Google added the site verification tool to Webmaster Tools. So now there is no need to upload several html files so everyone can have access to a specific account. All it takes is to add the email address, although it must be a gmail address. Of course, Google would not have it any other way..

Once you’re a verified owner of a website, you can view the Verification Details page (linked from Webmaster Tools or the Verification home page). That page will show you information about the site as well as a list of any other verified owners. At the bottom of the list of owners, you’ll now see a button labeled “Add a user…”. Click that, enter the user’s email address, and that person will instantly become a verified owner for the site! You can remove that ownership at any time by clicking the “Unverify” link next to the person’s email address on the Details page.

There are a few important things to keep in mind as you use this feature. First, each site must always have at least one owner who has verified directly (via meta tag or HTML file). If all of the directly verified owners become unverified, the delegated owners may also become unverified. Second, you can only delegate ownership to people with Google Accounts. Finally, remember that anyone you delegate ownership to will have exactly the same access you have. They can delegate to more people, submit URL Removal requests and manage Sitelinks in Webmaster Tools, etc. Only delegate ownership to people you trust!

Source

The purpose of the SEO Report Card aims to identify potential areas for improvement in Google’s product pages. If implemented, these improvements could:

• help users find Google pages more easily in search engines
• fix bugs that annoy visitors and hurt Google pages’ performance in search engines
• serve as a good model for outside webmasters and companies

They reviewed the main pages of 100 different Google products across a number of common SEO topics. The Search Quality Team, Brandon Falls, Adi Goradia, and Charlene Perez, teach us what techniques we can use to better optimise our web pages (using Google as a case study).

For anybody who has beginner to intermediate knowledge, this report could help a lot in terms of your understanding of what do for on-site optimisation.

A big part of ranking by search engines is dependent on inbound links, but not just any link will do these days. Metrics like relevance and trust are being taken into account. The authoritative sites of today have topically relevant, naturally given, high quality links.

More and more SEOs are finding value in social media in order to come by these links. Google creating new channels of social media shows that there is success to be made in this market. Searches are considering people’s thoughts, opinions and experiences in their rankings.

Social media is a kind of linking. By following a business on Twitter, you are recommending them. Just as an authoritative site linking to your site improves its quality, so will an authoritative site following you on Twitter. Through social media, businesses can get involved with the community. Tweeting quality information will draw more people to your page, and perhaps lead to a re-tweet, which in turn will attract their followers as well.

Social media is not merely about making a profile and expecting the results to come. There’s a lot more to it. It’s a continual process, and one which demands time. The information you put out there has to be good enough to make people want to read it.

These people are not just any people. They are the Linkerati. They may not be your target market, but they will bring you to closer to them. Whether they are bloggers, forum users, journalists or social taggers, they are the connectors; connecting information spread throughout the web. They go through large amounts of content daily; they know what’s good and what isn’t and therefore they are very powerful. What they link to is how they are perceived, so they are looking for something exceptional. In order to gain their power, you have to create compelling content that appeals to their desires. If you give them good, new material, they will link to it, share it and spread it virally.

In order to create content that will appeal to the Linkerati, you need to study them and find out what they want. Think back to your school days. Remember the ‘popular kids’? If someone wanted to be a part of ‘the in group’, they couldn’t just waltz up to them at break time and expect an in, not unless they wanted to suffer embarrassment and rejection. No, if you wanted to be part of the cool gang, you had to study the way they dressed, how they talked and what they talked about.

While social media is a little easier and a lot friendlier, the concept is very similar. In order to gain popularity in your online community, you need to engage with other members and create conversation that stands out. To do this, you need a strategy that involves researching your target audience and setting measurable goals. Then you can build a presence for yourself, therefore creating brand awareness.

Linkbait is interesting enough so that it will catch people’s attention. To refer back to that school analogy; remember that kid who wasn’t popular but always stood out? The one who always had something to argue about? That’s exactly why you remember them; they were always being controversial. Matt Cutts lists content that is controversial as a type of linkbait, although he warns not to overuse it. His other suggestions to create linkbait are to put in a lot of work or to be creative.

In order to become an authoritative source in your community, you need to generate quality content. To build up your social media profile and create trust and authority, you need to deliver valuable, relevant contributions.

SEOmoz CEO, Rand Fishkin, argues that organisations generating low quality content can still rank higher than those generating quality content. He says that those who optimise, distribute and market their works to an audience most likely to link it, will have better results than those who simply produce great content.

If that’s the case, then by creating quality content and marketing it well, how much more success can you achieve?  Optimising your content through internal links and leveraging keywords, can improve search traffic without compromising your content or user experience.

It takes time to earn the Linkerati’s respect. It’s not a question of creating a social platform and immediately marketing yourself. No good conversation consists of someone jumping right in and talking all about themselves. First you need to gain some recognition before trying to sell your product or service. Then once you’re connecting with your target market, your fans or followers will increase which will lead to more traffic and links.

Not everyone believes social media is helpful to SEO. In an article written a year ago, Fishkin says that although social media is “hot” right now, SEOs should invest in something for its value and not its popularity. He says that it cannot compare to what search/SEO does and that businesses must concentrate on the fundamentals of online marketing. However, since then, social media has become even more popular and Google searches have become so evolved that they are now including the latest Twitter results (How Google identifies which Tweet gets shown in the search result is another topic all together, which we’ve discussed in a previous post).

If social media is here to stay, then those not jumping on the bandwagon might lose business to competitors deep in the world of Twitter and Facebook, who have built up a band of followers and fans and are gaining recognition.

WebGrowth client and charity organisation, Breadline Africa, is currently promoting an exciting competition which gives South Africans a chance to do their bit in helping to alleviate poverty in Africa.

By simply sending an SMS or making a donation online, you will be supporting this organisation’s worthy cause and become a possible candidate to win an evening with a local celeb.

The lucky winners will be treated to a fun evening with either the band Just Jinjer, singer Heinz Winckler, 5FM’s Sasha Martinengo or 94.7 Highveld Stereo’s Bailey Schneider. A delicious meal and free flights are included in the prize.

Breadline Africa is dedicated to fighting poverty in Africa by helping communities help themselves. The organisation finds sustainable solutions which create a permanent difference in the lives of communities in Africa affected by extreme poverty.

Enter now because this competition closes on 28 February! The more you donate, the better your chance will be to win this fabulous evening. Enter by sending the name of your celebrity (jinjer, heinz, sasha or bailey) to 36010 or visit Breadline Africa online and tick the celebrity of your choice. SMS’s cost R5.

Google Social Search has been in Google Labs since October last year, it was an opt-in product of Labs. Now Google has begun the roll-out to signed in users within google.com. Social Search Beta will be available to all English speaking users using google.com within a few days.

Before you get confused, Google Social Search is NOT Real Time Search. It retrieves information from your social circles and displays the result near the bottom of the page. Google’s algorithm is intelligent enough to link up different profiles within my social circles and display their website/s within my serps (search engine result pages).

If I use a keyword in my Google search that is related to friends within my social profile it will display something like this (I used “travel south africa” in this case):

As you can see from the above image I am linked to SmartGuide and Africa Bespoke via Twitter.

Social Search Backend

In Google’s Social Search new dashboard there are two features:

1. a list of everyone in your social circle and how you’re connected to them
2. a list of all of your own content that might appear in other users’ social search results

This is a great tool to analyse your social network at a glance but one limiting factor is that you cannot organise your social network. There is no option of deleting someone off your social profile or if there has been cases where one person creates two profiles and you only want to be connected to one. So it would be nice to be able to combine the two.

When using Social Search, you’ll be able to access this dashboard by clicking either of the “My social circle” or “My social content” links that appear next to the heading that tells you that you’re seeing Social Search results.

Social Search Optimisation

When Google launches something as influential as this, as a marketer you need to pay careful attention. There are ways you can improve your social search penetration;

• Add other social networking sites that you use onto your Google Profile.
• Make connections with more friends via Gmail and Google Chat (which gets top-billing on the dashboard’s list of contacts in your circle).

By doing this it’s only common sense that your website will pop up on more searches. To create a following on Facebook and Twitter become a thought leader in your industry so people will automatically gravitate to you. As your reputation increases more and more people will want to follow you thus increasing your exposure on Google’s Social Search.