This is the time of year when everyone makes their predictions for 2012—nothing wrong with that; we’re always experimenting with new search engine techniques that may, or may not, end up becoming industry standards. However, when someone asks us what they can do to immediately improve their internet marketing efforts, whether it’s a client or anyone else, we try to give them something more concrete than a prediction. We tell them what’s working now, rather than speculating what might work a year from now.

So what is working now?

Lucky for us, many of the search engine trends and strategies we touched on last year can now be re-classified from ‘experiments’ to ‘effective practices’. These practices have been folded into our own marketing campaigns accordingly and all them are sound strategies for promoting your website, as of now.

Here are the main themes:

Social is here to STAY

When the world’s largest search engine, Google, decides to release their own social network, Google+, AND they begin promoting content from their social network in search results, it becomes imperative to include social in every search engine marketing strategy.

>Why You Should Create a Google+ Page for Your Business NOW



Facebook Nation: Why Facebook Ads are Important Marketing Tools



This is War: Google+ vs Facebook



Can Google +1 Improve Your Rankings?

The biggest GROWTH is on Mobile & Tablet devices

Although the iPad continues to dominate the tablet space, it would appear that 2011 gave us its first real competitor, Amazon’s Kindle Fire. The Kindle Fire is a low-cost alternative to the iPad that has already put millions of new devices in the hands of consumers. Remember, tablets are less of a productivity tool and more of a consumption / browsing device, making them the perfect delivery vehicle for raising awareness about your business.

Why YOU should care about the iPhone 4s and Kindle Fire

You just can’t put a price on original CONTENT

As Google continues to crack down on poor, unoriginal content, provocative, original content will only become more important. Very few businesses make it a priority to regularly update the text on their website or company blog, opening the door for you to dramatically increase search engine visibility by publishing new content—so long as it’s quality content—as often as possible.

How to write keyword-rich content without spamming your own website

And in case you missed them the first time around, here are a few more of our articles that pertain to search engine marketing and website marketing on the whole:

The Search Game Has Changed: How Online Reviews Affect Rankings



Move Over Google – The World According to BING



Internet Marketing: The Next Generation



Is SEO your new TV Commercial?

Isn’t my Facebook Page enough social interaction for my business?

When Facebook was just emerging as an innovative social media platform in 2005, Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, was interviewed about Facebook’s current and future successes. Zuckerberg described Facebook as “a mirror for the real community that exists in real life” and commented on the need to make Facebook “interesting enough so that people would want… to put their information out there.” (To watch the entire interview with Mark Zuckerberg from 2005, click here.) Much of the information that exists on Facebook is not shared in search. Important demographic information that marketers and search engines would do anything to obtain is held securely within the Facebook database. The Facebook world is large, as seen in the graphic below, and that equals an almost unimaginable quantity of valuable data.

Zuckerberg was a Harvard college dropout in 2005, and 6 years later he has a net worth of over $100 billion (pretty good for a 20-something without a college degree). In order for Google to compete for the valuable information available on Facebook, they had to develop something similar to Facebook with the same intention – create enough interest that people want to supply their own information to the public. Google’s newest social media platform, Google+ is therefore Google’s attempt to have their own database of information people want to share.

What does this mean for your business?

Google+ announced in early November 2011 that businesses would be able to set up a Google+ account, giving the search engine the ability to connect your Google+ profile to your website and the number of +1s your business has accrued. This essentially gives them a gauge of your social presence and your online authority. A Google+ business page allows other Google+ users to endorse your products and interact with your brand.

If everyone is using Facebook, why do I need a Google+ Business Page?

The number of Google+ accounts recently reached 62 million, a meager number of users compared to Facebook, and only a small fraction of these accounts are regularly active on the platform. It may, therefore, seem inconsequential to have a Google+ business page, but this is untrue.

Similar to the way you have a Google Places account where users can leave a review and find out information about your business, your business’ Google+ profile provides similar company information. Like Google Places, the Google search engine uses these as indications of your online authority. While we consider Facebook to be a social media platform, we consider Google+ to be more of an online SEO utility, like Google Places. On Google Places, users leave reviews to build more equity in search, but on Google+ you are able to build equity through individual advocates of your brand.

So what’s the difference?

Search engines can see that your business has a Facebook page, and with some Facebook networking, your business’ page will appear in search, but search engine spiders are unable to read things like how many users like your page or how many comments and posts are on your page.

If your company has a Google+ page, the Google search engine can access information like the number of people that have added your company to their circles, posted a comment on your profile or given your business a +1. All of these things affect your search rankings. A Google+ business page is another signal to Google that you have an active presence and following on one of their platforms. In fact, in the roughly 2 months that Google+ has offered business pages, these business profiles have already begun to appear on the first page of search.

Is Google+ more important to my business than Facebook?

We cannot say that one platform is more important than the other. Your business needs a Facebook page to take advantage of the large number of Facebook users searching and interacting. If you want to stay ahead of the curve and help your SEO efforts, you probably want a Google+ profile. Even if this profile gets little interaction, it is still seen as important in the eyes of Google search.

If your business jumps on the Google+ bandwagon now, while the service is still young, your company will be well positioned to reap the benefits of any SEO weight Google places on Google+ business pages, even if you have only a small number of brand advocates (possibly even your own employees).

This sounds like a lot of work!

Simpler than setting up a Facebook business page, which requires virtually-constant monitoring due to the large number of active users, your business can have a Google+ page and a few followers (all you really need) in 5 easy steps.

1. Get a Gmail Account – If you don’t already have one, you can set one up for free at https://accounts.google.com/SignUp. We recommend using an account that is strictly for business, not a personal gmail account.

2. Create a Business Page – Go to http://plus.google.com/pages/create, select whether your business is a Local Business or Place, Product or Brand, Company, Institution or Organization, Arts, Entertainment or Sports, or Other, and fill in your company’s basic information.

3. Customize your Profile – Add a tagline, your company in 1-2 sentences, and a photo.

Google+ will now ask you to promote your page. We recommend skipping this step for the time being.

4. Add some Posts – Once you skip the promotion step(that we will return to shortly) you will be taken to a page that prompts you to link to your website and add some content. Leave a couple of posts like you would on your Facebook page, industry information, etc.



5. Promote your Page – Add a link to your Facebook page, main website and any other online platforms your business uses regularly. Send emails to your employees and clients to connect with your business.

That’s all it takes?

Essentially, yes, that is all it takes. In less than an hour, you can establish your business on a platform that Google favors in search. You can even change the account settings to have up to 30 gmail accounts with Administrative capabilities. By giving Google more information about your company, Google sees you as having a broader web presence. You are not only catering to Google in this respect, but as Google works to further integrate its various platforms, your business will have less work to do. For example, if you sign up for a Google AdWords account, it asks if you want to connect to your Google+ profile. Pretty cool, huh?

Google recently began encrypting its searches for anyone signed into Google. In other words, when you log into Google and search for something, you are automatically routed to https://www.google.com, a secure website for search. Part of this security means that, while search traffic to your website is still counted as part of the aggregate Google/organic, the exact query used to reach your website is held private; it is “Not Provided.”

Doesn’t this make my keyword data inconclusive?

It is important to remember that specific keyword data is still provided for searchers not signed into Google. Essentially, the keywords in your Analytics traffic sources report still represent the top terms searchers are using to find your website, and should be seen as a proportionally accurate representation of how people are finding your website. Ignoring the data that is encrypted and thus “Not Provided,” you are still left with a statistically valid sampling of keyword data.

Your organic traffic data is still calculated the same way it always was: all data is aggregated, and even Google secure searches are recorded as Google/organic traffic. Overall organic traffic numbers are unaffected, and you will still be able to view conversion rates, bounce rates and segmented data.

Should I be concerned?

The simple answer is “no.” The greatest benefit of a well-executed SEO campaign is that you get search traffic from thousands of relevant keyword variations. The specific keywords used to find your website are less important than the increase in overall organic traffic. So, if you notice that some of the keywords in your traffic sources report are “Not Provided,” don’t panic. Look at the keywords provided as a proportional sampling of the thousands of keyword variations driving organic traffic to your website, and focus more on increasing organic traffic overall.




For more information on Google’s SSL secure search feature, check out Google’s own blog post.

Where is all this new information coming from?

A LOT of the new information on the internet is coming from the meteoric rise of social media. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others account for BILLIONS of minutes spent online every month with Facebook leading the way:

And unlike a hoarder of real-life goods, Google won’t be running out of closet space anytime soon. Without prejudice they can, and will, continue to store every bit of digital information—including user-generated content—they can get their sticky hands on. So like the towels your Grandmother’s held on to since before the war, what exactly does Google plan on doing with all of it?

How can one search engine sort through that much junk (I mean data) and predict what you are looking for?

They need help. As the number of towels in Google’s closet continues to grow, it gets increasingly difficult for Grandma Google to locate the one you like. Maybe you like the one with seashells when it’s hot out and the shaggy one when it’s cold. Maybe the towel you like isn’t the “best” towel really, the edges are frayed and it leaves fuzzies in your hair, but hey, it’s the most “relevant” towel for you. Google needs your feedback to help inform their search results. They might even go so far as to ask you friends.

As evidenced by the chart above, people are investing more time building relationships online and sharing personal information. Google knows that if they can’t harness this wealth of socially-relevant information to improve their search results, they will no longer be best positioned to answer your every question. But before we look at how Google is changing to factor in social data, let’s examine how we got here—how we came to be living in a world powered by Google…

How Google got on top

Starting as a Stanford Research Project “to develop the enabling technologies for a single, integrated and universal digital library,” Google would go on to become the gatekeepers of the whole wide internet world because it was (and still is) the best at combing through an incomprehensibly large collection of digital information and returning to users what a secret algorithm deemed the “most-relevant” results, or answers.

It was a computer-based formula for ranking websites that gave Google its competitive advantage and it will be a computer-driven approach that leads to Google’s demise if they don’t adapt. Adapt or die, the saying goes, and I’m betting Google will adapt. Actually, they already are.

How does Google plan to stay on top?

Google didn’t launch Google+ because they wanted to become a social networking company; they launched a full-blown social network and competitor to Facebook because they didn’t have any other choice. They needed help. Their algorithm was missing one BIG piece. A piece that didn’t even exist over a decade ago when they started the company has now become the driving force of growth on the internet: Social.

The basic human desire to build relationships has inevitably spread to the digital world. The average person consumes more information from social networking sites than they do anywhere else, including Google. This is how we spend our time: forging and fostering relationships on social networks. For better or worse, Socialization is the future of the internet. If Google wants to hold on to their position as surveyor and disseminator of all things internet, they will need to harness the power of the people—the human element. And fast.

The search game has changed

As internet users, our expectations have changed. It’s no longer good enough for Google to give me the same results it gives you. We’re different, you and I. We’re in different cities, we like different things, I eat meat / you’re a vegan, we probably have more differences than we have things in common. I expect all my future search results to reflect me, personally.

Plus, I have options now. If I want a recommendation for “Where to find the best hamburger,” I can consult an un-biased, albeit impersonal computer formula, Google—OR—I can seek the recommendation of somebody I *gasp* know. And it doesn’t even have to be somebody I know in real life, it can be somebody I only know online—somebody I trust on THAT ONE SUBJECT.

This is where having a vast virtual network of “friends” comes in handy. Even though I may accept the occasional friend request from one of those hippie vegan types (actually, having lived in Austin, I have lots of vegan friends and they’re not all “hippies”), but I also have whole groups of digital friends who enjoy eating a bloody cow. Where are all my carnivores at?

What’s the magic search engine formula now?

The answer that Google is betting the company on…is a combination of BOTH. Since they already have the best formula for ranking websites based on non-human elements (backlinks, page rank, content, etc.), Google is hoping that the introduction of social elements (number of “likes,” “tweets,” shares, and now “+1′s”) will keep their results relevant in a social-obsessed internet world.

[NOTE: Wisely, Facebook has made it their policy NOT to share much of its social data with Google. This decision, coupled with the tremendous growth of Facebook, has made the creation (and success) of Google's own social network, Google+, critical to its survival.]

What does all this mean for my business?

I’m glad you finally asked. As a business, it’s your job to adapt as well. Adapt or die, the saying goes, and there is one major social opportunity for businesses that I have yet to mention: Getting online reviews.

Having a large number of online reviews, which goes hand-in-hand with an active social presence, DOES improve your rankings on Google and other search engines.

Google weighs their search results based on reviews from their own business directory, Google Places, and it also factors in reviews from third party sites such as Yelp, Angie’s List and even social networks.

Is there a magic number of reviews I need in order to start seeing a rankings boost?

The always-secretive Google would never give an exact number, but we’ve noticed as few as 4 REVIEWS having a positive impact on organic search rankings.

As you can see, listings are not ranked solely by number of reviews. However, we have observed that businesses with few or no reviews are unlikely to display near the top of Google Places listings.

Unsurprisingly, we’ve also noticed that Google prioritizes businesses with a large number of reviews on Google Places compared to accumulating reviews on third party sites.

Another indicator might be waiting for you in the mailbox. Once you total 10 reviews on a Google Places listing, you should find this self-promotional device from Google in the mail:

Since Google knows that getting people to use their online review platform is essential to them staying relevant, they will only get more aggressive in marketing and promoting their tools (even if that means direct mailings!). As a business, it’s up to you to make sure you reap the rewards.

What are some ways you can encourage customers to leave a review?

We advise businesses to think up clever ways to entice their customers to leave reviews.

Here are a few things we’ve seen work:

Review Swap: You have a business, I have business, we work together, let’s review each other. If you would like to trade reviews with us, email “Rachael Star” on our Localization team or go straight to our Google Places page. We’ll see it.

“Thank-you” Cookies: Try sending a box of cookies, or chocolates, or fruitcake, perhaps heirloom tomatoes for those “hippie vegan” customers, with a note thanking them for their patronage and kindly asking that they go to your Google Places listing and leave a review. You could even go so far as to include a review card with a QR code that goes directly to your business listing when scanned.

QR Codes: Did somebody mention QR codes? Even though I have my own personal reservations about the longevity of these glorified barcodes, that’s not stopping them from showing up everywhere these days. Why should you be left out? Why not put QR codes on your sales material, have QR code bumper stickers made, have QR codes laser-engraved onto your heirloom tomatoes for all I care. It can be done!

Contests and Discounts: The offer of cash money or cool prizes will always be an effective way to incentivize customers to do things for you. The small hit you take in profit to offer a discount will be more than returned in the free advertising you get from an additional review.

Shameless Plugs: Make sure you prominently feature an eye-catching “leave review” button on your website that links to your Google Places page. Or if you happen to own one of those brick and mortar business, have your employees do it the old-fashioned way and ask customers to “please leave us a review on Google.” A few reviews goes a LONG way.

All the same good business practices—friendly customer service, helpful advice, competitive pricing—that encourage traditional word-of-mouth advertising, now apply to the digital world. Good business karma is more important than ever with the internet giving everyone a “voice.”

What about that one terrible review I got from a mean customer with a personal grudge?

Even though everyone has a voice, it doesn’t mean they have anything nice to say. Sometimes it seems like citizens of the online community live by the opposite equivalent of The Golden Rule.

All I can say is, don’t worry about it. You continue providing quality services and products and Good will eventually prevail over Evil. Over time, the loyal advocates for your business will prevail over the small number of haters.

What is Reputation Management?

If you want to take a proactive approach to limiting negative noise surrounding your business, you may want to look into online reputation management. Reputation management, whether done by a company or on your own, works to promote positive information about your business on social networks, PR sites, business directories, and from other reputable sources, effectively drowning out the tiny, but often vocal, voice of the naysayers.

Do NOT sign up for automated Google review services!

I repeat, do NOT sign up for automated review services. For every major change Google makes to the way it ranks websites, you can bet that a horde of greedy scammers won’t be far behind. ALL Automated Google Places review services are scams. Fabricating reviews is not only unethical but Google has ways of exposing illegitimate reviews and punishing you for them. So don’t bother.

Google as a “Social Recommendation Engine”

It’s going to be awhile before Google reclassifies its business from “Search Engine” to “Social Recommendation Engine” but the continued incorporation of social factors and online business reviews into their formula for ranking websites is NO passing FAD.

Social recommendation is the future of search and if you want to survive, just as Google does, you will need to make sure your online presence includes active social sharing and a growing pool of online reviews. That includes creating a Google+ page for your business in addition to your Google Places listing, but we’ll save that topic for another time.

For now, focus your energy on creating an army of happy customers, vendors, friends, affiliates, partners, employees, and general supporters that are willing to share their experiences with your business online. That’s what we’re doing!

The difference between having a fully-optimized, frequently-updated Facebook page for your business and having a Facebook Ads campaign comes down to money, money, money. A Facebook Ad campaign can bring direct revenue for your company via new targeted traffic and although you may gain a new customer or two through your business page, it’s more likely to serve as a platform for interacting with people already aware of your brand. Facebook Ads on the other hand, are designed to target and match NEW, interested users with your products and services.





Similar to Google AdWords or other Pay-Per-Click Ad services, Facebook Ads uses the global reach of the Facebook nation to show potential customers Ads they are likely to be interested in.


I Already Have an AdWords Campaign, Same Difference, Right?
Not exactly—AdWords and Facebook Ads have some very important differences, most notably, the targeting methods each uses to determine who will see your Ad. AdWords displays ads based upon keywords chosen by the campaign owner. Facebook Ads, on the other hand, allows the campaign owner to utilize the Facebook database of information to segment the market demographically, psychographically and/or geographically.

Demographic Targeting – Segment users by gender, age range, relationship status, languages spoken and/or education level

Psychographic Targeting – Segment users by interests and/or social connections

Geographic Targeting – Segment users by state, city or zip code with the ability to target multiple locations with one Ad.

Perhaps the most useful tool that comes with combining Facebook’s database and multi-faceted market segmenting is the accurate prediction of your Ad’s potential reach.

Your Ad Campaign Has Landed
One of the biggest advantages of Facebook Ads is the ability to make any page (your website, your company’s Facebook business page, a Facebook sponsored story) the landing page for your Ads. AdWords requires all landing pages in a campaign be for the same domain; this is not the case with Facebook Ads. Within the same campaign, one Ad can route to your website and one to your Facebook page.

A sponsored story puts your message at the top of the Facebook news feed. Essentially your company pays to publicize any time a user completes an action, liking your page or sharing a link for example. When people see their friends interacting with your brand, they are more likely to do the same. Linking your Facebook Ads to sponsored story pages can stretch your marketing dollar even further.


The Dollars and Sense of it All
Similar to AdWords, Facebook Ads allows the campaign owner to choose between a cost-per-click (CPC) and a cost-per-impression (CPM) campaign strategy. This way, users can determine which is most efficient for their specific campaign and targeting strategy. Either way, across the board, Facebook Ads have a lower CPC than Google AdWords and provide more diverse and specific market segmenting metrics. Though results vary depending on Ad content and target market, Facebook Ads provide a specified reach, the number of people that fit your target specifications, and two spend options to stretch your marketing budget to its fullest potential.


Level of Entry – Adwords vs Facebook
The final difference worth noting is that Google’s and Facebook’s Ad platforms are at vastly different levels of maturity when it comes to being advertising mediums. Because businesses have been using Google’s platform for years, many competitive industries require a significant investment to gain the necessary visibility to convert new customers. Conversely, since Facebook uses demographics to set their click prices, the level of entry is consistent from industry to industry. Furthermore, since Facebook is a relatively new medium, advertisers get the benefit of entering at a low cost before widespread adoption inevitably drives up Facebook’s advertising prices in the future. Now is the time to do it.


Does FMC do Facebook Ad Marketing?
Why of course we do. If you would like see how we manage Facebook Ads for our clients, please visit our Facebook Ad Marketing page for a full breakdown of activities.

The desktop computer is for power users and bulky laptops are being replaced by modern devices that house all the computing power an average user needs in a sleek portable shell—one that looks cool. At their recent iPhone event, Apple announced that they have shipped 250 million iOS devices—that’s a quarter of a Billion internet-connected, GPS aware devices (iPhones, iPads and iPods) that people now use to perform tasks—like making dinner reservations—that were previously reserved for laptop and desktop computers. And that’s only Apple’s share of the pie. That staggering number doesn’t include the millions of Google Android equipped devices getting snatched up by eager consumers, including Amazon’s soon to come Kindle Fire.

Wait, hold on a sec, are you telling me nobody uses computers?

No, before anyone gets up in arms, I want to be clear that I’m NOT declaring the personal computer dead as we know it. Hey, I realize some people still type on a keyboard (myself included, right now); heck, some people still double-click a mouse (not myself, but I’m sure I’ve seen it). And I don’t expect either of those habits to die anytime soon.

With that in mind, it’s not your job as an internet marketer to figure out what devices or platforms are going to “win” the product war; let the hardware manufacturers lose sleep over that. Instead, it is your responsibility to champion a marketing strategy that utilizes all current and emerging opportunities for growth. And there’s no denying the opportunity for growth exists on platforms that are only just beginning to catch up with popular demand.

The chart below shows what kind of growth you can expect in the tablet market.

So what do I do?

Okay, you’re sold. You want to take advantage of the growing mobile/tablet market but you’re not quite sure how. What can you do differently than what you’re already doing? Well, there are two steps to an effective mobile/tablet strategy. First, you must consider your mobile user experience and second, you need to draw mobile users.

Here are a few questions you can ask yourself to assess your readiness for marketing on mobile and tablet devices…

When’s that last time you looked at your website on a smart phone? What about an iPad?

Many websites developed in the last few years scale automatically and decently for mobile browsing. You may already have a site that looks good on some mobile devices—that’s the good news, but the bad news is, it varies considerably from device to device. And if your website relies heavily on Flash, it’s not gonna look pretty on any of those aforementioned 250 million iOS devices. So, next time you’re redesigning your site, or developing a new one, you might want to avoid Flash altogether.

But it’s not enough for a passable version of your website to display on mobile and tablet devices. You want mobile users to have an exceptional experience. This requires an intuitive mobile-friendly UI. Ask yourself: Does your site navigation work? Is the form easy to fill out? Is the phone number click-able? Is the contact info and call-to-action even visible on a 3.5 inch display?

Test drive your website on as many phone and tablet devices as you can get your smudgy hands on. Then, objectively evaluate your experience. Have colleagues and employees test as well—double bonus if they all own different devices. If your site’s information is clear and easy to access, then you may not need major changes, however, if the experience is frustrating and tedious, it might be time for a significant redesign.

Mobile site, mobile app, or neither?

Creating a separate mobile site or dedicated app is always an option but you need to decide what this mobile site or app will offer customers that you couldn’t accomplish through a universally-accessible well-designed website. If you have a compelling reason to create an app, then by all means, dedicate the resources to doing so. But remember, you’ll need to develop separate app versions for iOS and Android (and maybe Windows Mobile at some point), if you want to reach the entire mobile/tablet market.

Did you know Google lets you create paid search campaigns that directly target tablets and phones?

There’s no reason to be shy about paid search advertising. Matter of fact, 97% of Google’s revenue comes from advertisers (see below). So, it should come as no surprise that Google is actively looking for enticing ways to get these ads in front of the hundreds of millions of users searching on smart phones and tablets. The result, Google now lets Adwords users create campaigns specifically targeting those devices.

But what’s the advantage of a separate campaign?

Creating a separate campaign for phones and tablets lets you to pick keywords and create ads that appeal explicitly to users on mobile devices.

For example, a mobile ad for a Towing Company might say, “Stuck on the side of the road? Late for Dinner? We’ll pick you up in 5.”

And since your mobile/tablet ads are isolated in their own campaign, you’ll be able to clearly evaluate how well your advertising is performing on these platforms.

What about all the technical stuff?

Yes, there are some technical updates you can make to improve your site’s mobile “searchability.” For starters, you should create a mobile sitemap and always follow best practices for mobile-friendly CSS. If you want more details on the technical stuff, check out our mobile website checklist.

Eh, I still don’t get what all the fuss is about

Face it, whether or not you’ve personally succumbed to the lure of these shiny new products doesn’t matter—because your customers have (or they will soon). It’s a numbers game and once the market for these devices reaches a quarter billion plus, it’s time to take it seriously; it’s time to make sure you aren’t turning your back on a growing pool of potential customers. This is the ideal time to make sure your internet marketing strategy includes prominent visibility on mobile and tablet devices. Otherwise, you simply won’t be seen.

A Spark Neglected Makes a Mighty Flame

With fires raging across the state, Governor Rick Perry reports that more than 3.5 million acres of land have burned in the various blazes across Texas, an area roughly the size of Connecticut, and many of these devastating fires are located in Central Texas. The fire that has consumed much of Bastrop county is one of the worst in the state, is 0% contained and is expected to continue to burn for the next few days. In Bastrop alone, more than 600 homes have burned so far. Thankfully, this area has been evacuated, so few lives have been lost, but many livelihoods have. The families that have lost their homes in the blaze left most of their belongings in their homes and will need nonperishable items, water and toiletries.

Neighbors In Need

Due to the dry conditions and high winds that the area has experienced recently, it has taken little more than a downed power line or a haphazardly discarded cigarette butt to set these violent fires ablaze, destroying areas, not only across the state of Texas, but in our own Central Texas backyard. As the Bastrop blaze continues to consume homes and land in its wake, another fire has destroyed much of Lago Vista and is progressing down Hwy 71 toward the Lakeway area. Other areas affected include: Cedar Creek, Fall Creek, Leander, McDade, Paige, Smithville, Spicewood and Steiner Ranch. Much of Central Texas that is not scorched remains covered in a cloud of smoke.

Social Media Broadcasting

Traditional news outlets have been slow to report these fires and the effects they have had on area residents, but social media outlets, like Facebook and Twitter, are filled with real-time updates about the fires and information about charities assisting in disaster relief and other ways to help. There are several great relief and emergency response Facebook pages which include Bastrop County Office of Emergency Management, Bastrop Fire Information & Help and Bastrop Fire Find Your Pet. Local Twitter feeds have seen an increase in the use of the hashtags #txfire and #centraltexasfires. Any nearby residents or onlookers are able to tweet pictures and updates in real time, which is quicker than news can be formatted and broadcasted on TV.

Lending a Helping Hand

“The Austin branch of the FindMyCompany team, bought nonperishable food, toys, pet supplies and toiletries from the local dollar store (roughly half the store) and dropped them off at Bastrop Middle School to help the residents sheltering there. The roads to get to the shelter were surprisingly congested for the small town, and as we got closer, we were able to see black smoke billowing eerily over the horizon. Helicopters and small airplanes passed on their futile but relentless efforts to dump water on the blaze. As we arrived at the shelter, however, the residents greeted us with smiles and were more than happy to help unload the donations from the car. The photo below was taken outside of Bastrop Middle School as we unloaded our donations.” - Leslie Reeves, FindMyCompany SEM Team

How to Donate

If you would like to help with efforts by donating nonperishable items or time, the following list outlines the current shelters and organizations accepting donations. Note: These shelter locations are quickly changing due to fire locations as well as availability of school and church resources. Check out the American Red Cross of Central Texas for the most current donation information.

Shelters

Bastrop Christian Outreach Center at 1096 Highway 71 W, Bastrop, TX 78602
Bastrop Christian Church, 1104 Church St., Bastrop, 78602
Vandergrift High School, 9500 McNeil Drive, Austin
Bastrop Middle School, 709 Old Austin Hwy, Bastrop
Old Giddings Elementary School, 1010 Industry Road, Giddings
Rouse High School, 1501 Country Road 271, Leander
Smithville Recreation Center, 106 Royston Street, Smithville

Clothing, Toiletries, Medical Supplies, Nonperishable Food & Pet Food

The Bastrop County Donation Distribution Center, 210 Main Street, Smithville (No Food, Please)
The Thrift Shop at the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection, 2008 Justin Lane, Austin
Austin Christian Fellowship, 6401 River Place Boulevard, Austin
The OASIS on Lake Travis, 6550 Comanche Trail, Austin
Click Computers, 1102 S Austin Ave, Suite 109, Georgetown
City of Cedar Park, 350 Discovery Blvd, Cedar Park
Paul Mitchell The School, 15635 Vision Drive, Ste 107, Pflugerville
Hill Country Bible Church 12124 Ranch Road 620 N, Austin
Catholic Health Association 6225 E. Highway 290, Austin
St. Williams Catholic Church, Round Rock
Sweet Dreams Bakery, 989 Loop 337, New Braunfels
Bastrop County Emergency Food Pantry & Support Center

Pet Adoption/Fostering

Austin Pets Alive – evacuated all Bastrop animal shelters, FREE adoption, 2807 Manchaca Road, Austin

For a moment, let’s consider SEO an actual piece of land—of territory. In this scenario, King Google is the most powerful ruler in the land, controlling the largest piece of the search engine territory and imposing his rules upon many humble subjects. A lesser king, King BING, has fewer subjects roaming about but still holds enough power to make his own rules. And though fewer people use his search platform, it’s still important to know exactly what rules he is using to formulate their (search) rank (after all, you wouldn’t want to be expelled from the land of BING, would you?). Furthermore, you might have already noticed that your rankings in BING often differ from those in Google, which begs the question, “What exactly is BING doing differently?”

A brief history of Bing

On July 3rd, 2009, Microsoft’s un-celebrated “Live Search” was re-branded and re-skinned as “BING.” BING’s homepage design, featuring full-size background photos (swapped-out daily) with fun trivia bits, marked a drastic departure from the all-white minimalist design signature to Google. This was an intentional attempt to show users, right from the start, they were putting a different spin on search.





Soon after launch, BING’s marketing team dropped the “search engine” moniker in favor of the label “decision engine,” claiming that their platform would not only help you find the information but could help you disseminate the answer. One of BING’s distinguishing features is it’s inclusion of relevant information within search results. If you search “baseball scores,” you see the latest game scores directly in the search results, if you’re looking for “cheap flights to las vegas,” BING Travel will show you prices right in their results, in theory, helping make your “decision” easier.

Later in 2009, BING made a deal with Yahoo in which their search engine would power Yahoo’s. By combining forces with Yahoo, BING instantly secured it’s place as an important force in the search engine world—now powering nearly 30% of searches (between BING & Yahoo). In keeping with the previous analogy, once BING conquered the land of Yahoo, they more than doubled their user base and basically reduced the search engine race to a field of two.

Unlocking the BING algorithm

Fancy design excluded, we return to the question of how BING’s algorithm is formulated. In the past month BING has released information on how it weights content and backlinks to produce search engine rankings. In both respects, the BING algorithm is similar to that of Google in the sense of quality over quantity. With that in mind, a large quantity of quality content and backlinks is always your best bet for high search rankings on any search engine. Instead of explaining the details of their algorithm, BING offers a series of things to avoid when creating content and establishing backlinks.

First things first – Evaluating content

When it comes to content, here are a few rules, according to BING, to keep in mind:

1. Make sure your content is not thin, that is to say you don’t want to create pages with little to no actual content. If you don’t have enough to say on the subject, you probably do not need a webpage for it.
2. Bearing the previous point in mind, while you want to position yourself as an authority on the subject at hand, you should not have content purely for content’s sake. Make sure your content has a purpose and is cohesive.
3. Never steal content from another source. Search engine spiders are trained to spot duplicate content and will only reward original content with higher rankings.
4. Make sure you balance between text and images on your webpages. Ultimately you are constructing your website for visitors, and a good combination of both things will be most likely to keep your audience engaged. Too much of one thing will hurt not only your search rankings but also conversion.
5. Avoid online translation utilities if you plan to launch your website in another language. These are unreliable, and an illogical translation can lower your search ranking and drive away the very market you are targeting.
6. Perhaps it should be number one, but most importantly, build your website for your user. Use meta tags to make sure BING can easily find your content, but ensure everything on each webpage is engaging and user friendly.

What about backlinks?

Backlinks establish your company as an authority to search engines, but there is no magic number for how many you should have to be number one in search. This is mostly because backlinks are only one piece of the SEO puzzle (just as content is another). It’s much more complicated than getting more backlinks than competitors. But as BING representatives explain, for keywords with high search volume, your website will probably need more backlinks to compete. For more specific, less trafficked terms, fewer backlinks will be necessary to improve rankings. Is that vague enough?

The most important thing to keep in mind is DO NOT buy backlinks or try link farming. BING recognizes patterns in backlinks and can tell a purchased backlink from an organic one. With good content, comes quality backlinks, and having a large social media presence can also help build links organically.

Quality over Quantity

While the Google and BING algorithms do differ slightly, as seen in varying search rankings across both platforms for the same website and keywords, one thing remains true in the entire search engine realm: quality trumps quantity. If you are debating between keyword stuffing and paying for original content, taking the time to establish quality backlinks or paying for link farming, you should always choose original content and quality backlinks.

Regardless of platform, your efforts in quality and originality will be rewarded with higher search rankings. When search engine optimization is done right, it improves the user experience AND benefits the business by generating more traffic. A win-win.