Jon's In Waikiki (AKA The Waikiki Marketer)

Google’s recent delisting of sites used by BMR (Build My Rank) and other Blog Networks has not only put these companies literally out of business, they’ve also tanked the rankings of their numerous clients.

I can’t say I feel bad for either side of that transaction.

There will always be SEO shortcuts & cheats around, whether we like it or not. All systems have their holes. However, it’s going to get more and more difficult to use them.

Google’s ranking algorithm and filtering capability is getting better and better.

If your business is in it for the long term, resorting to these ‘gray area’ and just straight up black hat techniques are more trouble than they’re worth.

Quality, enduring SEO will be – and always has been – about content, subject focus & the visitor experience.

Too many SEOs sell their services based on keyword stuffing, link spamming and other methods that are the mark of dangerous amateurs who should be nowhere near your business.

It’s like waving a red flag in front of the entrance to your china shop during the running of the bulls.

Google is now looking at visitor engagement, response and quality indicators of your website and its content when it computes your ranking. You can’t ignore this.

You MUST have well-written, clear content that holds your visitor’s attention and helps them get whatever it is they want.

In other words your SEO must now look at the visitor’s experience – whether your content is attractive, comprehensible and, yes, alluring.

Cramming a keyphrase repeatedly into your pages doesn’t work anymore. This has always been the Present & Future of SEO for those smart enough to look forward.

If you’re not seeing this now, you will be seeing your rankings drop later. It’s that simple.

I’ve actually been doing social media marketing for some time, but never made it clear on my site that I do that. Don’t ask me why.

Here’s the page now that touts those services:

Honolulu Hawaii Social Media Marketing Services

This isn’t exactly breaking news, but the latest big Google ranking changes is the new ‘Google Fresh’. What is it? For once, the update name actually means something.

The idea behind it is that Google now gives SEO ranking points for Fresh Content. They had always done this to some degree, but there seems to be a new emphasis there. What does that mean for your SEO?

It means that you should leverage ways to create that new and/or updated content, such as blogs, PR, articles, etc. If you’re not using those already, now’s the time to get them started. Or, maybe it’s time to feed those avenues more often.

To help you better understand Google Fresh, here’s a couple of good articles that should shed even more light on how your SEO strategy needs to change:

Much of Social Media interaction and use is seen by the general public, or at least a big slice of it. What many don’t know is that there is also a huge, and growing, social media world going on underneath the surface.

The idea of Google+, many are saying, is to capitalize on this with its Networks feature. Is it the real Future of Social Media? Or just a nice, big Niche that they can dominate? Too early to tell definitively which, but that never stops anyone from make their prediction(s).

Here’s a good article on Google+ and what might be its very smart social media/social networking strategy:

Google+ & Private Network Sharing Article

Google Panda has changed the SEO game. Permanently. There’s new approaches and new factors in search engine optimization that you MUST know if you want to survive.

Here’s our 1st article on what you need to know and do to get, or regain, your site rankings in Google:

How To Get Rankings In Google Panda

Trying something new I picked up with Google +. Let’s see if it works:

SEO & Internet Marketing Services

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About Me

What exactly is Cloaking and how does it help your SEO? A lot of people have heard of it, but don’t know exactly how it’s done or why so many do it. You may even wonder: should I do it?

Get your questions answered in this new article. This is especially relevant now as Google has announced that they’ll be taking a closer look at Cloaking in the coming months. Find out why you should care.

SEO Cloaking – What It Is & Why It’s A Bad Idea

Many businesses have no idea that their SEO is using techniques that could get them into trouble until it’s too late.

This happened here in Hawaii for a number of businesses who trusted a guy who initially got them great Google rankings. Then, one day, those rankings started to plummet…

If those businesses had done what we explain how to do in this article they could’ve saved themselves a lot of problems and a lot of lost profits.

Find out here how to detect Black Hat SEO even before you hire one:

How To Detect Black Hat SEO

Google is constantly shuffling it’s ranking formula to make it better, or at least harder to crack. There are rumored to be as many as 200 factors in the Google ranking algorithm at any time. So how do you contend with that? By using the tried and true.

There are 2 SEO Cornerstones that will always serve you well for Google rankings. They’re not shortcuts or cheats, but they are reliable. And probably always will be. Find out what these SEO factors are and how to use them now:

3 Vitally Important SEO Cornerstones for Your Google Rankings

Can you get SEO gains from Twitter? Yes…and No. There are ways to get SEO benefits from your Twitter account, but they don’t come directly. You have to know what you’re doing. And that’s exactly what this article tells you – what you should be doing so your SEO can get those advantages now:

SEO Benefits of Twitter