic or PPC), the more trusted it is by searchers; the more likely it'll get clicks.

Price: With an SEO and/or a PPC campaign, there may be an initial set-up and ongoing fee if you engage an SEO or PPC specialist to create a campaign for your website. With an SEO campaign, there is no cost per individual click or visitor. However, with a PPC campaign, there is an ongoing cost per click or visitor – the greater your budget, the more traffic your website will receive.

But which approach is better for my business? 

It depends on your needs and budget. If you want more traffic fast and are willing to pay for every visitor you get, then PPC might be right for you. But if you're operating on a small budget, it may make more sense to invest time in chasing high search engine rankings through SEO.

In the long term, SEO is better because it delivers long lasting results.

• To achieve high rankings in the search engine organic search results, you have to develop SEO-friendly website, original content, and related authority Links that point to your site. It may take times to get high rankings with SEO. Fortunately, most websites keep their rankings for a long time.
• In the long run, SEO is a much better value than PPC. If you have a business that is meant to stay, SEO is the way to go.

In the short term, PPC is better because you are forced to improve your website.

• PPC is great because it provides instant results. You will get the first visitors minutes after the launch of your PPC campaign. Unfortunately, you won't get any more visitors as soon as you stop paying.
• If you use paid search marketing, your website will get visitors because you pay for them.

The fact is that, if done correctly, both PPC and SEO can get you on the first page of the search engines for your targeted terms. However, each has its respective advantages and disadvantages as I mentioned above.

Please leave a comment below on which Marketing Strategy you feel is best and why to help continue the debate.

Mozila launched ‘Webmaker’ Android App in Bangla

August 17, 2015 Mozilla launched a new Android app version of Webmaker that focused on participants from three main markets – Bangladesh, India, and Kenya. The new app currently only support Android devices and available in four languages: Bengali, Brazilian Portuguese, English and Indonesian.

The announcement comes as a follow up on the initial Mozilla Webmaker that launched over three years ago, with the goal of hand-tailoring an intuitive and organic web-creating space that would help people "learn and play using the open building blocks of the web."

You can download the  free, open source app from Google Play at mzl.la/webmaker.

Current app is updated version of it beta version. Improved performance and a more optimal user experience, shared projects can now be viewed on any platform (mobile or desktop), and users with poor connectivity will experience better performance while offline. Also, content discovery is now location-based — you can see what others in your community are creating and remixing.

Mozilla Webmaker transforms Web users into Web makers. You can build original content like scrapbooks, photo galleries, memes, comic strips and more. Mozilla built Webmaker to empower first-time smartphone users and mobile-first Web users as active participants on the Web. Too often, individuals around the world experience a “read-only” mobile Web, passively consuming content and unable to actively contribute. But when consumers become creators, they’re introduced to social and economic opportunity. And when everyone can contribute equally, the Web becomes a better place.

Webmaker was designed to give these users a way to create their own presence online. Webmaker also could set the stage for bringing more local content on the Web.

Bangladesh Mozilla Community has made significant contribution to planning and making the Webmaker. Bangladeshi volunteers have worked with Mozilla Webmaker Team for several months to make sure the app User-Friendly, better performance and a more optimal user experience.

In the coming months, the Mozilla will promote Webmaker in Bangladesh as part of a nationwide campaign to Web literacy. Alongside Access-to-Information (program) of Prime Minister's Office, Mozilla will work in Bangladesh aiming to increase the digital efficiency.