What is Googlebot?
Have you ever
heard of Googlebot or maybe the Google index? I will never
forget. One of... Oneof the jobs
that I won over another web developer is called the Google
algorithm. Kind of like
alka-seltzer? Anyway,
it's the algorithm. And a lot of business owners are just
frustrated, right?
Because I don't
get it. In this article, we're really going to deep dive into
Googlebot and we're going to talk
to how to demystify it so that it makes a difference to
your bottom line.
So, let's talk
about Googlebot also called the Google algorithm. Maybe you've
heard spiders or web crawler.
I was a kind of funny spiders. You know they visit your
web pages. They index your
site and it's
all the same thing. So let's talk a little bit just quickly
about what is Googlebot, right?
What is the
Google algorithm?. The algorithm is a formula, okay? So think
back to college or
maybe even high
school. Remember the library? There was a Dewey Decimal System.
Maybe
some of you
are too young and you can just kind of zone out right now.
But if you remember the
Dewey Decimal
System, ever you went into the library you pulled out the
card catalog. You went through the cards
and you found that thing.
How Google Was
born?
Well, Google
was founded at Stanford, okay? So, Larry Page and Sergey Brin,
they were
finishing up
their doctoral work and they said, "Look, we're going to
build something that indexes
all the professorship
content. So the professors, the students, think about the vacuum
of content
that was built
every day. Research, studies, stats, information and it never
made it to the library.
So what happened
to all that amazing Stanford content? It just poof! Disappeared."
So Larry
and Sergey said,
we're going to build a database. That's going to index and
archive all the
content on the
Stanford campus. And this is how Google was born. And what
we know today is
this massive
algorithm over 200 different elements to the Google algorithm.
So you're like whoo!
I don't have
time for that. And quite frankly, neither do I. But here's
the cool part.
It's about the
humans and not about the robot. Think about it. I spent years.
I worked for Yahoo
for many years.
Worked with million-dollar advertisers at Yahoo. We would go to
search
marketing conferences
and we'd all sit down and we would literally talk about every
line of the
Google algorithm
that we knew. Yes, this is the kind of geek that I used
to be. We thought that
was interesting.
Well, it was interesting but the longer I was in that business
the more I realized
that it was
less about the Google algorithm and all about the human experience.
It's about them.
It's not about
you. it's about what they want when they search. So we call
it the wee-wee-wee,
all the way
home.
How Googlebots
crawls and indexes
Here’s what we
do and here's where we go and here's how you hire us and
here's how great weare. You know
websites are built like resumes, internal linking and they're
meant to be thought leadership platforms.
Remember, if you're a Stanford professor in your respective niche
then
you know your
stuff. You are current and your website is current. You blog
because you want to
prove to Googlebot
that you are on your A-game. You're a Stanford professor in
your field and
you are doing
research. You have stats. You're going to conferences. These are
the kinds of
things that make
your website findable. So when Googlebot comes, it's trying to
say, Hey, what
kind of professor
are you? Now I have to prove it to Google. So the first
thing I have to prove too
is I have a
tight, technically sound website.
I want you
to go to a website called marketinggreater.com. Now, this tool is going to let you put
in your website
address. You don't have to put your email address unless you
want to be on hub
spots mailing
lists for the rest of eternity and then it's going to run
a technical report and it's
going to give
you very finite things that you can do to tweak your website
and a score. The first
thing I want
you not to do is beat yourself up around that score. It
might be 40, it might be 94.
But it tells
you how tight my engine is.
Look, Google's
not going to rank your website if the technical aspects of
your site are not great.
It wants to
make sure your engine is purring like a kitten. Now once the
engine is taken care of,
then we can
start worrying about our blogging. Now some of you I'm sure
have heard about
blogging. I get
lots of eye rolls. I talk about blogging, they're like, "I
don't have time for that. I got
a guy for that."
Here's the problem: remember Stanford professors publish. If they
don't publish
they perish.
Now think about this for a minute. If that was the standard
that Google set up as its
foundation, its
algorithm, is to look at all the experts on the Internet.
Which ones are the
Stanford professors
and which ones are the posers? The posers don't blog. The
posers don't
socially engage.
If you're a professor on your A-game, you have a wonderful
current site. that's
technically sound.
You have a blog that is an ongoing commentary and research
of your field
and of course
then you take that blog and you share it to all of your
social circles. So a social
circle in a
university setting would be your peers. Other people who are
validating that your
content on your
blog is good stuff and they appreciate that. So as a business
owner, we must
think about the
fact that we are on our A-game. And if we're not blogging
and we're not socially
engaged, think
about would you put yourself on the first page of Google search
results? If you
had not published
anything for a year.
So what happens is when you launch a
new website,
Google comes
usually within 24 to 48 hours. Grabs all the content and says,
"Awesome, you have all this
great content, oooh! It gets really excited. I make that up.
But that's my own rail and
Google to ignore
us. If we're on our game then we're blogging once a week
minimum. We are creating article
like I'm doing here today. We are socializing those article.
So, you've got to put
yourself in the
Google BOTS shoes. And say, "If I was looking at myself
from the outside in as a
bystander coming
and walking by your website, either cobwebs in the window, right?"
So, I want
you to try to start looking like a Stanford professor on your
own knee. That means
you need to
have a nice good well-programmed website. It's got to look great
clearly. But it has
to have a member
that the engine has to be well oiled. So, run that marketing
grater.com score
and fix the
red if that will show up in that report.
The next thing
I need you to do is to sit down with your team or hire
a Content writer and start
writing. The
blog part of it. Remember, that's the ongoing juice if you
will. Google is a voracious
search engine.
I always think about it as snacking Google. Who is it good,
good girl? Who is a
good boy? Right?
You just kind of keep throwing those Scooby Snacks at it.
So it keeps coming
back. And if
you don't Scooby Snack, it's not going to keep coming back.
And so you slowly
become an out-of-date
professor over time because you just launched your site but
you're not
committed to
ongoing content development. And press meet Google is not going
to give you.
There are only
10 results on that page. It is not going to give that to
you if you're not committed
to being up-to-date
and on your A-game. Finally, I may get some eye rolls here
but social
media. You...
I have heard a thousand times from CEOs all over the country
that we don't get
business that
way. If I had a buck. For every time I heard that I probably
wouldn't need to be
making articles.
But everyone says it and I think a lot of businesses have
gotten their business
historically from
word of mouth. Which is great. I love word of mouth. However,
over 80% of
word-of-mouth will
go and Google you.
So, first of
all, they're going to check you out. Are you working in your
mom's basement and
your slippers
or are you actually a company that I can trust? The website
speaks volumes to
that. It also
speaks to your hiring and firing practices. You know, what people
are looking for jobs
today, they're
going to go to the website and see if you look fun. "Do
I want to work there? Does
that look like
a pool place? Can I really do a give-back there?" If
it's a Dunder Mifflin, right? If it
looks like a
place that's just like a cubicle farm and there are empty
reception areas and empty
lunchrooms,
nobody works there. Right? So, you have to think about, is
your website the best indicator of
your professorship level content. So, let's recap your website.
It's got to have a great
engine and run
that marketing greater score.
Number 2, make
sure you're blogging. If you can only do it once a month,
I'm thrilled. Blog.
Remember, blogs
are on an RSS feed. That means that people can subscribe to
it. So, it's
different from
a page on your website because it is never evolving. And people
can subscribe to
it so Google
gives a tremendous amount of value and credibility to the blogs.
Googlebot loves
blogs.
I think
about it like a newsfeed. It's like a CNN news feed for
your business. Of course, it
expects the newsfeed
to keep updating and have the most current content. So please
blog. Put
comments in the
bottom. I'll keep it... I'll keep an eye out for them and
make sure in those
comments. You're
asking these specific questions. So, I will make sure to keep
my eyes on it
and get your
responses because I know a lot of people are like I just
do not want to blog. I get it
but it's time
you've heard about it long enough. Fine, social media is not
just for kids. And I don't
care how old
you are. Remember the Google standard is if you're going to
be a professor. You
will get peer
validation of your content. Peer validation is you.
3 take your
blog and you share it to all the social sites. Easy peasy.
So, you as a thought leader,
as an expert
as a CEO. Your job is to get what you know about your
company, your institutional
knowledge into
that blog. So, here's a... Here's a tip, grab your cell phone.
There's a recorder on
there I'm pretty
sure. And just put a sticky note in your car with 2 or
3 topics you want to blog
about. When you
go in for your drive in the morning or your walk around
your neighborhood with
your dog, dictate
into your phone. Then after you dictate about that topic, you're
going to upload
it to a transcription
service like rev.com. Rev will transcribe that audio and it's like
Christmas morning. The
next day you hit this blog shows up and you have someone
else edit it someone
else post it
and someone else put it on so. So, that you are putting
your head around what's
most important
is the content. You are the professor and then you've got
people or you can hire
vendors to then
distribute that content.
So, remember,
the Googlebot is google looking for Stanford professors. Professors
that are on
their a-game.
And when you think about the leaders in your perspective space, you'd need
to
think about what
they are doing to be professors in their own right. Look at
competitor websites. The competitors
you see over and over accesses your site. They have the biggest
booth at the
tradeshow. You
know, think about the ones that are really killing it in your
field. Take a look at
what they're
doing. My guess is that they have a really dynamite website. They are blogging on
a weekly or
daily basis. And they understand the ecosystem that is social
media. Oh, I know.
That feels like
a lot. But follow me and you'll be able to keep up. And
it says little tiny micro-lessons that
as a CEO, expert, leader in your field. You know, it's a
game of inches guys.
It's a little
tiny inches and you have to keep moving toward that. Just
like with any other
marketing. Think
about what traditional marketing can you get rid of and how
can you take that
and allocate
it to being a Stanford professor in your field and the Google
bot is going to love
you.
Very interesing
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