Algorithm Changes to Google SERPs - Internet Marketing Podcast Number 199

Hi, and welcome to the FBO Podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Farris, owner of eWebStyle. Charles Lewis, your internet marketing specialist. Welcome to another fun-filled edition. This is podcast number 199. 199. 199. Almost 200. And our previous podcast, our tip from that podcast is display social media options to users while converting e-commerce or otherwise. Yeah, you definitely want to, you know, social has such a huge impact on not only SEO, but just conversions in general and branding and customer service and things like that. So anytime you can get, especially in an e-commerce situation, a user who is taking an action on your site, like buying something or downloading something, meaning they're engaged with you, perfect opportunity to be social with them during that checkout process. Get them to like it or maybe get them to share their experience on Twitter. But the key is using technology and making sure that all of that is very easy to do while on your site. It can't be hard to like you, right? It needs to be one click and keep it moving. So definitely incorporate social in your sites, whether it's e-commerce or not, but specifically during the conversion because that's when they're likely to do it. Hey, why not in a sign-up process, right when the sign-up process is complete, put a little delay on it and say, oh, we're creating your account. While we're creating your account, while you're waiting, doing nothing, why don't you like us on Facebook? Follow us on Twitter. Remember, we are your friendly local neighborhood top position snatchers where our mantra is. Don't be a douche. Do not be a douche. And we will cover that in a review shortly. Remember, if you can, tweet now. What you should tweet is hashtag SEOpodcast. This is number 199. You should have tagged us in it at eWebStyle. And on that way, we can link up, follow you back, and do all of our social stuff. You can do two favors for us. The first favor has three

tasks. The task is go on to iTunes, write a review, and after you create an account. I keep getting at me. Okay, let's try that again. Create an account. Go on to iTunes, create an account, write a review. That's all you need to do. The other thing that you can do is, and if you choose to, send us an email, podcast at edayswithstar.com. If you're international, make sure you send us an email so that we'll be aware that there is actually a review under your country, because I have to go into the individual countries in order to see those reviews. The other thing you can do for us, and this is item number two on our list, is go to our G Plus local page. And the easy way to get there is to go to e-webstyle.com slash Google Plus or G Plus. However you want to do it. And the plus can be a plus symbol or plus spelled out. But just go there, leave us a review, and we shall appreciate it. Excellent. Remember, we have a referral program. If you have SEO clients that you want us to take care of, we'll be happy to do that. And you can continue to get paid, go to the bottom of our website, e-webstyle.com, and you should see a referral program link. I have a little bit of news. Let me do the news first, and then we'll get into... Oh, remember, on our Facebook page, which is facebook.com slash e-webstyle, you can go and check out our new logo. We've got a new logo that we're just about to launch. New logo, new web design, new app. We're pretty excited about everything that's going on. I appreciate everybody. Punch in the face to everybody who came back in and commented. I posted before the old logo and the new logo. We got a lot of good feedback on it. Everybody thumbs up for the new logo. So punch in the face to Javier, our designer, who came up with that. We're excited about

it. Javier. Kills it again. I know, right? So go check that out. The other things that you can follow us on, twitter.com slash e-webstyle, youtube.com slash e-webstyle. And you can always send us an email, podcast at e-webstyle.com. Apple sued for allowing porn on their devices. I don't know if you saw that one. So some guy is like, yeah, I accidentally typed, didn't type Facebook, similar lettering, same first letter, and it came up, and his inability to control himself, which is not his fault. It's because he's a man. Apparently, there's like a five-page suit against Apple. Because he became addicted. Because he didn't hit the back button. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he hit the other. He hit the back. I don't know. The other one is Google overhauls Maps. You know, their map app. And so they made a lot of changes to it. For some reason, I was thinking that Bing or Facebook bought Waz. But apparently, Google bought Waz. You know, Waz, the... I don't know what Waz is. I would have bet money that it was Facebook, or... Why did you see why Google bought Waz? Well, I think it was because it's a really great social network that... It actually does mapping really... I use the app. It's really cool. And it does some really cool things. That's why I said it's really cool. It's a little redundant. So, Google, in their latest version, has incorporated some of the features. Although, they're still claiming that they haven't blended the data. Because, apparently, the justice... Whatever. Who's ever in charge of making sure it's not a monopoly? I don't think it's the Justice Department. Anyway, it may be the Justice Department. Putting some roadblocks in front of them? Yeah, they're saying they want to look at it and make sure it's not a monopoly. And then, at the end of the day, frankly, I haven't seen too many mapping sites, whether they're social networks or apps, that work better than Google Maps. So, I don't see it improving it. What I'm hoping it doesn't

do is clutter it. Like, I'm glad they removed those... That whole pump system, and that wasn't a good look. That was too much. For local. Yeah. Yeah. So, alright, that's what's up. Alright, so now we have our review. This first review is by a guy by the name of Josh Smith. And I'm going to read it exactly... Normally, I might correct for misspellings or mistypes or bad grammar. They have the word douche in their tagline. They have the word... Okay, well, I told you I wasn't going to fix it. I immediately grabbed for my iPhone when I heard these knuckleheads talking about being a douche. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to make fun of them or take their advice. So, I passed. I'm confused. Let me read on. For the first five minutes of the 30-minute podcast, they prompted themselves. Hey, you. Prompted me? Yeah. We prompted ourselves. I think they didn't promote it to us. Yeah. It was like a five-minute ad for the thing you are already listening to. Wow. The pad, the next ten minutes, full of super-opinionated news. There's not enough time for news. Not to mention, we don't care about your one story. The advice was only okay. It wasn't enough to distract me from the bad audio complete with crackling something sounds. They also threw in a nice sinus-clearing snot sound from one of the hosts. If I were you, I would steer clear of these guys until they grow up and get their stuff together. Okay. Well, punch in the face to you, Josh. Punch in the face. Thank you very much for taking the time and submitting a review. One star, huh? Yeah. Only one star. Oh, well. Don't be a deuce, Josh. Yeah. All right. Next one. Love the podcast. Five stars. By Jay Roshi, I think. I've been listening to these guys for some time now. They make a topic that can honestly be a bit boring at times, and they flip it around and make each and every podcast a joy to

listen to. Plus, I learn something each time that I can utilize in my website marketing strategies. Thank you for consistently pumping out the great podcast. Appreciate you. Yes. Punch in the face. And let me comment to Josh one second. In regards to the promoting what you're already listening to, it's free information, Josh. And so in order for us to continue to provide free information, we have to plug the podcast. Yeah. Kind of how it works, right? Anything you watch shows you ads for what you're already watching. Yeah. Every TV show shows you reviews and news about the next episode and the previous episode. Every... Every... Every... Yeah. Okay. And I don't even think we promote our podcast much. We talk about our reviews. Yeah. We do do a little bit of news. We like that because it keeps it timely and we get to interject our own bizarre sense of... No, our opinion. Our super opinionated news. Yeah. So apparently we have 10 minutes of super opinionated news on one story. Yeah. All right. I wish he had put the podcast we had listened to because I would go back and... I just wanted to say what number was that? Go back and listen to it. By the way, I think maybe that's Gino. He just has a new name. Josh. So now it's the Josh Smith time limit. Time limit. All right. So we have reached the Josh Smith time limit. It is also known as the Potatoes. It is now time to get to the meat. Yeah. So... Oh, wait. Wait. We cannot forget our section because today we have an algorithm cataclysm. Yeah, Josh, you probably really like the style of fix. Yeah. So, yeah, we got some cataclysm today. And we noticed this probably a week and a half, two weeks ago. You guys may have noticed it as well when you're doing a search on Google. The search in the results page changes. I'm not sure if you guys can see this. Almost to like a film strip type of

a result. Now, I will say I haven't seen that result since we saw it that day. Oh, no. Well, I haven't done any hotel searches anyway. So, yeah, this was a search for Comedy Houston or Comedy Club Houston, one of those. And it came up with a, we'll call it a film strip across the top. And so what I liked about it was if you go and search, let's say, hotels in a certain city, they'll give you a film strip looking with the picture of the hotel, the name of the hotel, the average cost per room, the five star, four star. I mean, it was very informative and made my hotel finding process a lot easier. And so kudos to Google for, okay, cool. Comedy Houston still there. So kudos to Google, punch in the face to Google for that sort of change. That's what's up. But for not naming it, we're going to call it Google Filmstrip. Yep. Filmstrip. Yep, there's hotel. Also, Hotel Houston. I like it. Very cool. It's kind of reminiscent of when you search for movies. Like if you just do movies, then it gives you kind of a film strip of the different movies. Although it's not at the very top like this. It's actually across the whole strip. And right under the PPC. So, right, I think it's, isn't it usually under the PPC? The film strip? Yeah, for the movies. Oh, yeah, it's usually under PPC. Yeah, that's taking, that's above the, the film strip actually shows above the paid ads. Yeah, interesting. Don't be paid to. I know, right? That's probably what they're leading to. All right, so let's get into the potatoes, to the meat. So, so speaking about social, we were talking about social last week and how you can, you know, including various things like like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter during the checkout process. I want to talk about Foursquare today for a couple reasons. One, we use it here. We're always competing for mayor and whatnot. Chris recently

got into the mix, kind of, you know. He was good for about three days and ain't checked in no more. Yeah, well, I did check in today. Today, yeah. Yeah. And we're still trying to figure out the algorithm to figure out who is the mayor. And how many check-ins it takes to be mayor and all that kind of stuff. So that's one of the things you can do with Foursquare. But the article I got today was written by a guy named Aaron Straut. Got this off of marketing land. And it's 10 tips for getting the most marketing via Foursquare. Pretty cool because a lot of, a lot of companies don't take advantage of Foursquare. If you are a mobile business or maybe, you know, something like that that doesn't have a brick and mortar, then Foursquare may not be the social network for you. But, however, if you do have a brick and mortar business, a physical location, a showroom, a restaurant, or something like that where people can actually come to and you're looking to drive foot traffic, definitely take advantage of Foursquare. Foursquare, especially if you are a retail establishment or a restaurant. Restaurants do extremely well on Foursquare. So some of those tips. Number one, set your goals. Right? A lot of people go into social media marketing or SEO or whatever, frankly, and they don't have a clear goal in mind. So determine what your goal is. So, for example, if you're a restaurant and you focus on American cuisine, your goal may be to use Foursquare and get a certain number of patrons through the door. During a certain time frame. Set that goal. Even if you can't achieve it, at least set it so you have something to shoot for. And then once you gather some data, you can come back and reassess your goal. A good goal might be during a slow period. I'm going to increase my business or keep it, you know, higher. Definitely. At least make enough money to pay the employees. Keep people busy.

Yeah. Right? That's a good goal. So number two, claim your business. Right? And I'm going to tag that one for Foursquare, for Facebook, and for Facebook. For Google Plus. Yeah. Claim your business. In the reverse order. In the reverse order. Yeah. Google Plus should be first. Go claim your business. With Foursquare, I've done it with two, three different businesses. It's not that hard. It's actually similar. It's a two-step process, unlike Google's. Google has the one step where you submit, then you get the verification code, then you go in and you put the code in. Well, Foursquare, you submit, you get a verification code mobily. They only do it mobile, not via email, not via postcard. They do it mobile. Then you have to get that reply to it, and then they pop it up on your screen. It's kind of cool how they do it. Oh, yeah. And then you put it in, and then you save it, and you get approved. So claim your business is number two. Number three, reach out to your influencers. So, again, if this is a restaurant, and let's say you have some regulars who always come, and you know them by name, you know what they're going to order. Look, get them to really push your Foursquare because they can influence their friends, their family. Yeah. And you will have a bigger impact. A person-to-person referral is always better than an ad. So, yeah, so reach out to your influencers. See if you can find that first person who checks in if you just, or if somebody's, so on Foursquare if you've got a mayor. So the person who comes into your store every day may not be the person who uses Foursquare. Find the person who uses Foursquare the most and comes into your store regularly and seek them out because you were in. Yeah, Red Robin. Red Robin. I mean, Red Robin is a great example. Red Robin. Yum. Yeah, them. And so I was in there eating a burger, and I checked in on Foursquare,

and it was like 20% off for checking in Foursquare. I showed it to my wife. Well, it was pretty cool. But what made it really cool was that I didn't have to do anything. Red Robin had a manager in the back monitoring that. They came to my table and was like, yeah, you just checked in on Foursquare, and they wrote a little note on my ticket, and they all got 20% off. Wow. And so take advantage of it. And so now we go, and I go to get 20% off. Done. Yeah. Create a special strategy, which is number four. That's a special strategy. I mean, there are other things you could do. You could offer, you know, a certain percentage off for the mayor, right? As long as the mayor's checking in, maybe his first drink is always free or something like that. And you have people competing to be mayor so they can get this free drink or whatever it is. So maybe you can even treat it like punch cards, right? After five or six consecutive check-ins, maybe your next meal is free or something like that. So, you know, there are different ways to use it, but definitely create a strategy that works for your business, which kind of leads to number five. Test out different specials, right? You want to make sure that whatever you're doing on Foursquare, that it's actually working. And if it's not working, you won't know that if you don't test it. So test out different specials. Maybe test the percentage off of something. Maybe test something free. Maybe test the free giveaway or free valet parking or whatever it is. You know, but definitely test out different strategies and see what works. I mean, after you test it, number six is measure, refine, and optimize. Figure out how it worked, what you could have done to make it better, and then make it better, right? If maybe the 20% off was too much, and you didn't realize that until you did it a whole bunch of

times. You know, maybe you reduced it to 15% or 10%, or maybe it's 20% off of a different product that you don't take so much of a hard hit on. So, but you won't get those, that data, you won't get those results if you don't test and measure. Number seven, let people know about the campaign. Biggest problem I have with businesses who actually offer that, and even Red Robin had this problem, now that I think about it, there's nothing about Foursquare in the building. There was no signage. There was no anything. Encouragement to do it. Yeah, I just happened to be social and was going to check in on Foursquare. So, do that. And not just that, Foursquare will even give you free signage. You can just log in to your account and download it. Well, not download it. They'll mail it to you. Posters and window decals and things like that. So, take advantage of it. Train your staff. This is a good one. Yeah. Like a manager at Red Robin who knew he was back there. Who knew that somebody checked in. Yeah, train your staff so they'll know. Because if indeed I would have got the message like I did, I was about to ask my waiter when she came back. But I didn't have to because the manager came out. And so, I'm going to say that. Maybe she would have known. I don't know. But train your staff. A great opportunity for great customer service. I mean, that was phenomenal. Experiment with paid. Take that one with a grain of salt. You know, it's Foursquare. And so, the paid ads on Foursquare usually will help you, like, show if somebody's exploring what's in the area. So, for example, if you check in at eWebStyle and then you hit the Explore tab, it'll show you other businesses that's in this vicinity. Or restaurants or whatever. Yeah. And so, the paid ads put you higher there. It may be worth it if you just, you know, suffering from a low influence of

foot traffic. Like, if you were an independent coffee shop, it might be really good. Definitely. Yeah, because everybody's thinking Starbucks. Let's see here. Download the business app. This is key. This is probably how to manage it. The business app lets you know. It pushes notifications to you and lets you know when people have checked into your establishment. It'll actually let you know when whoever checked into your establishment has checked in somewhere else. Kind of let you know that they're out of the building. Right? So, that's good information to have. How many times a certain person has checked in? It keeps all of that type of analytics for you. So, get the business app, especially if you're going to dedicate some time and effort to Foursquare Marketing. You need the business app. Yeah. Lastly, measure your efforts. When it's all said and done, you have to measure. See what worked. See what didn't work. How could you improve it? What could you change? What you did right? What you did wrong? And so on. So, measure your efforts and then rinse and repeat and do it all over again. That goes back to what's the difference between an expense and an investment. Definitely. An expense you can't track. Yeah. It's just money out the door. An investment has an ROI. So, as long as you can track it and see that dollars could be coming back. They don't have to. As long as you like them to. If they are not, then you stop doing it. But you don't know that. You're not testing and measure. Test and measure. Absolutely. So, that's it. That's a good article. Who is that by? This is by Aaron Strout. All right. Touching the face to you, man. I'll post this on Facebook so you guys can check it out. Cool. Any blanks there? Oh, I did have some, but I can't think of it right now. And I still can't think of it. All right. All right. Well, this has been podcast number 199. Our next podcast is number

200. Man, it's going to be gone. Oh, that's right. Well, it's just not going to happen for a couple weeks. Maybe two weeks. Two, maybe three. So, yeah. Tune in as often as you can. Write a review as often as you can. Remember, we're really pushing our G-plus reviews. You know, as negative as that was, and we try and give them a hard time, we know that everything he says is kind of typical of what people who criticize our podcast say. We get more positives about having some personality, about having news, about actually not promoting ourselves too much in the podcast. So we try and keep that to a minimum. So thank you for sending that in. If you're listening to this podcast and you want to submit a critical review, you don't have to. And if you do, we will probably still read it on the air because transparency is one of our policies. We really think we have a better connection with the audience and our customers if we're transparent. Yep. Until the next podcast, my name is Chris Burris. Chau, Luz. Bye-bye for now.