6 Google tips to help your business

At teclan, for a number of years we’ve been involved in helping hundreds of businesses achieve their goals through digital marketing and there has always been one constant: change!

A regular marketing effort is essential if for no other reason than to keep up with the pace of change online – you cannot afford to sit still.

We cannot get away from the impact Google has on us all but if you are proactive and stay on top of these changes you can continue to push your business forward.

Google Algorithms

Whether it be the Panda, Penguin or Humming Bird updates, Google are constantly striving to improve their core business: the search engine that made their name.  While their aims are noble – to provide the highest quality search results to users – often it can have a negative effect on your site’s ranking if something you’ve done falls foul of the new rules.

Keep up to date with the latest changes and techniques and apply page optimisations with good, meaningful content – a key component to help increase organic traffic.  Text is for readers, not search engines, so bring it back up to the top!

Google Link Building Polices

Google have penalised companies for what they deem to be bad link building practices, which two years ago were standard industry practice.  teclan have seen businesses that have had traffic in the tens of thousands slump down to under five thousand a month due to this kind of penalty.  BMW and Interflora are two high profile companies that had their rankings removed all together due to penalties in recent years.

If you do not want your rankings hit and want to improve your organic listings then quality link building and monitoring of your Webmaster tools are essential.

Google Ad Policies

Often Google change their ad policies and this can have an impact on your business.  Most recently, changes to the dangerous products policy have prevented some industries from utilising Shopping campaigns; you can read more here.

Do not junk the update mails you get from Google – they could have a massive effect on how you run your business.

Google Shopping Attribute Updates

The product attributes in your Google Shopping feed determine if a feed will be accepted into the Google Merchant Centre and are important when it comes to optimising.

Many businesses give up on Google Shopping but it is worth persevering now Google are pushing visual ads in a big way. The ROI provided by Shopping Ads over text Ads is no contest – many of teclan’s clients are getting an ROI percentage in the thousands.  Ensure your feed is compliant and up to date.

Google Analytic updates

Recently Google released Universal Analytics meaning that new code needs to be applied to your site along with a migration within Analytics. The way your site needs to transmit e-commerce related data to Analytics has also changed and you need to keep your traffic up to date.  Google also have new technologies rolling out all the time such as Enhanced e-commerce and the Google Tag Manager that could prove time-saving or informative when you are planning a marketing strategy.

All online businesses should have Analytics set up – it is the best way to monitor your site’s performance and to identify areas that are succeeding or under-performing.

Google Product Interface Changes

The minor changes to the Google Product interface may bring with them new functionality and a different working process.  The Google Merchant Centre changed last week, one of a number of changes to it this year alone.

If there is a change to the interface of a Google product you use it is important to check if there are any changes you need to action.

Other factors

Although this blog post mainly focuses on Google there are many other factors you need to be aware of, such as competitors eating into your market share and making the most of other emerging digital or social channels such as Bing, Facebook and Pinterest. We will cover these in more detail in future blog posts.