Tag Archives: local seo services

Google’s Homepage is Haunted This Halloween!

Last Updated On August 13th, 2014Search Engine News, , , , ,

Google is celebrating Halloween with an interactive haunted house doodle on the homepage of the site. Clicking on the different doors of the haunted house reveals ghosts, monsters and ghouls and even clicking on the house’s surroundings bring other creatures to life.

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The haunted house doodle isn’t Google’s only way of spookifying Google.com; Halloween is taking over the search results too! When users search for a horror movie and year, bats appear on the page along with the search results. Putting your cursor over the bats makes them fly away. See for yourself: Go to Google.com and click on the different doors of the haunted house. Then search for “Halloween 1978” or “The Shining 1980” and check out the bats hanging upside-down on the right. Happy Halloween!

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How To Optimize Your Videos for YouTube in 5 Easy Steps

Last Updated On August 13th, 2014Local Video Ads, , , , ,

Because there is much less video content online than text content, your video has a greater chance of showing up in the search results than your web pages. That is, as long as your video is optimized correctly. Before you upload your video to YouTube, make sure your target audience can find it, by optimizing the video with relevant keywords. Here’s how.

1. Save your video to your computer. Put a keyword in the name of the file. For instance, in this example, the video is about local SEO so the name of the video is called “LocalSEO.”

2. Right click on the video and choose “Properties.” Click to the “Details” tab on Properties and add your keywords to the Title, Subtitle, and Tags sections.

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3. Sign in to YouTube or create your account. Click the “Upload” button at the top right hand side of the page. Then choose “Select files from your computer” and choose your video file.

4. While your file is uploading, fill out the “Basic Info,” with your keywords. Give your video a descriptive, eye-catching title that includes an important keyword. Fill in your description with keyword-rich content and add relevant keywords to your tags. Choose the best category for your video and set your privacy settings to “Public.” Once it says upload complete, click “Save changes” at the bottom of the page.

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5. Your optimized YouTube video is now ready to share! Post it to your blog, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Reddit and anywhere else you can think of online to spread the word about your business.

Google Changes Review Interface – Puts Less Emphasis on Zagat

Last Updated On August 13th, 2014Organic SEO, , , , , ,

Google recently made changes to its review interface to put less of a focus on the Zagat review system. The new interface allows review authors to choose words or phrases like “Excellent,” “Very Good,” “Good,” and “Poor-Fair” rather than Zagat’s 0-3 number system.

Zagat’s 0-3 numbering system may have been too confusing to users because it is a unique, unusual system compared to what many people are used to. Many ratings are based on a 1-5 scale, with 3 being the rating for an “okay” or “so-so” experience. However, on Zagat’s rating scale, 3 is the highest score you can give. Google has done away with this Zagat scale. The reviews interface now looks like this:

googlesreviewinterface

Google is still displaying the overall Zagat score on each business’s Google+ Local page. This score is a number between 0-30. However, the fact that Google has done away with the initial 0-3 Zagat scoring scale may show that it’s taking steps towards completely eliminating the Zagat scoring system. What do you think? Do you like Google’s Zagat scoring system or should Google do away with it?

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