Bharati Ahuja

Google Says: Twitter And FaceBook Social Signals Are Not A Part Of The Ranking Algorithm

Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, released a webmaster video today answering the question, “are Facebook and Twitter signals part of the ranking algorithm?” The short answer was a clear cut "NO".

Matt Cutts recently has spilled the beans regarding the social and search integration and has openly declared that Twitter and FaceBook pages are not passing on any social media signals for web search rankings directly.

He says, FaceBook and Twitter pages are treated like any other pages on the web index for Google. If they are able to crawl the Twitter and the FaceBook pages then they those pages are indexed.

But the algorithm does not calculate any special social signals like the no. of followers, likes, mentions, etc. as the relationships between social identities keep on changing and many times the index may be not updated accordingly as sometimes the third party social media sites block Googlebot and they are unable to crawl the pages and may not have accurate data.

Hence the algorithms are not yet updated to influence the web search rankings according to the FaceBook and Twitter pages social signals. Matt Cutts clearly says that the FaceBook and Twitter pages are treated like other pages available on the web and no special social media signals are passed on by the algorithms to influence the rankings based on that data.

But, that does not mean that Twitter and FaceBook are no longer important because they are very powerful social media sites and the URLs shared on these platforms have a very wide outreach which increase the potential for that URL to gain popularity on the web. This popularity has the potential of creating good quality inbound links which in the long run influence the search rankings.

But what Matt Cutts has not yet answered is ...

Are Google+ pages passing social signals to influence web search rankings?

Google can crawl the Google+ pages and they know about the dynamics of the changing relationships between Google+ identities too real time. So, should we assume that only Google+ accounts, Google+ pages, Google+ Local, Google+ Communities, YouTube , Google Places and other such Google products are the only sources for the social and search integration?? Well , according to me the answer is in the affirmative.

First the authorship markup made it mandatory to have a Google+ account as the markup can be verified only if you have a presence on Google+ then this information regarding Twitter and FaceBook signals not being treated as true social media signals but like any other pages available on the web is making it very clear that if you want a good search presence you need to have a Google+ presence along with quality content on your website and blog.

According to me though this may result in making Google monopolize the search arena but atleast the link building spam will be combated. Hope the other social media sites share their social signals data with Google completely and in real time so Google can get a broader picture about an identity and hence get their due search presence. Only Google+ social signals again can be a very narrow view point about an identity which in the long run can again affect the quality of the search results.

One of our previous videos published on YouTube regarding social and search integration and quality inbound links.

Conclusion:

Please do not take it for granted that just because you have a good social media presence your search presence is going to improve. Publish quality content, share it on social media, after a good outreach when people link back to the post the popularity signals that is the quality inbound links will help improve the search presence. So,quality content is again the king. SEO Is A Necessity, Content Creation Is A Strategy And Social Media Is The Channel

B2B Content marketing v/s B2C Content Marketing

Author : Bharati Ahuja

Though there is a person behind the business to whom you want to market a product or service , there is a difference between marketing to a business and marketing to a person. A B2B purchase is based more on reducing costs, streamlining systems and saving time, effort and money to buy for further sale whereas B2C marketing is geared to make a direct sale to a customer for end use. Hence the B2B and B2C marketing differ as follows:

The Purpose of buying: A B2B buyer is buying for resale but a B2C buyer buys the product for direct use.
The Price: As the B2B buyer is buying for resale the price offered to him has to be competitive enough.
The communication with the buyer has to be as per their need via the right channel.
Purchase quantity: The B2B buyer will mostly buy in bulk to get a competitive price but a B2C buyer may just buy a single unit an may be willing to pay a high price.

When there are such stark differences in the focus between both the kinds of marketing then does B2B Content Marketing differ from B2C Content Marketing?

The goal of B2B Content Marketing and B2C Content Marketing is the same but the difference is in the approach.
The B2B purchase is a result of a logical decision but a B2C purchase for direct consumption is more driven by emotion and the immediate need of the product at that point of time. For e.g a B2B purchase for jackets for further resale may be a very logical decision made before the season arrives for the use of those jackets but a B2C decision to buy a jacket may be during the peak season when the B2C buyer is ready to pay a high price to purchase it. Hence catering to the B2B logical decision the content should be based on the intricacies of how the decision will be more profitable but the decision made for B2C which may be driven more by utility should focus on how the product is going to be more useful to the buyer and why he needs to buy it immediately.
Whether the content is for B2B or B2C audience it should be honest and fulfil a need. i.e give accurate information, offer a solution, answer FAQs, etc.
The content should be published regularly with consistency of thought to win the confidence of the readers.
The content should be not be a sales pitch though the objective of the content is to acquire new customers. The order should be educate > engage > acquire and not vice versa.
B2B buyers usually take decisions in their offices where mostly they are using their laptops or PCs but B2C buyers increasingly are using their smartphones to make purchase decisions hence the content created should accordingly cater to multi screen devices to influence the potential buyer to make the decision.
The social media platforms used by B2B buyers and B2C buyers also varies. B2B buyers usually prefer LinkdenIn and Twitter and the B2C buyers are usually influenced majorly by FaceBook but the tweens and teens are also getting influenced by Instagram, whatsapp and Snapchat social signals.
B2B content ideas and content usually comes from the employees but for B2C the content usually comes from your satisfied customers in the form of feedback and reviews.
Emailing informative content to B2B buyers may be accepted by them as they are constantly looking for more and more information to come to the most profitable decision but emailing content to a B2C buyer may not be welcomed as a B2C buyer wants the information readily available in the right format when he is making the decision and usually gets annoyed if bombarded with emails.

B2B and B2C Content Marketing Trends:

B2B vs. B2C: 10 Marketing Experts Have Their Say (SlideShare) from Babcock & Jenkins

The Following Stats By The Content Marketing Institute give An Idea About What To Expect In 2014 As Regards Using Content As A Marketing Strategy:

86% of B2C marketers and 91% of B2B marketers are using content marketing as a key part of their strategy today.

60% of B2C content marketers expect to spend more in 2014 than was spent in 2013.
Over the past year, only 55% of B2C content marketers saw a budget increase.
58% of B2B content marketers plan to spend more in 2014 than was spent in 2013.
Over the past year, only 54% of B2B content marketers saw a budget increase.
69% of the least effective B2C marketers plan to increase their budget.
Only 55% of the most effective B2C marketers plan to increase their budget.
Brand awareness is the top content marketing goal for both B2C (79%) and B2B (82%) marketers. Customer acquisition (71%) and retention/loyalty (65%) are the next-most common goals for B2C respondents, while lead generation is next among B2B respondents.
Web traffic is the top content marketing metric for both B2C (66%) and B2B (63%) marketers. Social media sharing is relatively more important to B2C respondents, who are far less interested in measuring sales quality and quantity.
Lack of time is the top challenge faced by both B2C (57%) and B2B (69%) content marketers. B2C respondents are relatively more concerned with producing the kind of content that engages, while B2B marketers are more concerned with producing enough content.
39% of B2C marketers have a documented content strategy, compared to 44% of B2B marketers.

Is the content strategy for your brand ready to face this emerging trend?

Image Credit:http://www.brandingbusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/b2bvsb2c_627x330.jpg

SEO - 01/13/2014

In-Depth SEO Training At Ahmedabad Management Association By WebPro Technologies

We shall be conducting an in-depth SEO training at Ahmedabad Management Association from 20th January 2014 onwards.

IN DEPTH SEO TRAINING

Days: Monday to Friday,Dates: January 20 to February 4, 2014 (12 days)Timings: 6.30 to 8.30 p.m. Download brochure here :

http://goo.gl/A6Auhx

COURSE CONTENT

Module 1: Introduction to Google

· What is Organic Search Engine Optimization?

· What is Pay Per Click (PPC)?

· White Hat vs Black Hat optimisation?

· How does Google work?

· How does Google see the world?

Module 2: Site Architecture and Keyword Selection

· Importance of Keywords

· How to choose your keywords

· Why use multiple keywords

· How to find niche keywords

Module 3: Content Design and Page Optimisation

· How to optimize your keywords

· What is a website theme?

· How to optimize page and file names

· How to structure your page content

· How to optimize Meta tags

· How to optimize page title tags

· How to optimize Meta description tags

· How to optimize h tags

· How to optimize alt tags

· How to optimize title attribute tags

· How to avoid the misuse of header tags

· Choosing the best writing style

· How to avoid penalisation

Module 4: Linking Strategies

· Why are links important?

· What is Google PageRank?

· What are internal links?

· What are the three types of external link?

· What are the best sources of links?

· Should I link to blogs and social media sites?

· What is a link farm?

Module 5: Technical Considerations

· CSS vs table based design

· Understanding website frames

· How to choose the best domain name

· How to choose the best hosting company

· How to validate your website pages

· Canonical Issues

· Authorship v/s Publisher Markup

· Customized 404 pages

· Microformats and Schemas

· Twitter Cards And Facebook Open Graph

Module 6: Introduction to Content Management Systems

· Introduction to WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento

· Demo.

Module 7: The Importance Of Social Media Presence and Its Integration With Search

· Google+ and other Social Media Platforms

· Google+ Profile And Google+ Business Page

Module 8: The Latest Google Algorithm Updates

· What is the significance of the Panda Update?

· What is the significance of the Penguin Update?

· The Humming Bird Overview.

Module 9: Google SEO Tools

· How to setup and use a Google Webmaster Account

· How to verify your website

· How to setup and submit a Google sitemap

· How to produce and install a robots.txt file

· How to use a 301 redirect?

Module 10: Monitoring Traffic

· How to setup Google Analytics

· Google Analytics live demo.

Module 11: Maximizing Conversions And Metrics To Monitor For Search Presence

· What is website usability?

· Why is it important?

· How to design the ultimate website

Module 12: The Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors and SEO Workshop

· Your chance to ask questions about your own websites.

SEO - 01/12/2014

Are You Ready for The Multi Screen World And The Cross-Platform Consumer Behavior?

Author : Bharati Ahuja

Today majority of our daily media interactions are screen based. Our time online is spread between 4 primary devices:

Smartphone
Tablet
PC/laptop
TV

The device we choose to use is determined by our context:

The amount of time we have
The goal we want to accomplish (to buy online or read online or just surf)
Our location
Our state of mind then

If we want to do some serious research, task oriented or productive work then our choice of device is usually PC or laptop. If we are on the go and want to remain connected or need info quickly then the choice of device is usually the smartphone. The tablet use is more motivated by entertainment, relaxed and leisurely approach and excess time on hand. At times the use of device can be simultaneous or may result in switching from one device to another for multitasking.

According to a research study by Google:

Smartphones are the most common starting place for online activities.

PCs are most often a starting point for more complex activities.

Tablets are most often a starting point for shopping and trip planning.

TV viewing is no longer dedicated to to viewing the programmes relayed by the channels. Consumers simultaneously also search on their smartphones or tablets or the screen available closest to them for things they see on TV.

Hence, today the potential customers of any business are multiscreen shoppers.

It Is Important to Understand Reach, Resonance, and Reaction of Multi-Screen Campaigns

According to Neilson’s 2013 survey the mobile phone is rated as the second most important screen today (at 86 percent) as an advertising vehicle, yet that rating is inconsistent with actual spending behind mobile advertising.

Ad formats which are currently best suited for multi screen

The Nielsen Multi Screen Survey report concludes that:

Integrated multi-screen advertising is a preferred strategic direction of the marketing ecosystem. There are expectations across the industry for the majority of spend to shift to integrated multi-screen campaigns within three years. With this transformation, the industry needs more insights on effective integrated multi-screen campaign management. Furthermore, we can expect a greater emphasis on mobile and other connected devices as ad platforms, and adoption of TV buying practices online and vice-versa.

Yet significant barriers to multi-screen advertising achieving its potential still exist. Measurement remains a major challenge. Specialized metrics and methodologies for each screen need to evolve from activity-based to ROI-focused. That would help determine whether multi-screen campaigns are actually paying dividends. Without an integrated way to analyze results across screens, it is likely that multi-screen campaigns will not be managed in a fully integrated manner.

Consumers are still charging ahead, with viewership becoming screen-agnostic. The advertising industry is playing catch-up. Study after study shows the benefits of multi-screen over single-screen exposure for engaging these viewers in a way that converts them to customers. As an industry, we are sub-optimizing consumer engagement by not embracing integrated multi-screen advertising more vigorously and quickly.

With this kind of consumer behavior in the online, connected, multiscreen world are you ready to put the best foot forward for your business to reach out to the potential customer on any device he is searching on?

Others - 01/10/2014

Content Marketing Is A Business Strategy...How To Design A Content Strategy?

Author : Bharati Ahuja

Any business serious about a quality web presence and a wider and priority search presence needs to focus on publishing quality content regularly.

Hence, content is at the core of any online marketing activity. As a result the term “Content Marketing” has surfaced as a new wave online. But, we need to understand that “Content Marketing” does not mean marketing the content , but using content to market the product or service which your business offers.

Just adding blog posts written by any third party regularly does not achieve the purpose of content marketing. One needs to have a content strategy which needs to be implemented, monitored and the outcome measured regularly too.

How To Design A Content Strategy?

Decide upon the categories of topics which need to be published on the company blog or as guest posts.

Decide upon the different formats of the content

- Text Content
- Videos
- Audio
- Infographics
- Images or Cartoons

Have a clear idea about the type of audience.

- Is it the existing buyers you are targeting?
- Is it the potential B2C buyers?
- Is it the potential B2B buyers?

Have a clear idea about the demographics of the audience.

- The age group of the audience to be targeted.
- The gender if necessary
- The geolocation of the audience so that the right terminology is used which is prevalent in that location. (Local or Global)

Decide upon the outreach and distribution channels to be used for sharing and promoting the content.

- Twitter
- FaceBook
- Pinterest
- Linkedin
- Youtube
- Google+

Work out a set of norms to engage with the audience on social media platforms when they reply and respond. Company representatives on social media platforms should engage with the audience based on the rules and norms set by the company to avoid wrong messages to reach out online.

After all this exercise the analysis of the social media metrics will surely give an idea about the direction the content wave is reaching out to. The social media metrics via Google Analytics gives an idea about how the content strategy is getting executed. As social and search are integrated the no. of unique visits to the site via referral social media sites also is a positive indicator about the content strategy and the social media campaign being implemented. As per statistics social drives 25% of inbound traffic!!

Always have an Editorial Calendar which will organise the publishing of content. The headers in the calendar can be as follows:

- Date Created: The date when the content was written and submitted by the author to the team.
- Category: The category of the content.
- Title: The title of the content.
- Date To be published: The date when it is scheduled to be published.
- Author: The name of the author.
- Editor: The name of the person who edited the post.
- Target Audience: The audience for which the content has to be targeted so that the social media platforms are accordingly selected for its outreach and promotion.
- Outreach Channels: The list of social media platforms on which the blog post has to be shared.
- KPP(Key Performance Parameters): The key parameters which determine the success of the content : for e.g. likes, downloads, retweets, conversions, etc.

Get Found, Get Shared, Get Leads, Convert.

Social and search integration has to start at the site level. The website which is at the nucleus of the whole search and social ecosystem has to be optimized first to be found on the search engines as 80 % of the people start with search engines. An optimized site ensures that your business is found on the search engines when the user is searching for a product or services related to what you have to offer. The social media signals add to the trust factor and build confidence for the brand. Next when the potential buyer contacts you the conversion depends how fast and accurately his queries are answered and whether the impression that he gathered during the search experience matches with the real time experience he has with the sales staff .

Some Important Points To Ponder On About Content Strategy:

See that content is created by subject matter experts.
Every piece of content should add value.
73% of B2B content marketers are producing more content than they did one year ago
We're in the age of data driven marketing
Content Marketing is a business strategy
Think about ROO (Return On Objective) when analysing metrics.
The content should focus on the utility aspect , inspire the reader in some way or empathise with the reader so that the reader is influenced by the content in a positive way to achieve the objective set and achieve the purpose of publishing and promoting the post.
The main content marketing metrics which measure the success or failure are outreach, engagement and conversion.
Don’t sell but share knowledge.
Real influence isn't huge fan & follower counts, it's niche communities that take action.
Its not quantity of leads, but quality and conversion rates that matter
Conversions may not be immediate ...28% of invited executives engage in program after 7 months.

SEO / Social Media - 01/09/2014

SEO , Social Media And Content Strategy Posts Of 2013 On The WebPro Technologies Blog

SEO / Social Media - 12/19/2013

SEO 2014 The Year Of Positive SEO And The Survival Of The Fittest

Author : Bharati Ahuja The Year 2013 has given the most shaking algo shocks to the SEO industry.... Courtesy Google.... But, despite all the shocks and after-shocks of the Panda and Penguin updates the SEO industry is still positive (at least I am and am not going to say ‘I Quit’ for a long time to come) . SEO is still alive with more energy and synergy with the web and the search engines.

In fact as I had mentioned in one of my blog posts in 2011 Why the changes made by Google meant good news for the SEO industry . This was at a time when the whole SEO industry was against the changes being made especially when Google introduced Encrypted Search and the keyword data got taken away from us. http://www.seocopywriting.com/content-marketing/why-googles-recent-changes-mean-good-news-for-the-seo-industry/ In December 2013 we had mentioned the following points to be focused upon for SEO which will be applicable in 2014 too:-

On Page optimization as per the W3C standards
Have a web presence on various platforms
Update your blog regularly
Co relate web presence with fresh content by blogging, commenting, discussing, sharing links on social media from your own site and blog plus from other authority sites of your industry.
Have a YouTube video channel and share videos and embed them on site or blog.
Google+ as of now may not be the most widely used social media platform but it as major Google products in some way or the other converge on Google+ your Google+ account has the potential of becoming your passport to your online identity hence ignoring this platform or not having a presence on Google+ is like applying for a VISA without a passport .
Submit XML sitemaps for site, blog and video XML sitemaps for videos embedded on site or blog.
Apply for Twitter Cards and integrate them with your blog once the application is approved by Twitter.
Integrate FB Open Graph on blogs.
Integrate Authorship Markup on the blog to co relate your content with your online persona which can lead you to be a thought leader of your industry which in the long run can add to the trust factor.
Focus on ‘Less Is More’ instead of having 5 posts a week publish 2 posts per week but of relevant in depth information in all forms i.e text, video, infographics, podcast,etc. It’s the quality that counts not the quantity.
If you cannot create content regularly then curate content.
Use Schemas for addresses, events, people, recipes, books, ebooks,video, etc.
Focus on building a community and retaining their trust as your community can play a major role in helping your content go viral.
As in real life you are known by the friends you keep , in the online world you are known by the people that follow you and the people that you follow.
In the real world you are what your thoughts are and in the online world you are what you publish and share.
The above points help you earn links. Let the inbound links get built as a result of quality web presence rather than running after them.
All the above points have a direct impact on the off page optimization giving a boost to the search presence .
Focus on the technical SEO by working on XML sitemaps, by monitoring Google WMT , canonicalization issues, HTTP headers, rich snippets in search results which are achieved by using schemas and microformats , customized error pages, robots.txt, improving the site speed, etc.
Local search is as important as global search hence cannot be ignored.
Follow the path of hard work to develop this overall presence gradually rather than following the short cut of buying fake likes , followers and +1s . The short cuts followed today will become a penalty in future once Google upgrades its algorithm for detecting it like the Penguin Update for spammy links which made all the link builders undertake the task of undoing those same links which they ran after once.
Go mobile and check the accessibility of your site on hand held devices else develop Mobile Apps. For widely used services of the site.
Help Google to give quality search results to the users and Google will help you in return by giving you the search presence you deserve.
Focus on the metrics that matter in Google Analytics according to what goals and priorities you have set for yourself to improve search presence.
Do not put all the eggs in one basket. Have a Bing WMT account too and monitor the search presence on Bing too.

All these points are very much applicable in 2014 too. In addition to that what needs to focused on is the approach, strategy and the monitoring of each short term goal to achieve the long term goal of quality and prominent search presence. Approach, strategy and monitoring has always been a part and parcel of an SEO campaign but in the coming year these need to be given more importance because without a proper strategy and listing out the immediate targets to achieve will only delay the SEO success. In continuation of the above points we add the following points to be focused in 2014. 26. The approach to SEO should be like the one you have when you plant a tree in your garden. You know that if you nurture it and add the necessary nutrients at the right time regularly the tree will grow and bear fruit one day. Nurture it regularly and wait patiently for the fruit. Similarly, focus on quality web presence and take care of the technical, on-page , off-page SEO and social media and wait for the search presence to improve gradually. 27. Work out immediate goals to be achieved and work out a strategy to achieve them. Ask yourself:

Where did you start?
Where have you reached?
Where you would like to reach?
How will you reach there?
Implement the plan.
Monitor and create a plan
Implement the updated plan > Repeat

Work this out yourself with your SEO team if you have an in-house SEO team or take active part in the discussions with your SEO if you have outsourced the SEO campaign. 28. Accept the fact that your SEO Agency cannot do much without your involvement and participation. Accept the fact that after all the digital footprints which are being created as a part of the SEO campaign are the company’s digital assets and you need to be aware about them and its high time the company takes ownership about these digital assets. 29. Every site is different and your competitor in real time may not be your online competitor hence evaluate online competition differently from real time competition as the 10 blue links on the search results page are a result of the data in the search engine index and your real time competitor may or may not have the high quality web presence like he has in the real world. 30. If you have an ecommerce site and you want it to grow then, only SEO is not enough . Be aware that the online competition is growing tremendously and your ecommerce site is a full-fledged business and you need to have staff and the expertise to manage online customers and also have a complete integrated marketing mix to promote it and help it get the right WOM online.

31. If your site does not sell anything online then content strategies become more important as only content and the social media presence will help you establish the thought leadership online which in the bargain give the necessary quality signals to the site. 32. Winning the online trust is one of the major goals of any SEO campaign. Trust is the end result of the authority and the thought leadership you establish online. Trust is the emotional and logical aspect of the users decision to refer and recommend the site and content if he has been getting valuable information from the site.

33. The strategy can start from inside out or you can go outside in. That is you establish the goals and then decide what changes need to be made on the site or web presence as your site is at the nucleus of your web presence or you can start working on the site right from scratch and reach the outer circle of search presence. Explained in detail on The Concentric Circles Of Quality Web Presence

34. Do not go for cheap SEO Packages as SEO is not free or cheap. It requires expertise and effort and any company offering services which offer genuine long term, futuristic search presence will charge a reasonable amount. 35. SEO is a necessity, social media is the channel and the content creation strategy determines your online brand identity. 36. Today the challenge for the website owner is how to keep these activities coordinated and connected and make each task benefit from the other and get an overall boost to the online presence by capitalizing on the digital assets created thereby. It becomes more challenging if these tasks are performed by different services providers. http://www.webpro.in/the-digital-world-challenge-faced-by-the-chief-marketing-officers-cmos-in-2013/

37. SEO is not limited only to the SEO team but each and every team member needs to be aware of how social media , content and SEO are integrated . SEO is not a onetime process, hence SEO has to be an ongoing process and has to be integrated in the whole marketing mix. 38. SEO is less about bots but more about people. Customers will love the company only if the employees love it first. Hence, educating the whole team about SEO should be an on going process and the SEO should include training the client about the new developments as a part of the SEO project. 39. SEO should not only limit itself to perform only repair functions on the site to get into search results but just like a good engineer applies scientific, economic, social, and practical knowledge in order to design, build, and maintain structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes. A good SEO needs to apply technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web which directly or indirectly affect the development and administration of web sites and consider include the interoperability, accessibility and usability of web pages and web sites from the WWW perspective. Instead of dissecting the algorithms we need to understand the standard norms of web design and development which will make the web a better place and websites robust technically. 40. The SEO industry is at that point of the graph where it is going to scale new heights and emerge as more meaningful and essential for website owners and search engines as well. Content and quality have always been king since the first web page was published but Google has been successful in penalizing the low quality content and help clear the content clutter and the linked clutter on the web with its algorithmic updates just recently. As the web evolved the search engines evolved and only when the SEO mindset will also evolve side by side the status and the reputation of the SEO industry will achieve the due respect and importance in the coming years. Last 3 year-end SEO posts of our blog: Dec. 2010 : http://www.webpro.in/seo-and-online-presence-in-2011 Dec. 2011 : http://www.webpro.in/saying-bye-to-seo-2011-and-a-very-big-hi-to-seo-2012 Dec. 2012 : http://www.webpro.in/points-to-ponder-on-for-seo-2013

SEO / Social Media - 12/15/2013

The Misuse Of Authorship Markup And Publisher Markup

Author : Bharati Ahuja

Google authorship Mark up is the foundation stone for the edifice of the Knowledge Graph. The proper use of the authorship Mark up ensures the author to claim the content and thereby helps the author to establish the online thought leadership as regards a certain subject or topic. Authorship Mark up also displays the author picture in the search results when that content gets listed in the search results.

Hence, the authorship mark up helps the author to get correlated to the content as the markup uses existing standards such as HTML5 (rel=”author”) and XFN (rel=”me”) to enable search engines and other web services to identify works by the same author across the web.

The main purpose of the Authorship Mark up when it was announced by Google in June 2011 was a way to connect authors with their content on the web and use this data to help people find content from great authors in search results.

Google has made it very simple to claim the Authorship by helping the authors to implement it by the following methods:

1. 3 Link Method – (For Multi Author Blog)

2. 2 Link Method – (For A Single Author Blog)

3. Email Verification – ( Via Google+ Account)

It is very obvious that this mark up is being promoted by Google so that Google can filter the grain from the chaff and help its search engine users to get quality results and also help the users to know the person behind the published post. Moreover authors have to write informative and quality posts to prove themselves to be an authority on the subject. This requires a lot of effort and hard work from the writer’s side. It is not about just adding a piece of code or linking your Google+ account to your site and claiming oneself to be called an author. But, this is what is exactly happening – anyone who implements the above mentioned methods gets the benefit of the authorship mark up which is defeating the very purpose for which it was launched.

Ideally, the Authorship Mark up should work only on blogs but it even gets implemented when it is added to simple static brochure sites too. This I think is like spamming the search results to promote yourself as there is no content on these static site which needs to be claimed by the author. This is a very big injustice to the authors who work hard and write quality posts and try to establish their identity and promote their views because people by adding the few lines of code on any of the home page of their simple sites too get the same benefit in SERPs like the one who has claimed the authorship markup by creating and maintaing a blog by adding quality content regularly.

I think Google should work on this and only blogs publishing quality content regularly should get the true benefit of the Authorship Mark up and the business sites on which this mark up is found should not be considered at all. Another nuisance about this markup is that instead of the author’s pic. Many times the website owners want their picture to be displayed in SERPs which again is very misleading. In such cases if the content written by any author is the owned by the business the Publisher Markup needs to be implemented where instead of the picture of the author the company logo is displayed which correlates the company with the content. This helps the user to know the ideology of the company as that content is claimed by the company rather than the writer.

Content Marketing has become the life line to attain quality web presence. The content and the creator cannot be separated hence the right use of the Authorship Mark up and the Publisher Mark up helps to send the right signals to the Knowledge Graph which is getting updated and built with every piece of content which gets correlated to your web identity.

Google / SEO - 12/02/2013

Why Do We Need More Quality Content To Get Correlated To Our Web Presence ?

Author : Bharati Ahuja

‘Quality Content ‘ is a term which everyone seems to be focusing on currently for getting a better search presence. SEOs go out of the way to encourage and convince website owners to create a blog and add content and then try to reach out to share that content in order to get more eyeballs to their site. It seems very logical but website owners need to delve deeper to understand the purpose and the logic behind creating and sharing content to get long term quality benefit from this whole process of Content Marketing.

Firstly, the term ‘Content Marketing’ itself is very misleading just as the term ‘link Building’ was misunderstood when Google introduced the ‘PageRank Technology’. Bill Slawski rightly shared on Twitter a few days back...We do not create content to market content but we create content because we want to market the product or service that we are dealing in.

"Content marketing" isn't about marketing your content, but instead about using content to market something!

— Bill Slawski (@bill_slawski) November 20, 2013

Since Content is the medium via which we represent our online persona by expressing our company ideologies, product features, future plans of the company, discuss after sales issues, etc. we need to focus on content.

The Content Marketing Ensemble Of Content Channels And Formats

(Photo credit: AltimeterGroup)

Let us answers a few questions related to Content marketing to understand the true meaning.

What Is Content Marketing?
What Is The Purpose Behind Content Marketing?
Why Do We Need To Create And Share Quality Content Regularly?
Does Content Marketing Focus On Selling?

What Is Content Marketing?

Content Marketing refers to creating and publishing of content in various formats and sharing it via various media in order to get more customers and boost sales.

What Is The Purpose Behind Content Marketing?

Though content marketing targets mostly at getting more customers but in the process if managed and executed methodically , meticulously and strategically it helps in brand promotion , communicating with customers and also helps improve goodwill .

Why Do We Need To Create And Share Quality Content Regularly?

Marketing can never be a one time activity. Even the most established business needs to have market presence in some form or another. From the internet perspective there are millions of sites being published on a daily basis and since the potential online customers most of the time reach your site via search engines your online presence faces that much quantum of competition also on a daily basis. As search engines become more and more sophisticated to integrate quality and quantity signals to websites from all over the web in their index the need to keep your web presence updated with more and more relevant information which is informative and knowledgeable becomes increasingly important.

Does Content Marketing Focus On Selling?

The long term objective of any activity related to marketing is to improve sales, increase profits and retain customers . Content Marketing has the potential for achieving all this but when creating content if the focus is only on sales and the content eventually turns out to be in the form of an advertisement then it may not serve the purpose. If the content is informative and offers solutions to the people who have reached the URL of your content via various platforms then it has the potential of reaching out to you, and such a prospect usually requires very less effort to get converted to a buyer (assuming all the content read by him has created a positive image in his mind about the company).

Content Marketing adds more footprints on the web for web presence but also becomes the crux of connecting to people on the web which in the long run help share the word of mouth which is the basis on which decisions are taken by online buyers.

Most of the time people don’t want to listen to what the seller has to say about his product as this is advertising but they want to know what the previous buyers have to say about the product as this becomes the actual feedback about the product or service which has more impact on the decision making process.

As in real life we are what are thoughts are and we share our thoughts via discussions, seminars, exhibitions, road shows , etc. on the internet we need to share our thoughts via blogs, social media sites, videos, comments, reviews, etc. and on the internet majority of the people use search engines to find information hence the search engines have the onus of correlating all these collective signals from the company blogs, social media sites, comments, reviews, etc. and display the search results after calculating the quality parameters to give quality results to its users. The search engines lately have upgraded their algorithms and are constantly upgrading their algorithms to integrate more and more of such signals so it has become mandatory for the website owners to focus on correlating more content to their web presence in very form to have a complete blended search presence.

Hence, the content you create, share or promote gets correlated to your online persona which has the potential of being found by the search engine users whenever they search for information connected to the content your persona is correlated to.

SEO / Social Media - 11/28/2013

Matt Cutts Asks For Suggestions To Fine Tune Webmaster Tools Further As 2014 Approaches

Every SEO is always on the lookout for some great SEO Tools which will simplify and facilitate the work of optimizing websites. There are many SEO tools available in the market but I am sure every SEO will vouch for the Webmaster Tools and the Google Analytics offered by Google in order to monitor and measure the website’s progress .

Google webmaster tools is part of a marketing effort by Google to reach out to Webmasters and promote Google services. I call it a platform to converse and communicate with Google regarding your website. On this platform Google basically tells you how to help them to keep a track of your website and in return informs you about how your website is being indexed and crawled by the Googlebot.

Improving the features of Google Webmaster Tools is a constant endeavour for Google. The WMT keep on regularly getting upgraded with the latest features.

Since Vanessa Fox started working on Webmaster Central in 2005 till date WMT have been updated several times and as 2014 approaches Matt Cutts has asked everyone on his blog for suggestions to improve the WMT further to take it at a new functional level.

Some things that Matt Cutts could imagine people wanting are:

Make it easier/faster to claim authorship or do authorship markup.
Improved reporting of spam, bugs, errors, or issues. Maybe people who do very good spam reports could be “deputized” so their future spam reports would be fast-tracked. Or perhaps a karma, cred, or peer-based system could bubble up the most important issues, bad search results, etc.
Option to download the web pages that Google has seen from your site, in case a catastrophe like a hard drive failure or a virus takes down your entire website.
Checklists or help for new businesses that are just starting out.
Periodic reports with advice on improving areas like mobile or page speed.
Send Google “fat pings” of content before publishing it on the web, to make it easier for Google to tell where content appeared first on the web.
Better tools for detecting or reporting duplicate content or scrapers.
Show pages that don’t validate.
Show the source pages that link to your 404 pages, so you can contact other sites and ask if they want to fix their broken links.
Or almost as nice: tell the pages on your website that lead to 404s or broken links, so that site owners can fix their own broken links.
Better or faster bulk URL removal (maybe pages that match a specific phrase?).
Refreshing the existing data in Webmaster Tools faster or better.
Improve robots.txt checker to handle even longer files.
Ways for site owners to tell us more about their site: anything from country-level data to language to authorship to what content management system (CMS) you use on different parts of the site. That might help Google improve how it crawls different parts of a domain.

If you have any other suggestion as regards the new features wanted for WMT post your comment on http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/webmaster-feature-requests/

Google / SEO - 11/25/2013

B2B Content marketing v/s B2C Content Marketing

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