Now, this is great apart from one glaring issue: Google has displayed site links we don’t necessarily want to appear for. Half of the Delineo site links direct people to individuals who work at Delineo, which is a bit of a problem. Of course, it’s nothing to do with who’s appearing, but it’s not exactly what we want to display. We want Google to pull information about our services. But how can this be done?

It all boils down to Webmaster Tools. In Google’s infinite wisdom, we’re not allowed to choose which links appear, but it’s possible to do so indirectly using the ‘demote this site link URL’. Google tells us that it will only ‘take this into account’, but it’s worth a try nevertheless. Here’s what to do:

1. Go to your Webmaster Tools account

2. Navigate to Site Configuration and select Sitelinks

3. From here you can add the links you wish to demoted. Add them (unlucky if you have a huge website!)

4. Pray to Google God and hope the correct site links will appear in the near future.

And that’s it. I’ve done this with the Delineo site and will report back if Google God decides to change them for me. Please, Google!

Paul Gardner: @binarychange

Everyone remembers Buzz Lightyear’s famous quote, ‘to infinity and beyond’. I believe this manly-chinned space ranger may have summarised the exact nature of SEO – we continue, and continue, and continue, and push the boundaries so it seems like ‘infinity and beyond‘. I also like to believe that many of us search marketers are heroic space faring people!

And I also believe that to be a proficient search marketer, it’s necessary to grasp the concept of ‘foreverness’: once you start, you’re forever locked in a battle of you, Google’s astonishingly secretive algorithm and your competitors: akin to a never-ending ‘search threesome’. And yes, this applies to the big boys as well.

Now, I’m not talking about the smaller picture i.e. search marketing being divided into little tasks involving link building, content writing, guest blogging, coding and the usual hubbub of SEO. This will provide short-term gains such as getting to ‘numero uno’ for a specific search term. I’m talking about the bigger picture. Once you’re locked in, you’re locked in for good.

Let’s take a look at a different kind of job: off the top of my head, a car engineer. With this job there’s a clear beginning, middle and end: you get the job, you fix the car, you hand it over to the owner and grab your money. THE END. With SEO, there’re only ever two parts: a beginning and a continuum. You get the job, you dominate the market, and you maintain your presence. Let slip and your dominance will slip.

Perhaps it’s just that. I like to view SEO as a vast ocean (that can be tamed!) of swirls and eddies, sometimes rough and sometimes calm.

How do you see search and what’s your metaphor to describe it?

The potential applicant should have an interest in online marketing. We’ll be looking for applicants to hone their link building skills as well as learn the art of targeted keyword research, and there may be some writing, too. You don’t have to be an evangelist, guru or god of SEO; but you will need a basic understanding and, of course, enthusiasm for the subject.

You’ll get the opportunity to work in an established advertising agency in Manchester on campaigns for different clients. You’ll get knowledge in best SEO practices and see how these implemented in an agency environment. All

The role is perfectly suited for someone who has recently graduated or is still in university and has an aim to work in the digital/online marketing world. If you’re interested, please forward your CV and cover letter to paul@delineo.com.

Staff members can become your greatest brand advocates. They can highlight company news, increase the exposure of a business and offer a unique perspective on the inside workings of an organisation. But getting them using these social networks is a different matter entirely.

Here’s four ways to encourage new staff members to sign up, use and benefit from these social networks.

Introduce social media

Encouraging staff to join an unfamiliar social network is often the most challenging task. While it’s all well and good explaining how their activity on Twitter or LinkedIn can benefit the organisation, you may find that some employees will be reluctant to invest their time into a profile if it seems like they’re signing away their image and time for the sole benefit of an employer.

Explain how one particular social network will add value to their personal lives, grow their professional network and increase their knowledge. Demonstrate its worth on a personal level, rather than framing the usage of these platforms in a corporate point of view. Sit down with interested team members and provide training on each social network; highlight the features of each site and the tools you can use for each site.

No fear

The nightmare scenario, for any agency, is having a client associate personal tweets with a company’s attitude or philosophy. While personal tweets have never, in my experience, influenced a client-agency relationship, there are more than enough examples on the internet to appreciate the dangers of having a staff member associate themselves with a company account.

So, offer some guidelines to any team members who decide to enter the social space. Be clear about the issues which can arise from sharing your personal life online, but be careful not to put off any potential team members with horror stories. As long as you give staff sensible guidelines about what they post online, there shouldn’t be any major mishaps.

Encourage staff online

Encourage new Twitter members with retweets and @ mentions from the official company account. If you’re new to Twitter, it can feel like you’re talking yourself. By engaging with staff, you’re not only giving them additional coverage (and followers), but also providing a quick taster as to the benefits of this particular social network. In this way, you can encourage staff to pursue their social media activity.

Don’t force the issue

Never force a team member to post an update or retweet a message on your behalf. While it’s acceptable to ask politely if someone can share your message or link, never forget that you do not have jurisdiction over the content of another person’s social media account. It is their personal profile and the last you want to do is to hijack it for your own corporate means. There are two reasons for this:

Staff may become unhappy that their personal profile is being hijacked for company means and leave the site entirely.

Social media thrives on personality. If a personal account becomes nothing more than a megaphone for company updates, it’s not likely to attract as many connections, defeating the object of the exercise.

In an ideal world, you want staff to become company advocates on their own terms; posting content and retweeting updates when they feel it is of most interest to them and their followers. This is how, as an organisation, you’ll get the most benefit.

Further to some observations I made a couple of weeks ago, Google seems to have refined the local search even more and now features a ‘category’ and ‘neighbourhood’ section above the local places list in the web results. This is an interesting move since these links were located under the local address listings a couple of weeks ago (See our other post on Google local SERPS).

Here are some images for ‘shops in Manchester’ and ‘Manchester hotels’:

It’s by no means perfect, for example under the neighbourhood category for Manchester hotels, there’s a link for ‘greater’, which probably means ‘Greater Manchester’. But what’s interesting is that Google recognises shopping centres for the search shops in Manchester: see the ‘Arndale Centre’ link under the neighbourhood category. Preston shops also brings up St George’s Shopping Centre.

Some results differ from place to place, and Google will provide either ‘florists’ or ‘flower shops’, depending on the place; or sometimes ‘wedding dress shops’ or ‘bridal shops’. And what’s really clever is a search for restaurants in specific places. Search for a restaurant in a coastal town, and you’ll get a link for ‘seafood’ (Penzance or Falmouth restaurants).

There have been numerous complaints, on forums and the like, talking about scraped content appearing higher than the original source, which of course is immensely frustrating for many hard-working authors out there. This ought to be addressed as it’s a matter of fairness. According to the Search Engine Round Table blog, Google has started to incorporate user data about specific blocked sites. This is used as a secondary method of ranking sites with low quality content.
What to do? Well, as Google’s been saying for years now, the best method is to focus on the user: create content that’s not only as high quality as possible, but also helpful and useful for the searcher. Black hats using cheap tricks are hopefully a thing of the past and let’s look forward to better quality results from Google!