About Carolina Duron

Posts by Carolina Duron:

Pros and Cons of Using Google Plus

Using Google PlusSince its launch in 2011 Google Plus has been fighting to become a strong social media toolkit. The following are pros and cons of using Google Plus as a marketing tool for your business:

Pros of Using Google Plus

  • First and foremost as a business owner you should keep in mind that all companies small and large alike must have a strong online presence. According to marketing psychologist Martin Shervington, using Google Plus can give you an advantage on search rankings. If your company’s Google Plus page is constantly active, updated and read it’s more likely that it will appear on a person’s search for your area of expertise and or product.

  • Part of having Google Plus is being able to create “hangouts” and “circles.” Hangouts enable communication with your audience; you can video chat or instant message each other without having to leave the Google Plus page. Be it present or potential clients as well as business partners, Google hangouts give room for a more personalized online relationship.

  • Circles on the other hand facilitate finding and reaching your target market. When you make a circle, you’re putting people into a specific group that you create. For instance, NuZoo might create a circle for affordable housing or telecom, both industries that we serve. But we might also create a circle for video professionals so we can share info and communicate with other video producers. The key to using circles is controlling what posts you see from each circle you make; as the creator you are able to put a limit on how many posts from each circle appear on your company’s stream page. This is search engine optimization at its most basic: the more content with your key words in your circles — even from other people in your circle — makes it more likely that someone searching Google will find you.

Cons of Using Google Plus

  • According to the DMR (Digital Marketing Stats Resource Center) only 13% of small businesses use Google Plus and an unknown number of business pages are also present. Meaning you might not be able to measure how much you’re being found, and how big the market on Google Plus is for the products or services that your company provides.

  • Google Plus boasts of having a network of 540 million active users (statistic which has not been updated since 2014). But Google owns YouTube, and everyone who wants to comment or post on YouTube appears on Google Plus, whether they are active or not. DMR 2015 research shows only 4 to 6 million users have actually made a public post.

  • Last but not least is how complicated Google Plus can be; just because it can have an extremely good effect on your company’s organic searches doesn’t mean the end result is going to be a positive one. In one place there are tools for photos, messaging, streams, videos, groups and hangouts. But if not used correctly or consistently Google Plus can turn out to be a waste of time and effort.

Google Reputation

On a final note something that can be both a pro and con about Google Plus is every company or person has their very own “Google reputation.” This includes the comments you post on YouTube videos, your blog posts, and comments on other blogs make up a profile of you.

Google uses this information to create an image of you (person or business). It then uses this to identify who you are regardless of what tool you use.

Depending on your online activity, Google might conclude that your company and page is trustworthy or not, and whether or not it should appear in its search results.

Whether you choose to use Google Plus or not you must always be careful and smart about using social media.

               Contact NuZoo Media for more information

 

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7 Ways To Help You Get Found on Google

How To Get Found on GoogleWe all crave getting found quickly and easily on Google. But how do you do it?  We’ve got 7 ways to help you get found on Google.

How To Get Found on Google

In order to successfully boost your website’s organic search results you must first understand and take advantage of the following features:

1. The GoogleBot:

  • This is a search software Google sends out to collect info about websites in order  to add them to Google’s massive index. Although GoogleBot spends only a couple of seconds on your website it aims to improve Google performance and scale as the web grows, giving you ample opportunity to appear on people’s Google searches.

GoogleBot Works Two Ways

Crawling

  • This is the GoogleBot going into different websites and finding new and updated information to report back to Google. When the GoogleBot crawls it goes through your website links and documents and takes all  your site info back to Google.

Indexing

  • All the information gathered by GoogleBot while “crawling,” is then categorized and Google determines whether or not it will be added to the Google index. Google also decides if your site has quality content, which can make your site appear higher in the organic listings. Indexing looks at whether a page has pictures, videos or a list of links; the more pictures and links you have on your website, the better.

2. Sitemaps

  • An XML sitemap is a list of everything on your site: web pages, documents and graphics. If you organize it and update it constantly this overview of site links allows for the GoogleBot to “crawl” easier through your business’s website. NuZoo.com is a WordPress site, and there are plugins that automatically update your XML site map.

3. Google Webmaster

  • This is a search console you can use in order to monitor, make changes and maintain your website according to Google’s rules. It makes sure that Google can access your content, submits new content for crawling and removes content you don’t want shown in search results. It also creates and monitors content that is visually engaging in organic results  and the best part is, if you have a Gmail you’re all ready to sign up for it.

4. Google Analytics

  • Same as Webmaster, you can sign up for analytics through your Gmail account. Once you have it, Google Analytics helps you track where your website is in Google indexing as well as in social media. You can monitor your website traffic, see where users come from, what pages they visit on the site, when and where they leave. You can also use Queries to find out where your site ranks for specific keywords. For example, NuZoo ranks #4 for video media company and #17 for graphic designers chicago. So we can target the keyword/phrase graphic designers chicago and try to move us up the rankings.

5. Content Experiments

  • This is a free, (yes FREE) optimization tool for visitor rates and satisfaction on your business website. This is an additional Google Analytics feature that helps you test almost any change or variable on your website and see how it optimizes (or doesn’t) any specific goal(s) you have envisioned. The more you know about your audience the better for your online future.

6. Website Links and URLs

  • Submitting your website URL to any social media sites or partnering sites helps get a search engine crawler in your loop faster. Let’s face it, everyone has some sort of social media profile nowadays; having your link on sites like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, where people can share and re-tweet, means GoogleBot will get to your website faster.

7. Creating offsite content amps up your link building process

  • The more links your website has, the better. But they need to be quality links; Google rewards you for links from authority sites. At NuZoo we create informative slideshows, post on GooglePlus and Facebook, and write articles for LinkedIn ~ all of which we link back to our site.

As you can see, how to get found on Google isn’t an overnight thing. You need to be consistent and in it for the long haul, and you will start to see results.

 

 

 

 

Photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net / Salvatore Vuono
 

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