We’ve worked on hundreds of websites over the years, and every week we hear from someone we served in the past. This week we received a call requesting information on SEO services for a new domain a client had setup on Godaddy website builder. They were going to first try Godaddy’s SEO service and get back to us after giving that a chance. I thought it was worth providing some insight into what you’re really buying with a service that’s about $3 per month.
The Godaddy seo tool really only offers 3 things
Submission – This is a service that is a free tool from the major search engines, and there is no reason to pay a monthly fee for it, hence the low price.
PayPerClick – If you aren’t familiar with this, we’d be glad to discuss, but for their pricing they cannot have any significant budget at play for you
Analysis – They will give you a report telling you what you need to do, but you will still have to do it. You can generate a similar report with a free tool online.
I would also note that the website builder tool produces a fairly poorly coded website, something that negatively impact search rankings.
While there is nothing wrong with trying out an affordable tool, website owners should not assume that this will serve as a solution for building a website that can earn and maintain top organic rankings in Google. You will need to invest time into expanding the content on your site to lay the groundwork to compete effectively for valuable keywords.
In our last post, Factual: A Key Player in Local Search, we talked about the data aggregator Factual and its impact on local search marketing. In this post, we will discuss Acxiom, a more established and prominent data aggregator.
About The Company
Acxiom is a publicly-traded company that was founded in 1969. The company is headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. According to Wikipedia, “Acxiom offers marketing and information management services…Acxiom collects, analyzes, and parses customer and business information for clients, helping them to target advertising campaigns, score leads, and more”. According to Forrester Research, Acxiom is one of the leading database marketing services and technology companies in the world.
As A Data Aggregator
Acxiom has a major influence on the local search ecosystem. According to Moz Local, Acxiom is the primary or secondary feed to several important directories, especially Superpages, YP.com, and Google My Business (formerly Google+ Local):
Courtesy of Moz Local
Acxiom says their information goes to the following places:
Directly to over 80 companies in the Internet Yellow Page and Local Search marketplace
Directly to the largest search engines
250+ distribution partners through online private labeled solutions
Directly to the top directory print publishers
Because of Acxiom’s powerful influence on the local search ecosystem, it is important that you take control of your listing in their database. We’ve seen instances where a company’s Google listing has their current address while Acxiom has their older address. This seemingly minor inconsistency led to the Google listing being suspended.
Claiming Your Listing
The good news is that, unlike Factual, it’s relatively easy to claim and modify an Acxiom listing. The first step is to create an account in Acxiom’s My Business Listing Manager. Once logged in, you need to search for your business to see if it’s already there. If not, you must create a listing. Listing verification can be done via telephone or through submitting official documents that contain the business’s name and address.
For the most part, creating and claiming an Acxiom listing is pretty straightforward, but complications can arise. At 3PRIME LLC, Acxiom is an essential part of our Local SEO package. We believe having Acxiom under control, a lot of common problems in local search marketing can be avoided.
To receive a proposal for our annual program to optimize local search rankings and use online business listings for effective marketing, contact us today!
The second source is users who submit information (such as photos) about business.
The third source is other local search directories.
The fourth (and often most overlooked source) is from data aggregators.
What Is a Data Aggregator?
Data aggregators are vast databases that local search directories regularly verify their listing information against. Some of the more well-known data aggregators include Infogroup, Axciom, and Localeze. Local search directories often get their information using a combination of the sources listed above. However there are some directories that get all the information from a single data aggregator and no other source. All of this results in a very complicated local search ecosystem.
Courtesy of Moz Local
Overall, data aggregators are the most trusted source for business information and essentially serve as the backbone of local search.
Who Is Factual?
Factual is one of the newest (but least known) data aggregators. It was established in 2007 and is headquartered in Los Angeles, with offices in San Francisco and Shanghai. According to their website, Factual has data for “over 65 million local businesses and points of interest in 50 countries”. Factual strives to clean up and standardize data, while preventing duplicate and erroneous listings. Even though Factual doesn’t have the same name recognition as the other 3 data aggregators, its influence is not to be underestimated. As you can see below, Factual is the primary feed to Apple Maps and Yelp, and a secondary feed to Bing and Trip Advisor. Factual also has some influence over Google My Business (formerly Google + Local).
Courtesy of Moz Local
The above map on Factual was created in 2013 so it is safe to assume that Factual’s influence on local search has grown since then.
Fixing Your Business Information on Factual
Unlike the other data aggregators (Infogroup, Axciom, and Localeze), Factual doesn’t allow users to update business information directly on their website. Instead, you must go through a “Trusted Data Contributor (TDC)”. Some well known TDCs include GoDaddy, Moz, and Yext. In order to fix your business information, you must sign up for a paid membership for one of these TDCs. Costs vary depending on the package you purchase.
At 3PRIME, we are stewards for quite a few hosting customers, many of whom love wordpress. As such, we support that platform so that we may support the efforts of our disparate clientele.
The WordPress Core Team has done there due diligence and have submitted a patch for the vulnerability. You can implement it readily by updating your wordpress runtime to the latest greatest version (or the latest greatest patch build of your current installation). If you haven’t already, you should absolutely update your installation the next chance you get.
XML-RPC is a Problem
Something that bears mentioning here is the WordPress XML-RPC itself.
Unless you are using a plugin that requires using this now nearly ancient form of site access and control, XML-RPC is otherwise extra baggage that you need not carry around.
Given the utter lack of usage of XML-RPC throughout our client sites, the best fix for the current vulnerability, a great preventative measure against similar attack vectors, is to simply disable XML-RPC altogether.
In our case, we did this server-wide. Setting up a directive for Apache couldn’t be easier.
In your configuration file (httpd.conf or, preferably, a pre-VirtualHost Include file), simply include the following snippet:
Apache – Disable xmlrpc.php
<Files xmlrpc.php>
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from all
</Files>
For the Nginx crowd out there, you can use the following:
If your site (or your clients’ sites) are not coupled to WordPress XML-RPC, disabling XML-RPC altogether is a great way to reduce one attack vector that is often overlooked, exposed, and effectively exploited.
What you’re looking at now is the new homepage for Precision Cutting Services. Precision Cutting Services is a high quality tree cutting and lawn care business that performs work in the Hamden and southern Connecticut area. We’ve been performing a wide range of work for Precision Cutting Services for quite some time now. As stated above, we just relaunched their site with a new responsive theme which provides their web portal with several great features. First of all it looks great. It features large, clear pictures of the Precision Cutting Services’ crew at work. Moreover, the theme transforms the website into a responsive viewing experience for mobile devices and tablets. So now it will look just as good on them as it already does on desktops and laptops.
Creating sites with responsive themes serves to not only improve their look but also helps their rankings as it is one of the many features that Google takes into account when placing sites in search results. Think your company’s website could use some sprucing up? Then don’t hesitate to contact us.
We recently performed a complete relaunch of Bobmarino.com. The site is completely updated, featuring new images and design elements incorporated by 3PRIME. It is now a responsive WordPress CMS system.
Bob Marino Aftermarket Specialty Company has been in business for 47 years. They provide aftermarket items and services to car dealerships such as warranties, and a prep and detail service that washes and prepares cars prior to being shipped to customers. Continue »
Here are 3PRIME we pride ourselves on being a hands on and customer friendly business. And as such, we often find ourselves delving into unexpected territory to help our clients out with a problem. Recently, we were asked why our client’s business wasn’t showing up in Whatsapp. Continue »
I wrote to clients today regarding the pre-registration for “generic TLDs” and some suggestions they could consider. Below are some general details of what I sent including:
A list of new TLDs (top level domains) that are coming available that might be of interest.
The new TLDs will cost $25-$40 per year to register. It depends on the TLD.
It’s also important to understand how the pre-registration process works, so as a quick overview:
We can Pre-Register for them for $40 and Godaddy (the registrar we use) will submit these on February 13.
We can pay more to improve the priority of our registration, but I don’t think that’s necessary.
If we don’t get them, the pre-registration fee is refunded.
For higher priority, that starts at $189, and that application fee is non-refundable.
Higher priority goes in phases, with Phase 5 (one step in front of the $40 registration going for $189, and Phase 1 or top priority going for $12,000+!
In general, these are worth considering for marketing, or for capturing a name we wouldn’t want a competitor using for marketing. Let me know what questions you have!
Here is the list of the 25 gTLDs available today for pre-registration.
Recently, 3PRIME co-owner, Ryan Turner was interviewed for an Inc.com article. The article is called “How to Dramatically Increase Pageviews on Your Website” and it has a ton of great SEO insights from Ryan and a number of search engine optimization experts.
Take a look at the article and if you still need help from an SEO expert then one is just a phone call (or email) away!
Well guys here is my last a weekly Mobile blog post coming from you by Mutual Mobile. Please feel free to go and signup at mutualmobile.comI apologize for the formatting look, MM changed their format which makes it a pain to copy over in here but here it is, The info is still great.
Starting in a couple weeks you will be seeing new stuff brought to you by my new employer Chaotic Moon. Please go check us out www.chaoticmoon.com
New iPads are a certainty, but there’s plenty more that Apple could have in store for consumers ahead of the holiday shopping season. Here’s what you should — and shouldn’t — expect from Apple’sOctober 22nd event.
The race for the tablet market has become a full-blown sprint. The intense competition will be highlighted on Tuesday, as Apple, Nokia and Microsoft each introduce new tablets.
While the Surface 2 is probably most fairly compared to an iPad or high-end Android tablet, the Surface Pro 2’s processing power makes it more like a laptop.
While we wait for someone, anyone, to deliver the ultimate smartwatch, what can the best devices available today tell us about perfecting the smart wrist-accessory?
Mobile’s immersion in our everyday lives actually provides retailers a valuable opportunity to embrace mobile as an asset and use it to foster the biggest advantage a bricks-and-mortar store has to offer: personalized, superior-level customer service.
The wearable devices industry, which includes smart watches and glasses, will be worth $19 billion by 2018. That’s a big jump over the $1.4 billion the industry is expected to pull in this year, according to Juniper Research, which produced the numbers.
This year, more than half of US adult internet users, or 102.5 million people, will redeem a digital coupon via any device for either online or offline shopping. New data indicates that there was a significant increase in the number of digital coupon users during the first half of 2013.
Apple’s iOS 7 has been available to the public for exactly one month. In that time, about 73% of all iOS users have updated their iPhones, iPads and iPods to Apple’s new operating system, amounting to a little more than 250 million devices.
