Google Places started as Google Maps, but has now been embedded in Google Plus. It can be effective for generating online business when other options seem not to work. For instance IFAs and similarly competitive industries DO get success with Google Places. BUT there are some essential things you have to do.

1. Claim your Google local business listings.

If you are not in the listing you are giving up an opportunity to your competitors. To quote the Lottery “You’ve got to be in it to win it”. You should claim your business in the Google local listings if it is not already listed. If it is and you do not have control of it, you can just click to claim it, and you will be given the ability to update information on it after you confirm it is yours.

Claiming your Google Places listing is easy. You need to open a Google account and then log-in to Business Solutions. Or you can go directly to http://www.google.com/business/placesforbusiness/.

A huge number of businesses have claimed their Google Places listing but have not optimised it so it is not being effective for them.

Because of Google’s search engine changes Google will now return a first page of results for local searches that includes a Google Map together with a list of up to 7 businesses that Google sees as matching the search query.

2. Use a local address.

A registered address is useless if you do not trade from there. You should include your full business address including postcode (NB. if you work from home you can keep your address private).

It is very important to include your main telephone number plus fax, mobile numbers if you have them.

Add your website details (but you can tick the box if you don’t have one) and your email address.

3. Complete your business description.

You have 200 characters to describe what your business does. It is very important that you include keywords in this description, especially those that potential customers might use to search for your business type and location

3. Use the correct category tags.

This is an area where a large number of businesses fall short when setting up their Google Places listing. When you set up the listing, there is one category box showing. There are in fact 5 category boxes available to you and you should use all five. You will be able to add tags to your business profile to help customers find you. Keep your tags simple, like “web developer” or “web development” rather than “best web developer” or “web developing.”

4. Use services or products in the title of your business listing.

For example, rather than “The Internet Marketeer” use the title “Web Design by The Internet Marketeer.” This should help direct customers to your search result. It helps to be close to the city or town centre, but the reality of life is that you will not be able to affect this is you live in the suburbs.

5. Add photos to your Google Business Page.

Use photos of your logo, products, interior, and exterior. Add a video if you have one. This will help convert page views into customers. This is an effective step you can take to making Google work for your business. You can list up to a maximum of 10 photos/images and a maximum of 5 videos.

6. Use a local telephone number.

You may have business premises in more than one location, make sure that each has location has an accurate local telephone number. It is also very important to be sure that the main number listed on your website is the same as the Google map listing number – Google will check when it spiders your site.

7. Specify your opening hours.

Let your customers know when they can do business with you. If you have retail premises this can be very important.

8. List Payment Options.

List all the payment options available to customers.

9. Ask for customer reviews.

This is one of the key areas Google uses to rank your listing. Additionally, good reviews will help give your potential customers confidence to deal with you.

10) Get your Company Name Right and Think about ownership

List your company name, it is also worth including the geographic area you are targeting – i.e. The Internet Marketeer | East Midlands. Probably one of the biggest mistakes I find is that businesses let one of their employees set up the site – IN THEIR OWN NAME. If they leave the business or the login gets forgotten you have lost control of a key piece of your Intellectual Property Rights. I spend quite a bit if time reclaiming business listings like this.

Choosing the key opportunities throughout the year

• New Year – 1st January
• Valentine’s Day – 14th February – short sharp season less lead up than other events
• Mother’s Day – March in UK
• Easter – remember the date varies quite a bit and that affects the lead times.
• School Holidays/Back to School – September
• Summer Holiday Bookings – June to August those without children at school will see better opportunities out of these periods
• Father’s Day – June
• Bonfire Night – 5th November
• Halloween – 31st October
• Winter or Skiing Holidays – October to February – will vary depending upon location
• Christmas – 25th December is the day, but people do Christmas parties from late November and some buy presents many months ahead of the season

The Planning and Implementation Timetable

You need to work back from each key date and plan in a series of deadlines well before the date. The lead time of some of these actions may surprise you; but by starting early you are pre-empting your competitors and ensuring that yours is the fresh online content.

• All year round – build up email marketing lists and try to segment with a view to how you will marker to the list(s) throughput then year. Also SEO is an all year round activity, but you need to factor in activity to target those key dates.
• 8 months out from each key date – plan you macro-strategy for that event
• 6 months out – build your web pages and optimise them. Start link building
• 4 months out – start blogging with ideas for the event. Plan and implement tracking for online marketing so you know what works and what does not.
• 2 months out start email marketing and viral marketing. Start a countdown timer on your site “Only 45 days to Christmas”. Offline advertising needs to begin; this needs to be coordinated with specific landing pages for those adverts or promotions (even if it shares a landing page with online promotion).
• 1 month out start your Pay-Per-Click and Online Advertising. Add more practical blogs specific to gift ideas

The Activities

On-site preparation – You need to be thinking about setting up specific landing pages and web content ahead of time. Calls to action will vary not only for specific events such as Valentines or Christmas; but you will also need to think about the “what’s in it for me” factor that applies for each date. The “surprise your lady” at Valentine’s Day will be slightly different from the “Christmas delivery guaranteed” for Christmas approach.

Have drill down areas in each product or service to explain more about what you are offering. Remember gifts are usually purchased for someone else, so the buyer may not have a great deal of product or service knowledge. So help them see that your product or service is suited to their gift receiver.

Email Marketing – Think about the different types of awareness needed at the differing lead times running up to the event or holiday date. Start with awareness to get people thinking about it, and then begin to raise the excitement until there needs to be strong calls to action. It is worth building dates into your calendar to get this planned well ahead of the time. The types of promotion will need to be changed as time progresses to encourage the email recipient to click a link and make a purchase or contact you.

Search Engine Optimisation – Although this is an all-year-round activity, during key seasonal trading periods you need to plan to target seasonal or event related searches relevant to your products and services. Christmas starts in August for this activity. Make sure that you do internal and external linking specifically for the event, date or season

Link Building – Like SEO, this is an all-year-round activity, but it needs a different focus in the run up to each event or season. A good activity is to submit guest blogs to relevant sites with the aim of linking that article back to your content. A guest blog that says we sell Christmas widgets is not going to appeal to anyone, but an article that suggest relevant presents for him and her or perhaps for age related presents is likely to have a better effect.

Viral Marketing and/or Social Media - a great opportunity to sell – NO NO NO. This is an opportunity to engage with people and get them in the mood for the event or holiday. Create brand awareness, get engagement,

Pay-Per-Click and Online Advertising – This should be coordinated with your landing pages. Seasonal or event specific adverts should be drafted that target those looking for the services – do not just go fishing. Whilst stating the obvious, do not forget to target with seasonally specific search terms.

As Google matures its search algorithm (the formula and criteria that it uses the spider and catalogue websites) then online marketers have to adapt.  You should not see Google Panda and Penguin as single events.  Both projects continue to develop and get improved, so updates will occur at regular intervals.  Increasingly Google is using social signals in its search ranking algorithm.  Alongside this other aspects of search, like Facebook Graph (its internal search) and Twitter also evolve.

Now Facebook and Twitter are not exactly cooperating with Google so until now you will have heard the cry “Content is King”.   Google has always made it plain that one of its main ranking elements that it deems important is on page content.  This is now even truer that not has ever been – but there is now a twist.  Google has always understood that great content comes from good or even great writers, but until now authorship has bet been a ranking factor.

In the past Google has not been able to credit authorship so it will affect result rankings in search engines, but that appears to be about to change with Google AuthorRank.  Eric Schmidt the Google chairman acknowledges that: “……information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results.”

So it appears that it is becoming important for business people and digital marketers to become online authority figures.  8 years ago Google patented something called AgentRank, which was designed  to create digital signatures for authors and content writers so that they built reputation scores. 

Why Google Authorship and AuthorRank matter

With Google Authorship and AuthorRank, when you produce content that is tied to your Google Plus profile. Next time you do a Google search, you may note that some authors have their Google Plus profile image with the article, their name and how many Google+ circles they appear in.

This enables Google to connect authors and their profiles in Google Plus to provide search results coming from what they term “real people” instead of just following links built from random websites or directories.  Google wants to give the best search results to those who use their search engine so it follows that the best results will come from an “expert or someone who has a good knowledge of the subject being researched.

Okay, I want some of that Google Authorship Credit – How do I get it?

Just setting up Google Authorship is straight forward and does not take too long.

Step One you either need to have a Google Plus personal profile, or you need to set one up by going to the Google Plus Sign Up Page.  Just setting up an account is not going to work. You are going to have to put a bit of effort into this project in order to build your Google Plus profile.  You should also be sharing other people’s content that is on a similar theme to show that you are interested in sharing ALL good content because you are an Authority.

Make sure you complete your profile, have a good photo on it make yourself look interesting.

Step Two.  When you produce any new blog, article or posting you should link your name or picture to your Google Plus profile. Most sites use a fairly standard content management system that allows you to include your name, picture and sometimes a biography. It then helps if you can get other people to share your content, because in Google’s eyes your content is so good that someone has shared it.

Step Three.  Make sure you use Google Plus to push people to your Blog and Web Pages.  The target is your website, not just Google Plus.  Add a link to your article, blog post or webpage on your Google Plus profile.

The more you produce these posts and link them through Google Plus (and Facebook and Twitter for good measure) then you will begin to build your AuthorRank.

Step Four.  Be more active on Google Plus. You are aiming to increase your reputation and to get more people to follow you.  You do this by:

• Growing your number of followers, by having good content and sharing.
• Make sure you post on a regular basis.  This can be re-sharing, commenting and generally contributing.
• Increasing the number of times your content gets shared – this will only happen if you produce content worthy of sharing.
• Getting more voters for your content.  What do we mean by this, well you need to increase the number of +1′s you get?  The more Plus 1s – the more your reputation grows.
• Make sure you post on a regular basis.  This can be re-sharing, commenting and generally contributing.

Step Five.  Be focussed in your Google Plus communication.  Some articles will be more relevant to certain audiences, and Google Plus allows you to do this using circles.  So split your followers into groups who will receive content relevant to them.  This will help you generate greater interaction with individual posts because you are serving content that the “Circle” is more likely to be interested in.

Step Six.  Try to develop communities or groups that follow you.  This will only happen if you have something interesting to say.  Again this is a great way to get you seen as an authority. Initially it will be easiest to join an existing community and develop your authority there. Then, if you feel confident enough or if a subject that you have some expertise in cries out for a new community or new slant – then why not set your own community up.

As a well-known Meer Kat once said – “Simples”

This is the quote from a website owner, at a recent meeting I attended. She convinced me to go and listen to the “great guru” at a local networking meeting. The guru logic was that it is easy to get a post on page 1 of Google and she proceeded to show us how to do that. Her next statement was that now you could “guarantee” getting these articles onto Page 1 of Google you didn’t need SEO as this was, and I quote, “ going to sprinkle fairy dust on your website” and help it gain credibility and ranking.

Do not be confused, Google surely does use social media signals as part of its ranking algorithm, Eric Schmidt CEO of Google, has confirmed this. But just pumping out social media posts is not the answer.

Now we know social media is necessary to help SEO for your website what have we got to do?

There is more to social media than just Facebook or Twitter; there are many different forms and platforms for social media. Wikipedia shows 194 social media platforms and highlights what their focus is. It is worth noting that social media covers a variety of Internet based platforms that facilitate a variety of forms of communication. You probably think and you’re right. For business people these are the places that are now important to you.

So what social media do I need to use?

Facebook is the answer!!

Well not really for optimisation. It has the potential to bring large numbers of visitors to your site and its great place to engage your fans and customers but it’s not a reliable or steady traffic source. More importantly, the majority of Facebook content cannot be indexed by Google so all that hard work getting likes will not count as links.

If SEO is going to be coordinated successfully with social media then you need to understand what your expertise is and then target the social media sites that are suitable for you.

The first point, is that if you want to use social media for SEO, then they have got to be those sites/platforms that are indexed by. Guess what, one of the social media platforms that Google place great store in is Google+. Yes it is new but it’s in the core of Google’s sight; so where else might work:

1. Small business owner who are interested in local trade may wish to consider Ipatter, Qype, Yelp and Foursquare.

2. A recruitment agency will sensibly focus on LinkedIn, Xing and possibly Ecademy.

3. Photographers will want to use Flickr, YouTube, Pinterest and Tumblr

4. A journalist will certainly need to focus on Twitter and developing a following and actually following those people who might see something of interest in your area of interest. You may also want to keep an eye on YouTube.

5. Anyone associated with the musical industry like bands, vocalists and other musician should look at MySpace, BandCamp and SoundCloud.

6. Tradesmen may want to consider Freeindex

There is not one social platform that works for all industries, when seeking SEO success. It is not just the usual suspects – you need a blog! In the ideal world the blog will be part of your website, but if this is not possible then consider Blogger or WordPress.com

A blog means your website is producing new content – Mr Google likes that. More importantly you are an active member of the social media community rather than someone sitting on the side-lines. More importantly, you are providing content on your site, rather than making comments on other people’s original work – that is on their blogs.

A blog can turn your website from a static site to a place that people want to visit to read and participate in. These are the social signals that Google is looking for. Site visitors and blog readers want to read informative funny, mind stretching original content. They also want the opportunity to engage with and comment on your site. It is also a great way to demonstrate your expertise and show people why they need your services or products.

What a great chance to tell them about me me me!

Aargh no, do not bore them with why they should use your services or buy your products. Tell them something that is useful to them, the punch line comes at the end, where you let them know that you have a solution to the problem they are reading about.

In order to stop others stealing your identity on various social media platforms, and possibly broadcasting against you, you should secure your branded profiles on most social sites. However, you are likely to only focus on a small number of social media platforms that you contribute to.

Social media sites should help you connect with others who may be interested in your industry but they are not places to put your prime content on. They are places to lay bait to look at your best content so that others tweet about it – digg it etc.

So you are seeking to build relationships with people who then re-tweet or share it as well. Now you have reached the point where social media and SEO have come together. Someone sharing links to your content on social media sites scores well for Mr Google.

Your aim to establish yourself as an expert so that you generate an audience.

Great here I go, I will create hundreds of social media profiles

Nope, sorry that will not work – especially with Mr Google. No not about getting hundreds of links from loads of submission, or automated article posting. Not about loads of social book marking.

O dear that sounds terrible, what do I do then? Set yourself up as an authority in your industry via your blog. Begin to convince people who do not know you to become a client because they can trust you. If you do that they will do the link building for you – so just getting a post or article on page 1 of Google is not the answer, it may become a symptom of success – but it is not the answer.

So Mrs “New Age Social Media Guru” social media after Google Penguin and Google Panda is about building relationships that are transparent to Google, not contrived, not SPAM and producing good quality content that others will share because they find it so useful. Content has been re-crowned King.

So if you need to know how use social media to get search ranking or SEO give us a call on 01572 495007 or contact us by email.

The changes to Google’s algorithm mean that if your site has any of these toxic links then they will penalizes you – and this has happened to a lot of sites. The original solution offered by Google was that you should contact the sites and ask them to remove them. Sounds easy but if there are a large number or it is not possible to contact the site then you would have had problems rehabilitating your site with Google.

After much campaigning Google has come up with a solution – The Google Disavow Tool.

So what is The Google Disavow Tool?

At the recent PubCon Google “New and Improved Link Disavow” tool open to us all.

The Link Disavow tool is now available through the Webmaster Tools platform. This allows you to “sculpt or shape” the backlinks to your site. You can now tell Google to ignore those negative links whilst keeping those all-important authority links that bring traffic and search ranking to your website.

Okay, so is this good for all website owners?

The Google Disavow Tool is a powerful tool for a website owner to use, but there are potentially dangerous side effects. Now Google has secured the tool within the webmaster tools platform – you have to be an ‘admin user’ or ‘owner’ – so it is the only route for this tool. So no worries about someone being able to hijack your links and undo them behind your back.

However, there are potential dangers. Google gave this warning:

So hold on before you jump in and start “analysing” your links unless you either have a real problem or have a very good understanding of SEO and the Google search algorithm. Matt Cutts the Head of Web Spam at Google warns that the tool is very advanced and notes that the tool should only be used done if you truly understand how it might affect your site. He goes on to warn that the excessive use of links could affect how your site performs in search engine results. So if you start removing all links willy-nilly then there is a good chance that your site will still not rank well because you will have removed the good with the bad links.

What Matt Cutts is saying is only use this tool if you really know what you are doing. So think carefully, if you have a toxic link problem which may have been caused by you using a rogue SEO company or perhaps your own efforts this will only work if you have real knowledge. Remember a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

How does The Google Disavow Tool work?

The process is simple to follow if you only have a small number of links to remove. However, if you have thousands of links there is the danger of getting carried away and losing the good as well as the bad links. Login to your webmaster tools and go to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main. You will see this screen; if you have more than one site in the dashboard select the one you are interested in:

Once you have created the relevant document it needs to be uploaded via this link:

Once this document has been uploaded it will be necessary to submit a re-inclusion request via Google webmasters tools. You will need to tell Google that you have used the Disavow tool. They may also want to see proof that you have tried contacting site owners to get the relevant links removed.

Note: Just submitting the disavow list is not sufficient you will need to submit for re-inclusion. It will be manually checked so this is what takes the time.

This is not a quick process and is likely to take a few weeks before you see rankings change. If Google is true to form you may not get a formal reply, you will just be aware that your site rankings have improved

So What Impact Will This Have?

Matt Cutts believes that most sites will have no use for this tool. His advice is that “If you’re not sure what the tool does or whether you need to use it, you probably shouldn’t use it”. The tool allows you to tell Google which links you want to disavow, and so Google will ignore those links. Because Google needs to re-crawl and re-index the URLs that have been passed to it to be disavowed it will take a few weeks to take effect. If you believe that your site was affected by the Penguin algorithm update you may want to look at your site’s backlinks to see if any of those links might contravene Google’s guidelines. Are they spam or low-quality – have they been the result of automatic link building or to paid directory sites….

In Conclusion – Here is Matt Cutts video on the subject

You can read the Google help page about the new tool here, read the official blog post here – there is also an FAQ section.

 Want to find out more, contact us or call 01572 495007

Seths are an independent firm of Estate Agents in Leicester.   They are Chartered Surveyors and Estate Agents who have been established since 1970. They aim to provide the highest standards of professionalism, so that their client’s property is marketed to the full.

They have 2 eye-catching offices that are located in prominent positions.  Using a blend of cutting edge technology, friendly and professional staff,  their extensive knowledge of the local market means that they can meet all your property needs.

As a premier Estate Agent in Leicester, Seths are an award winning family run firm who provide estate agents, letting agents and chartered surveyors services.  Notably, Seths were voted the best letting agent in the East Midlands in April 2012 at the Estas Award Ceremony.  Additionally they were also placed in the top ten estate agents in the East Midlands – a notable achievement.

A recent website redesign has added more value to the level of service they are able to give their customers.

Google published a Blog post to announce the 39 changes that it made to its search engine in  May 2012.  Not all changes affect your website, some of the changes affect the searchers’ experience.  Out of those 39 changes we think that only 5 have an affect that website owners need to take note of:

1. Detection of hacked pages. For some time, Google has presented a notice in  search results when it finds a page that it feels may have been hacked.  Until now, Google has focused only on homepages.  As always hackers have learned this and have been targeting deeper pages on some sites.  Consequently, Google is now expanding this checking and warnings to deeper pages.
2. Changes to inorganic back-link detection.  Google has already developed its algorithms to detect what it calls “link schemes” designed to provide web SPAM that attempt to manipulate the search rankings of particular sites. They have now refined this process further.
3. Penguin Updates. Despite only being launched in April 2012, Google has made what it calls “a couple minor tweaks” to improve the Penguin search ability.
4. Changes to its “freshness” triggers. Google has changed the triggers that identify fresh documents or pages, which will benefit those who continue to add fresh content to their sites.
5. Changes to the ranking algorithm. Google believes that this change significantly improves the effectiveness of their “scoring infrastructure”. They also claim this will not have a great impact on the quality of their search results.

Again, this seems to emphasise that whilst you need to build links to your site, you also need to ensure that you are keeping your website content fresh and making regular changes to that content.

It has been possible to see who is or has watched your You Tube videos; it is now possible to get a better understanding about your audience.  Gone is the old Insight to be replaced with YouTube Analytics.

You Tube Analytics includes the following features:

• A Dashboard providing an overview: This consolidates all the main information and provides you with quick navigation to more detailed information.
• Detail Reports: You can now drill down to view detailed statistics to help you understand more about your audiences and how they are viewing your content.
• Audience Builders: Discover which videos are driving the most views and subscriptions.
• Audience Retention: You can now find out if your viewers are skimming your videos of viewing them all the way through.

The Internet can be a great place to use for press releases.  This can be useful to drive some traffic to your site, promote your business or to help with SEO.  Here is a list of over 150 Press Release sites:

1. www.1888pressrelease.com
2. www.24-7pressrelease.com
3. www.24by7pressrelease.com
4. www.24hrlinkdirectory.com
5. www.24x7links.com
6. www.48hrdirectory.com
7. www.afly.com
8. www.allcapecod.com
9. www.ameinfo.com
10. www.askforlinks.com
11. www.bestamericanlinks.com
12. www.businessportal2com
13. www.cincinnati.com
14. www.circulatepr.com
15. www.clickpress.com
16. www.clickpress.com
17. www.clipreleases.com
18. www.crazyfoxdesigns.com
19. www.dailyrecord.com
20. www.deep-link-directory.info
21. www.deeplinksforfree.com
22. www.delawareonline.com
23. www.directorybus.com
24. www.directoryexplorer.com
25. www.directoryshock.com
26. www.domainfist.com
27. www.earthtoys.com
28. www.epicpr.com
29. www.epscene.com
30. www.exactrelease.com
31. www.exclusiveinternetdirectory.com
32. www.expert-domains.com
33. www.ezpress.info
34. www.fame.ws
35. www.featured-directory.com
36. www.fibre2fashion.com
37. www.findyourcompanydomain.com
38. www.free-news-release.com
39. www.freenichedirectory.com
40. www.freepressindex.com
41. www.freepressrelease.co.cc
42. www.free-press-release.com
43. www.free-press-release-center.info
44. www.free-press-release-center.info
45. www.freepressreleases.co.uk
46. www.freesubmissiondirectory.com
47. www.freewebsitedirectory.ws
48. www.free-website-submission.com
49. www.freightnet.com
50. www.fstribune.com
51. www.highprsites.com
52. www.hqdirectory.com
53. www.hrotoday.com
54. www.hyperlinkmania.com
55. www.ideamarketers.com
56. www.ifccfbi.org
57. www.imcasweb.com
58. www.indiaprline.com
59. www.i-newswire.com
60. www.information-online.com
61. www.joplinglobeonline.com
62. www.journal-courier.net
63. www.linkinsanity.com
64. www.linkmanna.com
65. www.linkobsession.com
66. www.links2share.net
67. www.listfree.org
68. www.live-pr.com
69. www.ljworld.com
70. www.localnews.biz
71. www.loraincounty.com
72. www.malebits.com
73. www.media-newswire.com
74. www.mediasyndicate.com
75. www.michiganbusiness.us
76. www.myfreepr.com
77. www.nationalprwire.com
78. www.networkedsites.com
79. www.newdesignworld.com
80. www.news.eboomwebsolutions.com
81. www.newsalbum.com
82. www.newsblaster.com
83. www.nextdaydirectory.com
84. www.nextpressrelease.com
85. www.npr.org
86. www.openpr.com
87. www.organicfolio.com
88. www.oylinki.com
89. www.parking.org
90. www.perma-link.com
91. www.pitchengine.com/
92. www.postafreepressrelease.com
93. www.poweredbyphpld.com
94. www.pr.com
95. www.pr5directory.com
96. www.pr6directory.com
97. www.pr7websites.com
98. www.pralley.com
99. www.PrArticle.com
100. www.prbd.net
101. www.prcarrier.com
102. www.prcompass.com
103. www.pressbox.co.uk
104. www.pressbox.co.uk/
105. www.pressexposure.com
106. www.pressmediawire.com
107. www.pressmethod.com
108. www.pressonwire.com
109. www.pressrelease.com.np
110. www.pressrelease00com
111. www.pressrelease4all.com
112. www.pressreleasecirculation.com
113. www.pressreleasecollection.blogspot.com
114. www.pressreleaseleap.com
115. www.pressreleasemonkey.com
116. www.pressreleasepedia.com
117. www.pressreleasepoint.com
118. www.pressreleases.kcstar.com
119. www.pressreleaseset.com
120. www.pressreleasespider.com
121. www.pressreleaseunit.com
122. www.pressrelize.com
123. www.prfocus.com
124. www.prfree.com
125. www.prfriend.com
126. www.prlog.org
127. www.prmarker.com
128. www.prtake.com
129. www.prurgent.com
130. www.prwindow.com
131. www.przoom.com
132. www.publicrelations.uk.com
133. www.raptorlinks.com
134. www.sanepr.com
135. www.secure.townnews.com
136. www.seenation.com
137. www.seofriendlydir.com
138. www.siouxcityjournal.com
139. www.sitesubmissiondirectory.com
140. www.sixsigmazone.com
141. www.speedypr.com
142. www.startranking.info
143. www.theopenpress.com
144. www.thewebmasterboard.com
145. www.todayslocalnews.com
146. www.transworldnews.com
147. www.ukprwire.com
148. www.upvery.com
149. www.user-groups.net
150. www.usprwire.com
151. www.way2pressrelease.com
152. www.website-submission.info
153. www.websitesubmitdirectory.com
154. www.websitetrafficdirectory.com
155. www.worldacd.com
156. www.zrelease.com

For a long time Google Analytics has been a catch-all and has lacked much of the oomph required by top-level users. It is fair to say that the average Google Analytics user is not going to want to use threes extended features, and more importantly, will not want to pay the enhanced costs involved with this upgrade. However, if you are a company that has huge amounts of data to manipulate and want more tracking power then many of your needs will be met by Google Premium.

Google is committed to keep the standard or free version of Google Analytics developing and serviced. Therefore for the average user little will change, but in my opinion there is a good chance that some of the developments will trickle down to the free version.

So What is Google Analytics Premium?

Firstly, Google Analytics Premium has a similar look and feel to the Google Analytics Standard Edition we are all used to. This means that upgrading will have a comfortable feel about it.

Secondly, and again this is only my opinion, we have not seen all the features available to the system, as I feel they will have pushed it to market as soon as they felt they had a viable version.

Thirdly, in the past they have developed systems from user feedback and I think there will be some. This is evidence by the recent additions of social media tracking, multichannel tracking and greater integration between Google AdWords, Analytics and several other platforms.

As well as including a lot more processing power, the analytics provide scope for greater analysis. But more important there is a dedicated support system that had frustrated many Google users in the past.

Click this link to view the preview on YouTube

The following differences will only be in Premium:

• Greater processing power, guaranteed processing for up to 1 billion hits per month
• Faster, intra-day processing for up to 1 billion hits per month
• Service Level Agreement around data collection, reporting, and processing:
  • 99.9% on Collection up-time
  • 99% on Reporting up-time
  • 98% on on-time Data Freshness (within 4 hours)
• Advanced Analysis Tools
• Attribution modelling. To track through your channels in your media mix so you can collect the unique site usage data you want.
• 50 Custom Variable slots that can be customised form deeper insights for decision making
• Download un-sampled report downloads for custom report requests – includes the ability to export high volumes of data for analysis.
• Un-aggregated report downloads for large report requests (up to 1 million rows per download)
• Data collection robustness. Get a Service Level Agreement of 99.9% in any calendar month.
• High Power Processing. Data freshness within 4 hours 98% of the time, instead of the 24 hours delay currently experienced.
• You Own the Data.
• Phone & Email support during the working week – 10 hours per day, 5 days per week
• Custom training and support with your own dedicated account manager.
• Specialist Support from Google Analytics Experts. Help to move from your existing installations to Google Analytics.
• Implementation Consultation & Tagging Audit
• 24/7 Product Emergency Escalation Support, should the product ever be outside the SLA targets

This is Google’s first shot at providing an Enterprise Analytics solution, but it has to be said that it is targeted at a very specific audience. As well as having complex needs as well as wanting high levels of customization, they will need to be able to afford the $150,000 annual price tag.

So it is fair to say that the average Google Analytics user will neither be able to afford these features or have a use for them. However, for organisations with large data sets and who need more functionality not provided by the Standard Google Analytics, then they have a Google solution. If you want to know more about Google Analytics Premium or Google Analytics call us now.