http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog We share tips on search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, local search optimizing, and other tactics to improve your online presence. Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:12:23 +0000 en hourly 1 http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/google-and-seo http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/google-and-seo#comments Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:08:45 +0000 Lindsay http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/?p=2727 SEO is constantly evolving.  Just to prove my point, I originally started this blog post three weeks ago.  It dove into my hypothesis on the effects of social media on SEO and how Google was slowly changing the playing field.  And as soon as it was ready to publish, Google rolled out Google Search plus Your World (SPYW) and made my post, in a blink, outdated.

Social media is becoming a larger piece of the SEO puzzle.  For those of you who are unfamiliar, Google Search plus Your World incorporates personalized search results from its own social network among normal SERP results.  Depending on your search, results will now be preceded by links of your Google+ friend’s updates and photos (if you are even using Google+) that relate to your query.]]> http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/google-and-seo/feed 1 http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/5-easy-symbols-google-work http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/5-easy-symbols-google-work#comments Wed, 31 Aug 2011 18:07:51 +0000 Tim http://dtc.mighty-site.com/blog/?p=1684 http://plus.gooogle.com, the main page for the service. But if you weren't familiar with the exact branding of the service, and typed 'Google +' (note the space) as a search, you wouldn't find that URL anywhere in the first few pages of the results. Strangely, the latter search term is actually seen by the search engine to be exactly equivalent to simply typing in 'google'; the first result is http://www.google.com.

So what is happening here? Why does adding a single space to the search term drastically alter the results that a user sees? Shouldn't Google know that what you really want is the Google+ homepage? Why is it so confused by such a small difference?

While the details are too tedious to really get into here, what ends up happening is that Google's software interprets a plus sign as an operator. In computer science, operators are shorthand ways to give very specific commands. In this particular instance, a plus sign at the end of the word is (correctly) interpreted as part of what you're looking for. But a plus sign after a space is actually translated to mean the word 'and'. So, searching for 'Google+' is interpreted at face vale, while 'Google +' is understood to mean 'Google And'. (Check out the images below to see what this means).

As it turns out, search engines actually scan every search query for special commands. And even though the special command can cause annoyance as in the example above, they can also be extremely useful, if you know how to use them. With that in mind, here are some special commands that can really help you find whatever it is you're looking for:]]> http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/5-easy-symbols-google-work/feed 0 http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/google http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/google#comments Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:56:34 +0000 Tim http://dtc.mighty-site.com/blog/?p=1667 wrote that Google+ could potentially have a major effect on SEO, but only if the service was able to attract a critical mass of general users. Since then, much of the talk surrounding G+ has focused on a peculiar observation: Google+ is full of dudes.

It would be silly to say that this jarring demographic disparity is going to doom the whole project, but I would not recommend investing too many resources into G+ until this starts to change pretty dramatically.]]> http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/google/feed 0 http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/internet-marketing-age-google http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/internet-marketing-age-google#comments Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:27:39 +0000 Tim http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/?p=1571 Google+, it's clear that the biggest player in the search space is making good on their commitment to social media as a major component for search results moving forward. If the buzz across other social media sites isn't enough of a sign that Google+ is worth paying attention to, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has gone on record stating that all Google products and services will eventually be completely integrated with Google+.]]> http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/internet-marketing-age-google/feed 1 http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/4-foursquare-business-owner-mistakes http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/4-foursquare-business-owner-mistakes#comments Mon, 20 Jun 2011 20:09:13 +0000 Taylor http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/?p=1459 Foursquare is especially interesting for businesses because it reinforces customer loyalty and repeat business. However, there are a lot of caveats when it comes to social media; some business execute it seamlessly...while others leave something to be desired.]]> http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/4-foursquare-business-owner-mistakes/feed 1 http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/5-tips-effective-email-marketing http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/5-tips-effective-email-marketing#comments Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:21:12 +0000 John-Henry http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/?p=1243 Orbit Media Studios. It's a meet up for professionals to discuss best practices in digital marketing and have a few glasses of wine. Last night's topic was email marketing and it was packed with useful information and best practices. Here's a list of the top five valuable take aways from Orbit's April 19th #WineWeb:]]> http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/5-tips-effective-email-marketing/feed 0 http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/googles-1-feature-social-media-seo-merge http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/googles-1-feature-social-media-seo-merge#comments Wed, 30 Mar 2011 20:08:32 +0000 Tim http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/?p=1222
As always, it's important to take a critical eye towards all the hype surrounding this launch, but there are some reasons to believe that this can actually be a major change for online marketing.]]> http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/googles-1-feature-social-media-seo-merge/feed 0 http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/bing-continues-implement-features http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/bing-continues-implement-features#comments Thu, 23 Dec 2010 16:16:02 +0000 Patrick http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/?p=709
Below is a short list of the major updates to come:

Facebook "Like" Annotations - You will now see search results that have been "liked" by your Facebook friends.]]> http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/bing-continues-implement-features/feed 0 http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/pixels-seperation-book-review http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/pixels-seperation-book-review#comments Thu, 16 Dec 2010 23:29:14 +0000 John-Henry http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/?p=679 Six Pixels of Separation written by the president of Twist Image, Mitch Joel. It’s a quick read and a valuable guide to the contemporary internet landscape including overall web presence, social media and search engine marketing. This book breaks down complex and newly theorized techno-sociological behaviors and details how businesses can participate and capitalize on digital communication.]]> http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/pixels-seperation-book-review/feed 1 http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/2010-trends-twitter http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/2010-trends-twitter#comments Mon, 13 Dec 2010 20:46:35 +0000 Nathan http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/?p=673 year in review, capping a year of 25 billion tweets - and while it's nothing groundbreaking from most business perspectives, it's still fun to view a year in total.

To better help users understand the significance of these number twitter did explain how trending is defined. However, I'm still not sure how their selected categories are defined. For example, Brett Favre's inclusions on the "Sports" list. Does his inclusion on the list this year really have anything to do with "sports" per se? Does his trending in "sports" preclude his inclusion (or Lebron's for that matter) in the general list for people?

Aside from better defining their categories, I'd also like to see Twitter expand their categories a little more to include some fun topics for marketers such as top 10 brands, top 10 products, top 10 URL shortening providers, or maybe top 10 websites linked to from Twitter. Another fun topic could be showing the quickest declining trends over the last year. By the time December rolls around, I'm sure I'm not the only one to find some amusement in a couple "oh yeah, I remember that Bieber kid" moments.]]> http://www.digitalthirdcoast.net/blog/2010-trends-twitter/feed 0