Your Marketing Team banner
High-Tech Communications Consulting, Inc.
Copyright 2009-present  High-Tech Communications Consulting Inc.:  Your Marketing Team
Join Our Mailing List
Email:
How Well Do You Know Google?
Your Marketing Team: 
Inbound Marketing
for the 21st century

#1: Email marketing helps you rank higher in Google search results.
This one is FALSE.  The only people who see your email blast are the people on your distribution list – and anyone to whom they might forward it.  As far as Google is concerned, it's invisible.

#2: Blogs rank higher than email blasts in Google search results.
This one is TRUE.  And if you got #1 right, you almost certainly got this one right as well. Since your blog is web based, it's visible to Google, but your email blast is gone with the wind.

#3: Social media (like Facebook and Twitter) do not help your Google rank.
This one is FALSE.  Not only can Google see the social media sites, but if they are linked to your web site (and they certainly should be!), then Google gives you "Extra Credit" for Inbound Links.  (Inbound Links are BIG!)

#4: Updating your web site once every six months or so is sufficient.
This one is FALSE.  Google's business model relies upon its ability to provide visitors with sites that are active, engaged and evolving.  That tells them that someone cares about the site and is updating the information on a regular basis. Google's worst nightmare is offering visitors the option to visit a web graveyard, comprised of sites to which  no attention is paid any longer.  Would visitors come back to Google or find a better search alternative?  No brainer.

#5: Stuffing a lot of keywords into your site can hurt you.
This one is TRUE.  And this is representative of the way Google's set of rules (or algorithms) has evolved. Not all that long ago, it was essential to place keywords in the "meta tags" (the part of the site that's seen only by the browser) . But spammers loaded up their meta tags with junk, and Google ratcheted the importance of the meta tags down significantly.  In fact, if you have too many keywords in your meta tags, it can look like spam to Google. And anything that looks like spam can sink your ranking to the bottom of the heap (and given the number of web sites out there, you're pretty much at the bottom of a landfill).

#6: You should be consistent and use the same keywords on every page of your site.
This one is FALSE.  And this gets complicated.  We no longer want to cram dozens of keywords into the meta tags.  But we do want to use keywords effectively.  Ask me or another HubSpot partner for help with this one.

#7: Outbound links (from your site to other sites) help improve your Google rank.
This one is FALSE.  If you link to someone else's site, they get the benefit of an Inbound Link (extra credit, remember?).  But your generous link doesn't help your site at all.  Sorry.

#8: Google can see how much traffic your site is getting.
This one is TRUE.  Getting a lot of traffic – and Inbound Links – makes you look like a really popular site to Google.  And that means they'll keep putting you high up in their list.

#9: The only way to improve your Google rank is to pay for advertising.
This one is FALSE.  As we've seen in the previous answers, you can improve your Google rank through savvy Inbound Marketing.  That might include social media, effective and appropriate use of keywords, Inbound Links and more.

#10: YouTube videos can improve your Google rank.
This one is TRUE in a big way!  Videos are increasingly popular, and posting a video on your site, on YouTube and on your blog can create significant inbound traffic.  Especially if you create a tempting Call to Action with your video.

The bottom line?  Google's revenue stream comes from advertising.  Attracting that revenue requires that they pay extraordinary attention to which sites are most likely to satisfy their visitors.  And they do!  Google tweaks their algorithm nearly every day of the year.  That means that any one-time fix to your web site will not provide value for long.

Copyright 2009-present  High-Tech Communications Consulting Inc.:  Your Marketing Team
Contact us today to begin a conversation that can change your business - for good.

Coming soon: webinars on inbound marketing.
Your Name
Your Email Address
SO HOW DID YOU DO ON THE QUIZ?

If you are a business owner or the VP / Sales and Marketing, any score lower than 80% means you should be getting up to speed on Inbound Marketing!  And soon.
Phone:  +1.864.653.7701