Jon's In Waikiki (AKA The Waikiki Marketer)

As we noted in the last blog post, the so-called Phantom ranking algorithm update that Google first started integrating in late April isn’t over yet. Sites are still yo-yo’ing in the search results right now. These updates take a while to fully shake out as it spreads across to all data centers and Google makes adjustments to any unintended issues that crop up.

So what can you do to recover your SEO? You have to understand what seems to be the triggers for being penalized by this alteration in the algorithm. We observed already that it’s officially been announced as a new way of interpreting site quality, a bedrock of Google’s advanced system for deciding who gets the better slots.

Where to Take Action

It’s clear that spamming of any kind, as well as the perceived worth of your content is once again the targeted areas for either raising your site up or moving it down. With that in mind here’s some specifics that you should be looking at:

1. Cross Linking – If you have multiple websites and you link back and forth, that’s not necessarily a problem. What is a problem, however, is if your links have the exact same link text every time. Just as Google wanted varied link text across your other backlinks, they want the same within your own network of websites as well. Take a look at those and change them up. Now.

2. Content Length – Do you have a lot of pages that have just a couple of paragraphs? This is a sign to the search engines that you’re just putting up pages to make your site look more substantial than it is – not a good practice. Your page length needs to be more than a quick drive-by – it doesn’t serve the needs and interests of your visitors and that’s now a vital SEO signal. Make those pages substantial by adding real, usable, helpful content. If you can’t, don’t make a page in the first place.

3. Content Context – Another red flag for Google in the Phantom Update are pages that are purely filled with video and/or photos. It is true that those kinds of content can be truly helpful and engaging, BUT readers need context to understand what the page is about before they dive in. Even if it seems to be self-evident, think about the searcher who lands on the website on this page. They haven’t seen anything else on the site, so they need to be brought up to speed. Adding some, not necessarily a lot, of introductory text also gives the search engines context, so they understand fully what they need to know, too.

4. Links from Article Directories & Other Resources – Previous Google updates diminished the value of links from places like EZine Articles, but places like Hub Pages didn’t seem to suffer as much. Not anymore. There are reports of ‘How To’ content being penalized, but this seems to be more a matter of the content these pieces are surrounded by, or their content quality, than anything else.

After all ‘How To’ is the definition of helpful, useful content that Google is always emphasizing, so it’s either a matter of the neighborhood the content is in, or this is a temporary issue that hurts the good, as well as the bad, which often happens in the early days of these algorithm shake-ups. If you can truly say that your content is ‘Quality’, then you may just have to ride it out and wait for recognition that will come.

What Next In Your SEO?

Those are the primary things you need to be examining in your SEO – and as soon as possible. These upheavals are never pretty, but there’s not a lot you can do if you are playing by the rules, unfortunately.

Keep following the Google guidelines, see if you may have problems that have gone unnoticed and wait for the cream to rise again.

Late April & early May brought shocking and sudden drops in both rankings and Google traffic to a lot of websites. Their numbers looked like they dived off a high cliff, so immediate were the effects.

Unlike more recent changes, which Google would hint were coming or even outright tell you, this one came, saw and conquered with no advance notice. Some are calling it the Phantom Update because it appeared so fast and so surprisingly.

It wasn’t until well into it, May 8th, that Google acknowledged there was a change in their algorithm and it was a big one. We’ll never know exactly what they changed, of course, because that would be giving away the game. What we do know is that this has upended more black and even grey hat SEO tactics. That’s good news.

What Google Has Confirmed About This Update

They have confirmed that there has been a change in how the algorithm interprets Quality Signals. In other words, how their ranking software determines the value of your website and its content. For example, if you’ve been using software to spin articles, you probably got hit. If you’ve been doing a lot of cross-linking between websites, , and especially if you use the same link text every time, it’s a good bet you’re looking at a much lower profile in the Google listings now.

Sites like HubPages got hit big time as well as AdSense sites that usually emphasized their ads at the expense of any useful content.

This kind of alteration in the formula is major and it’s probably not done yet, so expect it to continue to roll out over the next few weeks, reaching even more sites, as well as the usual corrections one way or another as the results are examined and judged.

There are Winners from this update – mainly people who focused on real Quality in their links and content. So far, none of my sites have seen any big changes in their rankings – knock on wood – but this isn’t over. Often in these times some of the good are affected along with the bad, so a little nervousness isn’t out of order.

What does this all mean? It means that spamming links and weak content, no matter how well you dress it up, won’t be a shortcut to rankings anymore. Ultimately this is a positive sign for those who do the work and stay on the right side of the SEO line. Yes, sometimes the Good do win.

STAY TUNED – In the next post we’ll give  you some precise practices you should follow in order to keep in line with this important Update and move up in the rankings.

When I see Hawaii SEO companies bragging about how they’ve ranked a client for ‘Waipio house cleaners’ or some similar keyphrase, I shake my head. To the client, that sounds great.

They’re #1 in their neighborhood! The Problem? Few to none of their potential customers search Google using that keyphrase.

They’re basically the top of the heap in a place no one goes. A whole ‘lotta nothin’.

Now, there are exceptions to this. Waikiki related keyphrases get a lot of traffic, for example. The other, residential neighborhoods, not so much.

Again, nothing wrong with having that high profile as you may catch the occasional customer. But, putting your emphasis on that one area is wasting your money, because you should be aiming higher. Here’s why.

Google Searchers Cast Their Net Wider in Hawaii

The vast majority of searchers use ‘Hawaii’ or ‘Honolulu’ when they’re looking for a business. That’s where you need to be if you want to truly grow, reaching people you never did before.

If you restrict, or emphasize, just your few square miles, or even blocks, as your service area, you put limits on yourself and on your potential profits.

Google’s personalized search results will tend to show people the business closest to them anyways, through geotargeting today.

That alone will get you in front of your closest neighbors and a few mentions on your website of your neighborhood will suffice to getting you ranked there anyways.

You MUST, though get your Google+ business listing set up to truly take advantage of these benefits, though. Don’t forget that.

Ranking for your specific community is fine, even good. However, if your SEO doesn’t push you up for the larger metro area, your Island and the keyphrase ‘Hawaii’, you’re not getting your money’s worth.

Don’t take it from me. Take it from the results you’ll see, which will be far below what you think you’ve bought.

Remember, local customers and clients use ‘Honolulu’, ‘Hawaii’ and other more general terms a lot more than the names of our beloved home neighborhoods.

Aim for bigger results. You’ll be glad you did.

This was just announced today and it’s a head-scratcher. Your listing in Google, at least for mobile device searches in the US, will no longer have the URL of the page below the Page Title anymore.

Instead the address will now be replaced with a breadcrumb representation of the path to the page. Easier to understand when you see it, so here’s an example:

I have a page with this URL:

https://www.pananadesign.com/seo-services/

Instead of that appearing below the title in Google, it will look something like this:

Panana Marketing > SEO Services

Why do this? It seems the idea is to give mobile users a clearer, quicker understanding of what the site, and that page specifically, is about. In other words it’s intended to improve the searcher experience.

The question is – Why just mobile? Why not desktop searchers, too? It isn’t clear as this kind of improvement, if it is one, wouldn’t benefit only those using mobile devices. There’s nothing I can see that would limit this change from helping those using Google on their desktop.

If you’ve got an idea on this, I’d love to hear it. What it does tell us is that, in no uncertain terms, mobile is the future and Google is going all the way.

Doing SEO & Internet Marketing for local businesses in Hawaii these past years has taught me that, like everything else, it’s different here than on the Mainland.

Here’s a few things that I’ve found to need a different approach due to our special place in the world, both geographically and culturally.

1. For most businesses, their targeted audience is VERY local. This is obvious from the fact that we’re a string of Islands in the middle of the Pacific, but it still takes some conscious thought as you work.

The ocean surrounding our home means no competition just outside the city limits or over the state line. It also means the competition is very concentrated for many industries.

Your SEO has to take in these conditions and emphasize that local-ness even more than you’d probably have to elsewhere.

2. For a lot of other businesses, their market is VERY long-distance. The top industry here in Tourism and, though you want to reach tourists after they arrive, most, like hotels & vacation rentals, need to get in front of people long before they board the plane to get here.

Therefore your website has to say ‘I’m here in Hawaii’, but also outrank the competition on a national level to truly succeed.

3. Local businesses are often still in the learning stages of the worth of SEO & marketing online.

Honolulu’s newspapers and yellow pages were still effective long after they declined in the rest of the US. Not so anymore, though.

Locals turn more and more to Yelp and Google to search and research. With the growing population the basic bonds aren’t as strong as they used to be on Oahu.

We still have a ‘small Island’ in many ways, but the influx of people not born here has altered things forever – and it’s causing many to realize they need to finally get going on the web or be out of business. It’s a new world for a lot of them.

4.  Trust is harder to earn here, which is why companies often make it a priority to deal with local SEOs like myself. This is part of Hawaii culture, the importance of face-to-face and personal relationships to the conducting of business.

So many have told me that they want to work with someone locally right off the bat.

These are just observations, not judgements one way or another by any means.

When you realized you live in a wonderfully unique and special place like Hawaii, you want to be able to step back and look at things.

It makes you realize just how luck you are to live Hawaii.

Hope you’ve got your mobile site up and running, because today is THE DAY. Google will start pushing down – and raising up – rankings according to whether you have a mobile-friendly website or not. This isn’t across every search, though.

This is restricted to those searches done through a mobile device – smartphones, tablets, etc. However, with the huge growth in the use of those devices during the typical day of a typical person, that should still make you think, and think hard, about your business’ mobile presence.

Still not sure if you’re mobile friendly? Go here and find out. Now.:

 Google’s Mobile Friendly Site Testing Tool

If you’re not mobile-friendly, you can at least take some comfort. You’re not alone. As much as 40% of the Fortune 500 might be in the same boat, seeing their mobile rankings drop:

http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/21/googles-mobile-friendly-update-could-impact-over-40-of-fortune-500/#.3sozuh:tggX

If there was a time to move on this, it is now. Google is making their move and it could affect your bottom line.

You hear a lot of talk about how social media can feed your SEO, but it’s not always clear what you should do to leverage that.

Just because you post a lot on Facebook doesn’t mean you’re helping your website rank.

It’s certainly not a waste to do that. Serving, and reaching, the audience there can be very rewarding.

The question here is how to get Google to give you points in the SEO column for that work. Here’s what you need to do.

It’s vital that you link to content on your website in your Facebook posts, your tweets, your pins on Pinterest and every other social media outlet you use.

The idea is not just to get it up on those mediums, but to hopefully earn Likes, Retweets, Favorites, etc that count as Votes for your website and, by extension, your SEO.

Easier said than done sometimes. Even outstanding, quality content can go fairly unnoticed in the deluge of posts and content that rain down on Facebook and Twitter. It’s still worth doing, though.

Build up a reputation over time, because that’s what it takes – time.

Now, that’s just the start of Social Media & SEO, but it’s the crucial foundation of it all.

Get those links to your content going, earn some virtual thumbs in the Up position and you’ll start seeing the benefits.

This isn’t exactly breaking news, but it is finally becoming imminent – Google will now be ranking sites based on your mobile-friendliness. Basically if you just feed to smartphones and tablets the same version of your site that the desktop user sees, you’re going to be demoted.

Now, this only applies to those searches done on mobile devices. However, with the only accelerating growth in that demo, this will have serious consequences for your SEO – and your business.

What can you do? Find out where you stand right now by checking Google’s mobile-friendly testing tool. Just enter your website address and it’ll tell you where you stand:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

If you get the Unfriendly result, then it’s time to look at some options. If you’re using WordPress you have some good ones. There’s plugins like WP Touch that give you an easy, if limited way to get in Google’s good mobile graces.

If you’re not on WP, your host may have an add-on that lets you set up a mobile version of your website. You choose from some templates, etc. and in not too much time you’re good.

SEO is always moving, but you can count on one thing today, and that’s Google’s focus on User Experience. This is just one more way they want to make sure they’re giving searchers the best results possible.

Yes, it’s one more thing, but if it helps you rank and communicate better with your prospective new customer, it’s worth it.

This is one of the persistent SEO ‘rules’ that frustrates me most.

It’s the idea that if you get your targeted keyphrase into the content of a page so many times – or so it’s a certain percentage of the total words – then you’ll rank for that keyphrase.

My friends, if it was that easy, why isn’t everyone ranking just by doing that?

That’s the first problem. Something so simple isn’t going to propel your website over your competition. Here’s the 2nd, bigger problem.

Google’s algorithm has become extremely complex and the bots that actually analyze your website now have something approaching artificial intelligence.

They’re not bowled over by a certain number of times you’ve squeezed in your keyphrase.

Yes, it’s good to have your keyphrases in key places, but repetition isn’t the key to success in today’s search engine environment.

Google now looks for, and rewards, the use of synonyms and related words and phrases for your subject, for example, showing that they want more than just the same keyword driven into the ground. Here’s an example.

If your website is for a hardware store, you’d talk about tools, nails, paint and other things you’d expect to find there. What you wouldn’t want to do is keep using the phrase ‘hardware store’ in every paragraph.

It’s a dead giveaway of not just over-optimization, but poor writing, which Google sees as a negative quality signal. See? That’s how sophisticated they’re getting.

It’s like having your old English teacher looking over your shoulder once again.

Nothing wrong with using your keyphrase, just do it in a way that reads well and doesn’t give away just how much you want to rank for it. Follow that rule and you should be okay.

It looks like Google is continuing to roll out the Penguin 3.0 update, at least up till very recently if not today.

Though my client rankings are still holding, you never REALLY know everything’s okay for some time, even after the rollout is confirmed to be done. Google has a way of catching you at the moment you believe everything is in the clear, SEO wise.

Here’s a few excellent articles about the progress of Penguin from a couple of weeks ago. SEO forums were noting then that this was long past the implied schedule of 2 Weeks that Google indicated would see this done. Not so.

Read these and you’ll get a good sense of what’s been happening, who’s been affected in the rankings – up and down – and how this will play out in the foreseeable future for sites trying to get ahead. That’s pretty much all of us.

Search Engine Journals’ Take on Penguin 3.0 Continuing

Google: Penguin 3.0 Update Still Rolling Out Slowly (Search Engine Roundtable)