Early this Monday morning news broke about hackers accessing Zappos and their affiliate site servers. User data and other sensitive information was compromised and emails were sent out to those that were effected.

“We are writing to let you know that there may have been illegal and unauthorized access to some of your customer account information on Zappos.com, including one or more of the following: your name, e-mail address, billing and shipping addresses, phone number, the last four digits of your credit card number (the standard information you find on receipts), and/or your cryptographically scrambled password (but not your actual password),” wrote Zappos and 6PM.com in a note to users.

Due to the attack, affected users have had their password reset as a security precaution. But the information that was stolen is now in the wind and there is no way to know what the affects of this data heist may have on the accounts accessed.

Unfortunately this story is nothing new to the online world. Login data is stolen on a regular basis from sites all across the internet. That’s why at SEO Services we take extra steps to keep all of our customers’ login data not only secure, but we also create unique passwords for each and every account that we setup. Whether it is a Google account or a minor social media media channel, all accounts have their own password so that if one of those passwords happens to be stolen it will not affect the integrity of the other accounts.

SEO Services is one of the elite search engine marketing companies specializing in organic search engine results. Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, SEO Services has achieved incredible success in organic search engine results in numerous industries. We are committed to providing our customers the very best in search engine optimization services.

If you spend a lot of time using the internet as a source for media, whether it is news, sports, music, movies, blogs, or any of the thousands of forms of information now available, then you have likely run into the discussion about the SOPA. In today’s blog post we will discuss what it is and how it can effect regular users like you.

Here’s how Wikipedia explains the bill:

The originally proposed bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Depending on who requests the court orders, the actions could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators such as PayPal from doing business with the allegedly infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites. The bill would make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a crime, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison for 10 pieces of music or movies within six months. The bill also gives immunity to Internet services that voluntarily take action against websites dedicated to infringement, while making liable for damages any copyright holder who knowingly misrepresents that a website is dedicated to infringement.

Basically the bill gives power to big media to have sites shutdown if they disagree with what has been published or say that the media is copyrighted.

Matt Cutts, source we have frequently used on this blog, recently posted about SOPA and the progress against it. He says that if the “SOPA becomes law, it could stifle the innovation (and jobs) that the technology industry creates. That’s why Facebook, Twitter, Mozilla, Google, Yahoo, eBay, AOL, LinkedIn, and Zynga all oppose SOPA. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue…”

Finally, in a New York Times article Rebecca MacKinnon further explain how the potental for abuse of power is one of the most insidious threats to democracy in the internet age. At SEO Services, we manage the ranking of our clients’ websites and their online reputation. We encourage you to learn more about the SOPA and how it can hurt innovation. Companies like ours would be greatly limited by the control of the internet from the government and big media companies.

Last month we posted an alert that Google Plus is now open for businesses and since then thousands of pages have been created on Google’s new social network. With the huge interest in the new social network Google has been cranking out some updates to the Pages interface and last week they posted a blog post featuring the latest improvements to Google Pages.

First of all, there is now an ability to add up to 50 managers to your Page. Managers can publish posts, respond to comments, add photos, change profile information, and even add/remove other managers. This is particularly valuable to us as an online marketing firm because our clients can now add us as managers to their pages, which allows us to make changes, but still gives our clients full ownership of the Google+ Page.

Next, Google has added a way for Page owners and managers to get notifications about actions that take place on their pages. With this change, you’ll be able to customize the notifications for your business page separately from your personal profile, allowing you to choose the level of detail that’s most appropriate for you.

This last update is not as major as the others, but it is nice for vanity reasons at least. The bolded count number on your will now include both the page’s +1′s on Google+ and across the web as well as any people that have added you to a circle. Everybody loves to be popular and any way to get that +1 count higher is always welcome.

Give SEO Services a call today and we can help you better understand the role of social media in online marketing and SEO ranking.

As the year draws to a close, Google has posted the most popular search results of 2011. Sorting through the billions of searches there were 10 fastest rising global queries. In addition to providing the data, Google also presents the top rising searches in this beautiful YouTube video.

To give you some perspective on the top rising searches of 2011, let’s take a look at the percentage increase for each one:

1. Rebecca Black – >10,000% more searches.
2. Google Plus – 10,000% more searches.
3. Ryan Dunn – 10,000% more searches.
4. Casey Anthony – 2,680% more searches.
5. Battlefield 3 – 1,773% more searches.
6. iPhone 5 – 1,658% more searches.
7. Adele – 1,588% more searches.
8. 東京 電力 (TEPCO) -1,470% more searches.
9. Steve Jobs – 982% more searches.
10. iPad 2 – 939% more searches.

Taking a look at the list, it is impressive that Apple products holds two places in the top 10 considering that this top 10 list is not the total search volume of the year, it is the fastest rising searches. So that means even with the volume of searches already happening for iPhone 5 and iPad 2, the searches increased phenomenally higher from 2010 to 2011.

At SEO Services to take search very seriously and our know of the search engine optimization industry has put us at the top as one of the elite search engine marketing companies specializing in organic search engine results. We are committed to providing our customers the very best in search engine optimization services.

In a blog post about a month ago Google announced changes to its search algorithm that the company says will impact 35% of web searches. In areas where the “freshness” of the search results matter, like recent events, hot topics, current events, and breaking news items, the results will be weighted more heavily towards newer content.

A practical example of these changes is most easily understood for a search like “presidential election.” Rather than typing the election year you are looking for, Google will now give you the most up-to-date results at the top of the page.

The big news is that Google believes this change will impact 35% of all web searches! Although the majority of web searches do not include topics that require frequent updates, over a third will be directly affected by these changes. According to the Google blog post, the major areas of change will be in the following types of searches:

Recent events or hot topics. For recent events or hot topics that begin trending on the web, you want to find the latest information immediately. Now when you search for current events like [occupy oakland protest], or for the latest news about the [nba lockout], you’ll see more high-quality pages that might only be minutes old.

Regularly recurring events. Some events take place on a regularly recurring basis, such as annual conferences like [ICALP] or an event like the [presidential election]. Without specifying with your keywords, it’s implied that you expect to see the most recent event, and not one from 5 years ago. There are also things that recur more frequently, so now when you’re searching for the latest [NFL scores], [dancing with the stars] results or [exxon earnings], you’ll see the latest information.

Frequent updates. There are also searches for information that changes often, but isn’t really a hot topic or a recurring event. For example, if you’re researching the [best slr cameras], or you’re in the market for a new car and want [subaru impreza reviews], you probably want the most up to date information.

Just when you think you’ve got a pulse on the Google search ranking factors, things change. At SEO Services we take a wide variety of tools to get your website to the top of Google and other search engines. Our SEO consulting services are designed to learn your business and create a marketing strategy to achieve top rankings above your competition.

When building a paid or natural search campaign, it is important to use the keywords that are most frequently searched on Google. You don’t want to choose keywords that are rarely used, because it would decrease the likelihood that your business would show up when your key customers are looking for your products and services.

For that reason, we’ve got a great free tool to help you research and compare the popularity of specific keywords. It’s called Google Insights and it is an invaluable tool to help you rank your keyword hunches and focus on the truly popular phrases.

To best illustrate this topic, we will use an example product search for supplies needed to physically ship items, a particularly popular search topic this time of year.

Let’s make an educated guess before we start the test.

Hypothesis
Choosing 5 different keyword phrases, we expect that the most popular keywords will be as follows (ranked from most popular to least popular): shipping supplies, packing supplies, shipping supply, packaging supplies, mailing supplies

Research
Now that we know what keywords we expect to be the most popular let’s use Google Insights to determine which ones are actually the most searched on Google. To perform the test yourself go to http://www.google.com/insights/search.

Results
After entering the keywords into the tool, we can now see that our hypothesis was correct in some instances, but wrong in others. Here’s the breakdown…

What we’ve learned here is that if we want to advertise for packaging supplies, the best keyword to use is actually “shipping supplies.” It has twice as much search volume than any other keyword. And that data has can be confirmed since 2004!

At SEO Services we use a wide variety of tests to assure that the keywords we use to advertise your business are the best possible to bring new customers to your website. We are Ecommerce SEO experts and we’ve proven it to our customers year after year.

Google has officially stated that the +1′s are “a useful signal to Google when determining the relevance of your page to a user’s query.” Anything that Google says is valuable information to them about ranking a website at the top of their search results means that we are also interested in it. For that reason, we are bringing this new update to your attention. You can now create a Google Plus account for your business!

The most exciting part about putting your business on Google Plus is the ability to take advantage of the Google+ badge. Let people know you’re here by connecting your company website to your Google+ Page by adding the Google+ badge to your site. Whenever someone who likes your site clicks the icon, they will be taken to your Google+ page where they can add your page to their circles, and be able to follow your posts from then on.

As the social media industry grows, people are demanding a variety of ways to stay connected with their local businesses and favorite online shops. Using Google Plus you can make sure that your latest updates, product releases, monthly specials, and seasonal marketing campaigns are both interactive and beneficial to your online ranking.

If you are a current client of our’s then you’ve likely been briefed about putting a Google+ button on your website. The benefits are important because as stated by Google:

“Content recommended by friends and acquaintances is often more relevant than content from strangers. For example, a movie review from an expert is useful, but a movie review from a friend who shares your tastes can be even better. Because of this, +1′s from friends and contacts can be a useful signal to Google when determining the relevance of your page to a user’s query. This is just one of many signals Google may use to determine a page’s relevance and ranking, and we’re constantly tweaking and improving our algorithm to improve overall search quality. For +1′s, as with any new ranking signal, we are starting carefully and learning how those signals affect search quality.”

Take a look at this video that demos some of the business features of Google Plus:

Give SEO Services a call today and we can help you better understand the role of social media in online marketing and SEO ranking.

In a blog post last week Google announced changes to its search algorithm that the company says will impact 35% of web searches. In areas where the “freshness” of the search results matter, like recent events, hot topics, current events, and breaking news items, the results will be weighted more heavily towards newer content.

A practical example of these changes are most easily understood for a search like “presidential election.” Rather than typing the election year you are looking for, Google will now give you the most up-to-date results at the top of the page.

The big news is that these changes will impact 35% of all web searches! Although the majority of web searches do not include topics that require frequent updates, over a third will be directly effected by these changes. According to the Google blog post, the major areas of change will be in the following types of searches:

• Recent events or hot topics. For recent events or hot topics that begin trending on the web, you want to find the latest information immediately. Now when you search for current events like [occupy oakland protest], or for the latest news about the [nba lockout], you’ll see more high-quality pages that might only be minutes old.
• Regularly recurring events. Some events take place on a regularly recurring basis, such as annual conferences like [ICALP] or an event like the [presidential election]. Without specifying with your keywords, it’s implied that you expect to see the most recent event, and not one from 50 years ago. There are also things that recur more frequently, so now when you’re searching for the latest [NFL scores], [dancing with the stars] results or [exxon earnings], you’ll see the latest information.
• Frequent updates. There are also searches for information that changes often, but isn’t really a hot topic or a recurring event. For example, if you’re researching the [best slr cameras], or you’re in the market for a new car and want [subaru impreza reviews], you probably want the most up to date information.

Just when you think you’ve got a pulse on the Google search ranking factors, things will change. That’s why at SEO Services, we have established a reputation as search engine experts. We learn your business, research your industry, and create a SEO strategy including a wide variety of methodologies like link building and social media marketing. Call us today for a free website analysis.

How’s your website performing on a day-to-day basis? Using these three groups of metrics you can measure the success of your website, track content consumption, and visitor engagement.

First let’s review four key metrics that will help you track the overall success of your website. Basically, these are the key factors that determine if you are making money through your online visitors or if they are typically leaving your website without purchasing anything.

Track The Success of Your Website
1. Visits – The number of visitors to your website is the most basic metric of success. If you are already use search engine optimization to drive traffic to your website, the number of visits is an important success metric to measure.
2. Goals – The number of people that actually purchase something, fill out a form, or call a phone number is the true measure of success for a website.
3. Revenue – For e-commerce websites, each purchase or goal completion can be assigned a specific monetary value, which is a critical factor of success.
4. Goal Conversion Rate – Digging deeper, the percentage of visitors per conversion will tell you if the majority of your visitors are purchasing something or if they eventually leave the site.

Next, these three metrics will help you determine if the content on your website is interesting and/or informative to your visitors. Each metric is a gauge of how much your visitors are actually reading your website.

Track Content Consumption
1. Pageviews – If this number is under or close to 2 per visit, then it is a strong indication that your visitors are not finding your content to be interesting.
2. Average Time on Site – Each time someone opens your website the amount of time of that visit is measured. The longer amount of time they spend on your website, the stronger the indication that they are reading and interacting with your content.
3. Bounce Rate – This is the only number you want to see as low as possible. This metric states the percentage of people that immediately leave or close your website as soon as they land on it.

These final metrics are distinctly different from the content consumption metrics because they are definite ways to determine how much your visitors are interacting with your content. Other than reading your website content, an important goal is to get your visitors to share what they learn.

Track Visitor Engagement
1. Pages per Visit – This metric is very closely tied to the previously mentioned metric “average time on site.” The difference is that this metric tells how many times the visitors clicked on the links and viewed a new webpage. The more pages per visit indicates that your content is very engaging and informative.
2. Unique Social Actions – If your visitors really like what they read and find it to be very valuable, they will share it in a variety of ways. It is important to track these social interactions through social media buttons placed on your website.

SEO Services uses a wide variety of SEM services to insure that your website is ranked at the top of search engines and that your visitors are actively engaged with your website content.

Redesigning your website is not simply about making your products and service more accessible to your human visitors, it’s also critical to insure that search engines can properly read and crawl through your new website. For that reason we’ve got a few items to remember when you redesign or update your business website to help Google navigate your new design.

1. Baseline Reports
Get a benchmark of where your old website was before you launch the new website. Some suggested reports useful for comparison might be the following: top search rankings, top search traffic sources, current search traffic levels, link connectivity, and pages indexed in Google.

2. Information Transfer
Each page on the old site should now have a corresponding page on the new website. An easy way to visualize this is by creating a map, perhaps within a spreadsheet, of the old URLs and the new URLs in the updated website.

3. Navigation Optimization
A new website will create a new internal linking infrastructure. While it may be easier for your visitors to navigate your website, these new links can greatly affect your ranking on search engines. Make sure that the new navigation template has the same links to important content as the old one did.

4. Page Titles and Meta Data
The content inside your website is important, but for search engines the page title and meta associated with each page is critical to your rank. Make sure that the old titles and meta descriptions are transferred to your new website.

5. External Links
It’s always best to change any links that you can to reflect your new URL structure. Reach out to sites currently linking to you and ask them to update their links so they point to your new domain whenever possible, or as much as is feasible depending on the size of your backlink profile and your relationship with the site. Update all your directory listings and any other links you have direct control over.

6. Google Webmaster Tools
While the true secrets behind ranking at the top of Google is a black box of mystery, there are many tools that Google provides for free to help your organic ranking chances. Take advantage of these tools by submitting an updated site map to Google Webmaster Tools.

7. Quality Control
Never assume that everything has been done correctly. Use an http header check function (just Google “http header check” and click on the first link) to validate that your old URLs are redirecting using 301 redirects. Then, after you’ve verified that everything routes correctly, monitor the metrics you defined in your baseline reporting to ensure that everything has gone smoothly.

SEO Services is one of the elite search engine marketing companies specializing in organic search engine results. Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, SEO Services has achieved incredible success in organic search engine results in numerous industries. We are committed to providing our customers the very best in search engine optimization services.

The tips listed in the blog post were taken from searchenginewatch.com