As an SEO expert I use it for checking organic impressions, queries that are bringing visitors to a site and the landing pages most commonly “landed” on.

It is also invaluable for checking the health of a website: it will warn you if your site is not suitably optimised for mobile devices and recently gave us a heads-up when web developer uploaded the wrong robots.txt file which disallowed all pages from being indexed by Google (yes, that’s another story).

So whether you were already a fan of Google Webmaster Tools or you are new to search optimisation check out the re-branded Google Search Console, it will help you improve the visibility of you content in search listings and help diagnose any problems with your website preventing it doing well in organic searches.

Do You Know What is in Your Robots.txt file?

What are the goals and benefits of a Business Blog?

 

Google’s new algorithm targetting non-responsive websites

In Google’s own words:
“…we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices”

Note the use of the word expanding – if you didn’t know already Google have been recommending the use of responsive websites since 2012 (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/recommendations-for-building-smartphone.html) and so have already been using mobile usability as a ranking score  for some time. This change seems simply designed to place more emphasis on mobile usability in line with increasing patterns of mobile device use.

Responsive sites are built in such a way that they can determine the size and orientation of a screen and the type of device, then automatically display the website in the most appropriate way for that device so if it’s a phone any phone numbers displayed will be callable via a simple click . More relevantly only the most important parts of any page are  displayed and in a configuration that suits the screen size. This is not the same as a separate mobile website; there is only one version of the code in a responsive site and it can adapt to any size device, unlike specific mobile versions which are built for screens of a certain size.

So the need for a responsive site should have been on everyone’s radar already. Certainly the majority of the websites I work with are responsive already.

But if you don’t already have a responsive website (or don’t know what type it is) what should you do? In a nutshell:

1. Check your site for any potential mobile usability problems via webmaster tools.
2. Check the current proportion of your visitors who access your website via mobile reports in Google Analytics – low percentages might suggest few visitors searching via mobile but could also be an indication that your rankings are much lower from mobile devices so also check your mobile rankings.
3. Check you mobile rankings today and monitor them closely over the coming weeks.
4. If you haven’t already, make a plan to convert your site to a responsive design, but take the time to get it right and have it well designed rather than rushing it with a knee jerk reaction.

The result of this change will  be that searches performed from a mobile device will rank those sites that will provide a better mobile experience higher, but remember this is only one of 200+ ranking factors so it is not the only factor affecting  your position in the rankings. Nevertheless, it is an important factor and set to become more so.

Don’t assume you know what mobile visitors will want to do on your site – whilst mobile visitors might once have just browsed and researched while out and about, the growth of easy access to good Internet connections in hotspots and free wifi networks, not to mention the increasing habit to surf from the sofa, means visitors are making buying decisions, and buying, from mobile devices in increasing numbers.

Whatever type of business you have and whatever type of website, whether it is just a shop window or a fully fledged e-commerce site, mobile searches are here to stay. Even if you receive no visits via mobile devices now you cannot assume potential customers will not want a mobile friendly site, and soon, because mobile Internet access s already significant and increasing all the time.

Note that in February Google also begin using information from indexed apps as a factor in ranking (for signed-in users who have the app installed).

Why you should no longer use article directories to publish content as part of your SEO campaign

 

 

But persuading existing customers to leave a review is not easy. How many times have you bought something online, been very happy with the purchase but just not bothered to leave a review even when asked kindly by the company from whom you bought?

And have you noticed how even well-known high street shops (Marks & Spencer and Boots for example) are also getting in on the act – giving you an extra slip with your till receipt with the chance to win £250 (or whatever) if you leave an online review. And have you?

So don’t expect a huge uptake on your request for online reviews but, nevertheless, even just a few good reviews can make a difference.

“As few as 6 reviews on Google+, for example, can result in a star rating being shown as part of your search listing.”

So what can you do to persuade customers or clients to leave a Google+ review?

1. Add a direct link to the review page in your email
2. Be honest about why you are asking for a review
3. Offer a small incentive

For example, for a service company you could write:

Remember that just a few reviews could make you company stand out from the competition in the search listings.

A survey by Dimensional Research suggests 90% of buyers are influenced by positive online reviews and 86% by negative reviews.

But the issue for potential customers is knowing which reviews to trust.

For that reason many large companies have been using independent review systems such as:

• Trust Pilot
• Reevoo
• Feefo
• Reviews.co.uk

These systems contact genuine customers who can then leave reviews via their independent review system; that way companies cannot filter out bad reviews. The chink in this armour is that the company being reviewed is supplying the customer email addresses so there is the possibility of companies simply not supplying the email addresses for any customers who have had a bad experience.

Independent review systems enable your business to set up an automated system that contacts customers a certain number of days after delivery of a product seeking a review. The particular parameters you use are within the control of your business and you can reply to reviews through the same system, but because the reviews are posted to the review system’s website they are seen as more trustworthy by potential customers. The reviews can, of course, also be displayed on your own business website.

If you run an Adwords campaign you can use the star ratings given on these review systems in the advert. A potential customer can click on the rating link and read the reviews before making a purchasing decision. So there are plenty of advantages to using an independent review system.

However, there are also a number of reasons why an independent review system might not be right for your business:

1. You don’t run an Adwords campaign so can’t benefit from the displayed star ratings in an advert.
2. Independent review sites are not currently widely used for some industry sectors so your star ratings shown on their website may not appear near the top of search listings so will not be visible to online searchers to influence their decision.
3. Your business is a service business such as an accountants or lawyers where you provide an ongoing service so there is no obvious point at which to seek a review from a client, thus negating the benefit of an automated system that sends emails a certain number of days after a product purchase.
4. Small businesses may find it hard to justify the regular monthly costs of an independent review system.

If any of these apply to your business what are the alternatives that provide the trust that potential customers are looking for online?

Well, there are a number of places, not specifically designed as review sites, where anyone can enter a review of a business, provided they have registered. A few of these sites are commonly found near the top of search listings with business star ratings shown and are trusted by the online community. Google+ actually shows star ratings as part of a normal search listing given the right circumstances. (Note that this does, of course, depend on the search terms being used).

The places to look out for are:

• Google+ (naturally)
• Yelp
• Yell

Google+ Business Reviews

Most small businesses will by now have a Google+ page, (and if you haven’t you should have), on which customers can leave a review of your business and a rating between 1 and 5 stars.

Verified businesses with a Google+ business page linked to their website will show in the search listings an additional couple of links beneath your webpage description, linking to your Google+ business page and another link saying “Be the first to review”, if you have no Google+ reviews yet or “xx reviews” if you do. When you have approximately 6 or more reviews there will also be a star rating shown alongside:

Local (map) results in Google will also display this information in a slightly different format:

But just how can you persuade customers to leave a review?

Firstly, by making it easy for them.

You can do this by inserting a direct link to your Google+ review page in the email you send out asking for feedback. The direct link is easy to formulate for any Google+ page whether it has a vanity URL or not by simply adding “?h1=en&review=1″ to any of your Google+ pages. For example:

https://plus.google.com/117932084920949332025/posts?hl=en&review=1

If your customer or client already has a Google account (more on this in a moment) and they are already logged in, they will then be taken straight to your review box, which looks like this:

Many people have a Google account without really being aware that they have. Did you know that Gmail, Android, Blogger and YouTube accounts are all Google accounts and now one account covers all Google services?

If someone is not logged into a Google account or does not have one they will be taken to the following screen where they can either login or very quickly and easily create an account.

And once you have made it easy for customers to leave a review of your business tempt them into doing so by offering a small gift such as chocolates or wine, and don’t forget a reminder a week later. Customer reviews are a powerful tool in your online marketing efforts so are worth the effort to obtain them.

And a final note about bad reviews – no company is perfect and provided you respond to the review online and rectify any problems this will show an honest approach to customer reviews.

So what are you waiting for send out those emails and start building up a list of customer reviews and start seeing your star rating appear in search listings.

I happen to know that their SEO company have a very professional looking website and seem, at first glance, to be a reputable company; that is until you search for “<company name> complaints”. In fact, I didn’t actually search for that term – it simply came up as a suggestion in Google so clearly plenty of other people are searching for it even though the company is working hard to suppress the complaints with positive press.

But all of this got me thinking more about how many large companies there are who actually don’t know what their link profile looks like and, worse, maybe don’t undestand what their SEO’s are doing to improve their rankings. I always provide my clients with a list of places where links are being generated on a monthly basis and if this had happened for the banned website they would probably have seen a suspicious pattern emerging.

I was discussing the banned website with a marketing exec from a different industry but from a company comparable in size and reputation to the company banned/penalised by Google and she “felt sure” their SEO company were not engaging in any un-ethical SEO tactics because they are a reputable company. But so, apparently, were the SEOs for the banned site and she had no evidence to back up her assumptions.

At the other end of the scale from a mega 31,000 links campaign, I have also this week been looking at a much smaller company Tetbury Garden Services who only had their brand new website go live a couple of weeks ago but already they are on page one for their most preferred search term “tetbury garden services” – and, guess what? They only have 3 links! I know that the search term is not very competitive and that the website is extremely well optimised so got off to a better start than many large expensive websites that focus purely on design and only consider SEO when they realise they have very few visitors, but this is still a success story for a small local company.

Just take a look at the leap in rankings over a fews days below…

If you remember the days when the number of links were all that mattered for high Google rankings this is a perfect example of what white hat SEOs have been saying for several years – it is not the quantity of links that is important but the quality. I will issue the proviso that quantity does also matter if, for instance, competitors have lots of good quality links but small website owners everywhere take heart that just a few good links can get you to Page 1 of Google for certain keywords.

We all know how important it is to obtain good quality inbound links (backlinks) for our websites that show the search engines that we are both a reputable business and have a reputable website (both, sadly, do not always go hand in hand). But what if you link out to what you know is a reputable business but their website turns out to have employed black hat SEO techniques and is later penalised by Google?

It is not always obvious what is and isn’t a good quality website unless you have access to link profiles. It seems that some reputable businesses are engaging in unethical SEO tactics – I would like to think that many of them are not aware of this but are just using disreputable SEO agencies, but who knows?

I recently had a client who received a very threatening email from a (supposedly) reputable company – a big business in the same field – stating that it would “disavow” my client’s site with Google and this could potentially harm his site.

Here’s what the email said:

We have sent you a request on 9th May, 2014 regarding some links pointing to xxxxxxxx.com from your website. We have not received any replies / updates from your side. No replies to this second request would automatically place your domain in our Disavow list to Google which would affect your domain badly. Kindly reply back soon to avoid this action.

In fact my client’s site is a very reputable site that only uses ethical SEO techniques (I should know, as I manage it for him) but the other site that is now penalised had over 31,000 spammy links mostly from fake forums – I have, of course, now checked their link profile.

But let’s just clarify what would have happened if the other website had disavowed my client’s site. It might have resulted in a manual review by Google if lots of other disavow reports had been submitted, but a manual review would have revealed that it was a genuine website. In fact, John Mueller from Google said

Having URLs from your website submitted in a disavow file will not cause any problems for your website. One might assume that they are just trying to pressure you.

So the moral of this story is that you never know what other businesses are up to so be careful who you link to. Reputable businesses can have disreputable websites if they don’t take the time to understand what SEO techniques are being employed to improve their rankings.