Search Engine Marketing Blog

This is not my idea, it’s Google’s own advice. No joke. According to Chris Silver Smith’s post on Search Engine Land Google Earth VP Michael Jones, when asked how small businesses that did not wish to display their home address could get on Google Local, “suggested that those businesses could rent a post box”.

Now while this may seem like a good idea for the small business owner, it’s also giving license to every spammer out there. More about that later on.

What Google Local is saying is that a company cannot get listed on Google Local without an address and that the address they register with will be displayed online for the world to see. So, unlike some online yellow pages where you can “opt out” of having your address displayed, Google Local will not give you this option. Instead they suggest that you simply rent one. Why not save yourself the money and use your neighbours? Or your aunt’s? All you have to do is make sure you have access to the mail so you can pick up the card from Google with your Google Local pin on it to verify your listing.

Now while it seems a bit of a round about way for small businesses working from home to get listed without disclosing their private address to the universe, I can see a lot of them taking Google up on the offer because, after all, a Google Local listing is very important, especially when you don’t have a large or very well optimised website. You NEED the Google Local listing if you want to be visible online.

But before you rush out to the nearest PO Box or virtual office provider to register an address, take a moment to think about how people will search for a business like yours. If you only serve your neighbourhood or local village then you will want to register a very, very local address. If, however, you serve the larger area you need to try to find one that is at the heart of that area.

Do the exact search you want to show up for on Google (i.e. “interior decorator santa cruz” or “plumber london”) and note the Google Local results. The one at the top will likely be located (or will have been clever enough to rent a mail box located) in what Google considers to be the epicentre of that town/city/county/state. Google makes up its own “dead centre” rules so forget about what the centre actually is and work with what Google tells you it thinks it is.

By the way, the old Yellow Page scheme of registering AAAPlumbers or 1st Action Pest Control is fine on Google Local. They don’t do a check with Companies House or the US equivalent. As long as you get the pin and type it in to verify the listing they’ll let it through. So you can make up both your address and your company name - isn’t that fun!

Which brings me to the problem of Google telling people to just rent a mail box. What if you don’t have a company? What if you don’t really offer any services or products? What if you’re just one of the many spammy websites out there full of Adsense ads taking up the bulk of the search engine results pages? We all thought Google Local would help to reduce these. Think again.

Google has now actually given companies permission to use a rented address instead of their actual address. And Google doesn’t do any sort of checking other than the pin. This means that they are also in effect allowing you to make up a company name. So Google Local is in fact allowing anyone to make up a company and list it on Google Local.

Expect to see a lot of affiliates and Adsense sites in the Google Local listings, there are already some in there. But now that the Google Local “10 Pack” is eating up so much prime real estate it’s just going to get worse.

Link bait, in case you never heard of it, is a website/page built to grab your attention. Offering a cool free tool, flaming Matt Cutts, saying “Page Rank Doesn’t Matter”, publishing a Top 100 list are all examples of link bait. In business terms it might be a whitepaper, survey findings, industry reports or predictions and forecasts.

The focus is on targeting a link-happy audience and on marketing to them instead of on delivering to your primary target audience. It’s all about spreading your word through other people’s websites.

You should build link bait content that targets bloggers, social bookmarkers, university professors, Democratic senators, niche media, big media, anyone and everyone that posts online - from those that do it for a living to those that simply like to see their own words in print.

The bottom line is it’s only link bait if it’s something others will want to join in on. If there is no reason for them to comment, disagree, flame you, nit pick, congratulate you, quote you, or in some way engage in the conversation it’s not link bait.

So make it engaging, controversial, quoteable, thought provoking, hilarious, horrid, anything that will cause a written reaction.

I’ve got 20 minutes in which to find a club to book for a party. Someone recommends the Gardening Club in Covent Garden. I find the website address using Google and I’m on the site. I’m looking, I’m looking, I’m looking and I just cannot find a phone number! In frustration I announce this fact to the office at large and within 5 seconds someone yells out the phone number. I call, they have the VIP room available and it’s booked! Yeah! Party time.

So where’d my colleague find the phone number? “On Bizwiki”. Of course.

Google has recently made a shift to giving greater prominence to individual company websites instead of online directories. One would think that this is a good move and in the interest of the searcher, but is it?

That all depends on how many company websites are set up to actually give their readers information as opposed to graphics, difficult layouts and unintelligible marketing speak.

Have a look through a few company websites. Are their contact details immediately available? Does their homepage tell you in no uncertain terms who they are, what they do, if they can help you and how you can get in touch?

You’d think companies would make sure such important information is in the forefront, clearly visible and un-missable. Well, think again. If it’s not completely absent, it’s buried several levels down the site structure or on a page that you wouldn’t expect it to be on (which would be Home, About or Contact – businesses take note).

And then of course is the problem of trying to find the company website on search engines. Too few business sites are designed to be found by the search engines and the lack of informative content, the basis on which search engine results are ranked, really doesn’t help. Of course, some businesses don’t even have a website yet.

So yes, there is a need for online phone books and business directories. Until such a time as every business has a website and each one is developed so as to give its reader an at a glance overview of its products, services, location and contact details searchers will continue to find online directories such as Bizwiki to be the more useful option.

Now that the furor is dying down over Virgil’s WikiScanner some helpful souls are moving the conversation towards how companies should manage their reputation on Wikipedia. It’s starting to sound like White Hat SEO banter - “Don’t do anything that would upset Wikipedia”. There’s an article over at Search Engine Land by a Wikipedia editor that gives advice on how to get incorrect or slanderous content removed from your Wikipedia page which says, in short: Don’t do it yourself. The comments got so contentious that Danny closed them down before I had a chance to post.

Why doesn’t Wikipedia want you to edit information about yourself or your company? Their position is that someone who is too close to a company/person/topic may not be able to provide the neutrality Wikipedia prides itself on. Fair enough, but what if you want to correct an obvious flaw in the article about you or your company? Are you really going to wait around for some Wikipedia “angel” to swoop down and edit it for you?

I am in complete agreement that Wikipedia articles should be kept neutral and unbiased but I do not agree that just because you are “close” to the company you are unable to edit the article in the correct manner. I am not referring here to whitewashing or spin tactics, I’m talking about fixing obvious errors such as spelling mistakes, dates, numbers and other openly verifiable facts.