Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing » Google

The 10 Best Google Chrome Extensions for Online Marketers

Mark Flavin — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 21:22:21 +0000

With the speed and versatility of Google’s Chrome browser you can now have quite a few more extensions and still have your computer humming along at maximum efficiency. The ChromeWebStore is full of great plug-ins to make your life as an Online Marketer easier. Below are the top 10 that you shouldn’t live without.

Of course, I will say that each marketer specializes in a particular piece of the trade. So all of these plug-ins might not fit the idea tool set for each person, but if you are a jack-of-all-trades kind of marketer like myself, you’ll see the value in each one.

PageRank

A lot of marketers will argue against the value of relying on Google’s PageRank number to judge a site. But if you are trying to comb through a ton of websites to find the ones worth spending your time on, there is no better initial indicator in my opinion. And with thismandatoryplug-in you don’t even have to click anything to see where each site stands.

bitly | a simple URL shortener

Bitly has always been my preferred shortening service for their tracking features and easy to use service. Their ChromeExtension gives you everything you have been enjoying from their website and Twitter and puts it at the top of your toolbar.

SEO for Chrome

SEO for Chrome is the grand-daddy of Internet Marketing extensions. This SEOanalysisextension allows you to see a ton of metrics for each site you visit including various backlink providers, traffic numbers, pages indexed, and a bunch of other on-site SEO checks. If you haven’t been using this Extension you have been living under a rock.

Awesome Screenshot

The year is 2011 and if you are still using Print Screen to take screenshots of websites you are way behind. AwesomeScreenshot is a plug-in that not only gives you the most sought after ability to take a screenshot on an entire webpage, but it also gives you a simple editing screen with tools that cover most annotations you have been doing in Photoshop all these years.

Linkclump

If you do a lot of competitive analysis or outreach, you are probably holding the Command key down a lot as you click multiple links to open in new tabs. Linkclump let’s you drag a square around the links you want to open and automatically opens them all in new tabs for you.

Shareaholic

It isn’t always appropriate to share your marketing material using the same message across all of your social channels, but with Shareaholic, taking care of the sites you aren’t focused as attentively on is easy.

META SEO Inspector

This is another SEO plug-in that saves you time from viewing the source of each page to see what they have in their head tags. METASEOInspector is really great for making sure your own sites META description is as you’d like it and that all your script calls are linking to external documents.

Speed Tracer

SpeedTracer takes a look at a websites code and gives a very complete on-site diagnostics. This extension is great for making sure your own site is performing at its best to help Google crawl it faster (and Google made it themselves).

Domain Details

DomainDetails is a great extension for the really hands on marketer who is looking to make connections, buy out-of-date domains, or try to find website networks. The extension gives you all the data you usually look to GoDaddy or dnsstuff to find.

SeoQuake

I’m putting this one at the bottom of the list because I don’t actively use it, but I do know a lot of marketers that swear by it. To me this SEOextension is overkill with how much data it is pulling and the taking-over of my Google pages is a bit overwhelming. But if you really want to know everything about a website at a glance, this is the most complete plug-in out there.

Frank Anderson is a technology and marketing blogger. He works with email exchange hosting and various other email technologies.

The 10 Best Google Chrome Extensions for Online Marketers is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

Google Killing Off More Products

Mark Flavin — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:02:22 +0000

Google is continuing to kill off some of it’s lesser used products. This time some of the major products to go are Google Wave, Google Knol & Google Gears.

You can get the full list of products being discontinued on the Official Google Blog

These changes to Google structure aren’t very surprising in my opinion. The gap in the market these products fill isn’t really where Google want to be. With this spring cleaning we may now see more focus on it’s core products & improving them rather then creating new ones.

Google Killing Off More Products is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

The Latest Change To Google’s Search Algorithm

Mark Flavin — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 23:04:01 +0000

The latest change Google has made to it’s search algorithm is designed to bring ‘fresher’ and newer content to the top of it’s results.

For example if you’re searching for the ‘European Championships’ it will presume you are searching for the championships next year and not one from 20 years ago.

Google explains it like this:

Given the incredibly fast pace at which information moves in today’s world, the most recent information can be from the last week, day or even minute, and depending on the search terms, the algorithm needs to be able to figure out if a result from a week ago about a TV show is recent, or if a result from a week ago about breaking news is too old.

This update shouldn’t change much for people who regularly update their content in fact it should help them, but if you’ve got a static site and are not updating content regularly this is another update which could hurt your rankings. So bottom line….. start making regular updates to your content, blogging is one of the easiest ways to do this.

The Latest Change To Google’s Search Algorithm is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

eHow.com & Others Slapped Hard By Google Panda Part Deux

Mark Flavin — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 07:50:20 +0000

Google has released an expansion to it’s Google Panda algorithm update & while it’s not as expansive as the original update it still affects about 2% of U.S. searches.

Somehow during the first Google Panda update eHow.com managed to survive being slapped & it was certainly a site people expected to be affected by the update. But with the release of ‘part deux’ eHow.com has been hit hard.

Sistrix has put together the winners & losers from this update. You can check them out below:

eHow.com & Others Slapped Hard By Google Panda Part Deux is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

Technorati Tags: ehow google panda, ehow.com google farmer, Farmer Update, google farmer, Google Panda, Panda Update

More Targeted Ads Coming To Gmail

Mark Flavin — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:57:47 +0000

Advertisements in Gmail have always been targeted pretty well but Google is making more of an effort to further improve targeting in Gmail ads. Of course from a marketers point of view this is great news & it’s also great news for local businesses as they will be able to get ultra targeted visitors from Gmail, as I would imagine that the data Google receives from peoples emails is about as targeted as it gets!

Google says:

“With features like Priority Inbox, we’ve been working hard to help sort through the ‘bacn’ in your messages — the unimportant messages that get in your way. Soon we’re going to try a similar approach to ads: using some of the same signals that help predict which messages are likely to be important to you, Gmail will better predict which ads may be useful to you. For example, if you’ve recently received a lot of messages about photography or cameras, a deal from a local camera store might be interesting. On the other hand if you’ve reported these messages as spam, you probably don’t want to see that deal.”

You can watch what Google has to say about all the improvements their making to Gmail ads in the video below:

More Targeted Ads Coming To Gmail is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

Technorati Tags: adwords gmail, gmail ads, google ads

Google To Incorporate User Sentiment Into Search Results With ‘Plus One’

Mark Flavin — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 14:41:02 +0000

Google is currently rolling out a feature called ‘plus one’. Essentially it is Google’s answer to the Facebook ‘Like’. It’s allows you to recommend sites with just one click.

This is another way for Google to incorporate user sentiment into it’s search results (It recently started allowing users manually block results) and gather data on what users like. Google says that right now data from “+1″ will not used in how Google ranks sites in search but whether they can be believed on this issue is another question & it is almost certain that in the future social sentiment is going to become increasingly important when it comes to ranking well in Google.

You can get the low down on ‘plus one’ in the video below.

Google Successfully Sues ‘Google Cash’ Scammers

Mark Flavin — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 21:38:50 +0000

Google has successfully sued Bloosky, Just Think Media, Crush, Hyper Interactive, Search 4 Profit, and Viable to the tune of $1,600,000. These companies were using Google’s name in it’s products & many of their customers wrote directly to Google complaining about the product thinking it was actually Google themselves who had sold the product to them.

Not only do these companies have to fork over $1.6 Million but they are now forbidden from:

“using in any manner the term GOOGLE, any of Plaintiff’s Google Marks, or any terms phonetically or confusingly similar thereto in connection with the marketing, selling, offering for sale, displaying, promoting or advertising of work-at-home business opportunities, work-at-home products, and/or work-at-home services.”

While I am very much an advocate of free speech & a free internet personally I am very happy with this ruling because these businesses essentially impersonated the Google brand & used the brands value to sell terrible products to unsuspecting people. As mentioned above many of the people who purchased the product actually taught it was Google who had sold it to them.

Some more articles about this topic: Wall Street Journal - Web Pro News

Google Successfully Sues ‘Google Cash’ Scammers is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

Technorati Tags: google cash scammers, google scam, google sueing, google sues

5 Free Resources From Google That Will Help Improve Your Search Rankings

Mark Flavin — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:49:04 +0000

What better place to get help with Search Engine Optimization then from Google. Below I have compiled some really great resources provided by Google which will help you get better rankings.

Resource 1: Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools allows you to see how Google views your site, to share information about your site with Google using sitemaps & even lets you set GeoTargeting for your site so it will show up in the relevant GeoTargeted searches. There’s lot’s of other really helpful tools in there as well so if you haven’t signed up for webmaster tools yet, please do soon.

Resource 2: Google’s Very Own Guide To SEO

Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide is really the beginners Bible to SEO. It goes through:

SEO Basics
Site Structure
Optimizing Content
Dealing With Crawlers
SEO For Mobile Phones &
Promotions & Analysis

This is really a must read for anyone looking to improve their ranking in Google.

Resource 3: Matt Cutts Blog

Matt Cutts works on search quality & web spam at Google so if anyone knows what Google is looking for when it comes to rankings this is the guy.

Resource 4: Google’s Webmaster Guidelines

Google outlines what it looks for from websites it its Webmaster Guidelines “Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site.”

There are:

Design & Content Guidelines
Technical Guidelines &
Quality Guidelines

Resource 5: Google Adwords Keyword Tool

While the Adwords Keyword Tool is primarily for Google’s pay per click platform. We can use the data from it to find Global & Local Monthly Search Data which can be very helpful in deciding what keywords you may wish to target in your SEO plan.

So there you have 5 resources provided by Google which can help you get better search rankings & hopefully lot’s more traffic! If you’ve got any resources of your own, from Google or otherwise please leave a comment below.

5 Free Resources From Google That Will Help Improve Your Search Rankings is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

Technorati Tags: google resources, google seo, google webmaster guidelines, google webmaster tools, matt cutts blog

Google To Start Letting Users Block Sites From Search Results

Mark Flavin — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:53:01 +0000

Google is rolling out a feature which will allow search users to block sites from their search results. These are customized results & a user will have to be signed into their Google account to block sites but I would imagine Google will start using data from this in their ranking.

If a site is getting blocked by thousands of different users then their is an issue and I can’t imagine Google not using that data to effect the sites ranking in some way.

From an SEO point of view the usual goes ‘Content Is King’ if you’ve got great content you wont be blocked so it wont effect you in fact it may help you as the bad content around you gets weeded out.

But this is a very new feature, in fact it’s not active on my account yet, I haven’t had a chance to use it so right now I’m just speculating as to how the PhD’s at Google may use the data from this but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.

Google To Start Letting Users Block Sites From Search Results is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

Technorati Tags: google seo, google users block results, search engine optimization

EzineArticles.com Slapped Hard By The New Google Farmer Algorithm Update.

Mark Flavin — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 22:48:31 +0000

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock lately you’ve probably seen & heard the bashing Google has been getting regarding it’s results & particularly the quality of the content it ranks highly. Basically people were creating crappy content on the cheap, getting backlinks to it & getting top rankings (Including major corporations such as JC Pennys)

Well Google decided to make some changes & many of the major article directories and ‘content farms’ are after getting hit badly after Google rolled out this new update to their algorithm & have seen their rankings drop dramatically.

One of the major losers has been EzineArticles.com A site I use a lot and I’m sure a lot of people reading this post do too. Over at Search Engine Land there’s been some number crunching going on & EzineArticles.com has lost over 130,000 positions in Google!

As you can see above lots of other well known sites were hit hard too.

Over at Abbamont.com Dan Abbamont has done some keyword position comparisons from before & after the Google update. Here are some of the EzineArticle.com changes:

ezine – From #1 to #2
ezine articles – From #1 to #1
cell phone lookup – From #1 to #2
reverse phone lookup – From #21 to #35
“lowest air fare” – From #>100 to #>100
copy paste traffic review – From #4 to #34
cell phone – From #>100 to #>100
reverse cell phone lookup – From #4 to #2
phone number lookup – From #26 to #36
ezine article – From #1 to #1
phone lookup – From #31 to #>100
acai berry – From #17 to #>100

For a full list check out Dan’s post here.

So what does the algorithm change mean for you? Well straight from Google’s mouth here’s what the update means:

In the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.

So the bottom line is simple. Create original content that will entertain, inform, educate and help your readers. Give value to your readers & make sure your site is useful to them & it keeps people coming back to your site over & over again.

So what it really comes down to is creating content for your readers & not for the search engines.

So have you been effected by the Google Farmer update? How you seen your rankings drop? Did you have high ranking EzineArticles in Google? Leave your comments below.

**UPDATE** Ezine Articles has acknowledged this issue & will be making changes to their site, editorial review & guidelines in response to the Google Farmer algorithm

**UPDATE2** Ezine Articles have made 5 changes to their editorial review process including changing the minimum article word count to 400 & doubling the amount of review time per article.

EzineArticles.com Slapped Hard By The New Google Farmer Algorithm Update. is a post from: Mark Flavin's Blog | News & Tutorials On SEO, Social Media, Website Traffic & Internet Marketing

Technorati Tags: ezine articles slapped, featured, google farmer, google farmer algorithm, google slap, google slapped, google slapped ezinearticles