Google has always said it wants to provide the best search experience. Well, that statement may no longer be true. Apparently, it is placing more and more pay per click ads and Google’s own pages on the search results pages. Google is even running an AdWords ad that states: “Forget about SEO. To be visible in Google today, try AdWords.” What about content and credibility? Check out this blog post from Aaron Wall, one of the leaders in SEO. Will you now have to pay in order to be found? Do you need to decide between AdWords or SEO? They have always complimented each other. Will that no longer be the case?
Archive for the ‘SEO - Search Engine Optimization’ category
AdWords or SEO? Is Google killing off natural search in the name of money?
December 13th, 2011Google SEO Updates as of 12/1/11
December 6th, 2011Last week Google published another round of search improvements. They advised that this was the first of a monthly series where they will be sharing information about their algorithm and feature enhancements. Their new monthly blog posts will be highlighting the approximate 500 search improvements Google makes each year. So you don’t have to add another blog feed to your home page, each month we’ll be summarizing the posts for you.
Here are the Google SEO updates (and feature updates) for December 2011:
Image freshness. A change will not make it easier for Google to find the most recent images for news searches.
Importance of XML Sitemap
January 11th, 2011If you have a website, you should be using an XML Sitemap to help improve your Internet visibility. What is an XML Sitemap? It is a simple, effective way for you to give the search engines a list of all the URLs you want them to crawl and index. If the search engines don’t find your site or specific pages on it, your prospects won’t either!
Brief highlights of the importance of an XML Sitemap
1. Although adding a URL to the Sitemap file does not guarantee that a URL will be crawled or indexed, it can result in pages that the search engines had not yet discovered or indexed get crawled or indexed.
2. XML Sitemaps can help pages that are on the search engines’ supplemental index make it to the main index.
3. You can use these Sitemaps to let the search engines know how often a page is changed to improve crawl rate.
4. You can alert the search engines to any changes/additions to your site
5. The additional URLs you provide help increase crawl coverage and crawl speed.
6. The verification and registration of an XML Sitemap can give the search engines the credibility that they desire.
7. In all, XML Sitemaps can help improve visibility and rankings.
8. Best of all – they are FREE
There are a few things to keep in mind. It is important to use the correct canonical version of your URL (i.e. www vs. non-www.) and that you load the XML Sitemap in the highest-level directory you want the search engines to crawl. Don’t include multiple URLs that point to identical content, simply pagination pages and low value pages. And make sure that none of the URLs you include contain tracking parameters.
Start 2011 off right. Check with your web developer to see if they created an XML Sitemap for you. If not, ask them to do so right away!
What Is Blekko? The New, Different Search Engine
November 4th, 2010First Bing threw its hat in the ring. Now Blekko is joining. Are these “B” players or can they really compete with Google? As we know, Bing – a direct competitor of Google – is gaining users since its initial launch, but is still quite far behind the search engine giant. Blekko, on the other hand is different. It is not trying to take over the number one search engine spot.
Then What is Blekko?
Blekko is a search engine that allows you to search for results based on a particular viewpoint or category. For example, if you were looking for information on the recent mid-term elections from a conservative viewpoint you can quickly narrow down your search. How? With “slashtags”. You would simply type in your search query like this:
2010 midterm election results /conservative
Want to know the latest buzz on a particular celebrity? Type in their name /gossip and hit enter.
Just put in your search terms followed by the slash and the viewpoint or category you want and Blekko narrows down the results for you. Blekko currently maintains over 250 slashtags, including blogs, news, gossip, green, even chocolate. These slashtags are really a collection of relevant topic websites. You can even create your own slashtag and make it public or private. Blekko’s goal is to identify the best 50 websites on the Internet for the top 100,000 search categories.
How Does Blekko determine what websites to show and in what order?
Unlike Google or Bing, Blekko is pretty transparent with how it determines its rankings. It tells you the final algorithm score for a website and why the site ranks as it does. You can really dig down deep into its decision process. This is such a comprehensive topic that it needs to be addressed it a separate post! Stay tuned.
Suffice it to say that for deep, driven or truly targeted research, Blekko really has something to offer.
SEO and Google TV
September 13th, 2010Web. TV. Two HUGE marketing platforms that will soon be one thanks to Google.
Approximately 400 million web searches are performed everyday. The average American watches 5 hours of TV on a daily basis. While these two stats may appear unrelated, Google is changing that. Google TV, which seamlessly joins the web and television, will make its debut in the U.S. this fall and world-wide next year. So, if you have been putting off tuning up – or even starting – your search engine optimization and Internet marketing campaigns, you may want to start kicking them into high gear.
What is Google TV?
This brand new service from Google will change how and where people will surf the web. Google TV will project a search bar on top of the television screen allowing viewers to search the Internet in real time as well as live tv listings – all without leaving the couch or sitting up to type on your laptop. The tv serves as the monitor running on Google’s Android operating system. You will even be able to change the channel using Google speech recognition technology and access Google Apps!
Google TV and your SEO and Internet Marketing campaigns
There are over 4 billion tv viewers worldwide and, as we said, about 400 million web searches everyday. Who knows how many more searches will be performed with this new service or how many more opportunities for your site to be found by prospects. Now is the time to optimize your website and get a jump on the competition.
Bing Yahoo Searches Now One In The Same? A Microsoft AOL Deal? What do these partnerships mean for your SEO?
June 18th, 2010It appears Microsoft is doing its best to give Google a run for its money. Last year it launched its revised search engine Bing, which currently accounts for about 12% of searches. Now it is going full force with the partnership it forged with Yahoo last summer. The two companies are working together to replace Yahoo’s search engine with Bing creating a single Bing Yahoo Search Engine. They are also transferring tens of thousands of current Yahoo advertisers to Microsoft’s search-advertising platform. It is anticipated that Bing will be handling all of the searches on Yahoo by the end of the year drawing in another 18% of searches. This will give Microsoft about a 30% share of U.S. Internet searches – still far from Google’s 64% – and reduce the number of top search engines from 3 to 2.
To further enhance its search engine presence, Microsoft is in talks with AOL to replace Google with Bing as the search engine on the company’s Internet portal bringing an additional 2% of searches. Google and AOL’s current deal expires in December.
What do the single Bing Yahoo search engine and the Microsoft AOL deal mean for your website’s SEO?
- While many website owners have mainly focused on getting high rankings on Google, Yahoo, Bing and AOL can no longer be ignored. You need to create a web presence on all four.
- If you enjoy higher rankings on Yahoo than Bing, you now need to find a way to improve your Bing rankings so you don’t take a hit when Yahoo replaces its search engine with Bing.
- If you have higher rankings on Bing than Yahoo, you may reap a nice benefit from this partnership.
- You may want to consider Pay Per Click advertising on Yahoo or Bing as their search share grows.
What can you do to prepare for the new Bing Yahoo Search Engine?
- First, ascertain your Bing and Yahoo rankings for your most important keywords.
- If your Bing rankings are lower than your Yahoo rankings you can try to match Bing’s algorithm. There are quite a few tools and resources available to help you optimize for Bing, including the white paper Bing – New Features Relevant for Webmasters.
- Most importantly, just focus on SEO best practices – target the right keywords, maintain an SEO friendly site, create fresh content and build links.
If these changes seem daunting, your SEO professional can help you through them. The world of SEO is constantly changing and it’s our job to stay on top of it all.
Can a small website rank well for competitive search terms? Yes, it can!
April 6th, 2010Take a look at the search results page below.
The term “baseball’s greatest hitters” returned about 752,000 results. Included in the top listings are:
• baseball-almanac.com with a Google Page Rank of 4;
• amazon.com with a Google Page Rank of 9; and
• www.baseballsgreatesthitters.com which has not yet received a Google Page Rank.
The owners of baseballsgreatesthitters.com came to Write On Point to help improve their website visibility. Even though their domain name is the search term “baseball’s greatest hitters” they were not ranking well for it. We optimized the site – strictly on page SEO, no linking strategies or pay per click campaigns – conducting keyword research and analysis and providing SEO copyediting. In a month’s time they were in the top 5 for “baseball’s greatest hitters” and enjoy high rankings for such competitive search terms as “baseball’s top hitters” (in the top 20 out of over 1,800,000 on Google, 1 out of 7,800,00 on Yahoo and 9 out of 3,400,000 on Bing) and “steroids and hall of fame records” among many others.
www.baseballsgreatesthitters.com is a young site, with no backlinks and no press. Yet it ranks in top spots for competitive terms with the likes of Amazon, ESPN, Fox News, Reuters, PBS and Wikipedia. Imagine what could happen if www.baseballsgreatesthitters.com started Linking, Internet Marketing and Public Relations campaigns.
Effective SEO can make a huge impact – it does not matter whether your site is large or small. If you take the time to do keyword research and analysis and incorporate those keywords into the appropriate places – and stay on top of them – your small, unknown website could also compete with the big guys. There are many books on SEO on the market; however, the rules are always in a state of flux. We suggest, in order to achieve the best results, that you rely on the expertise of an SEO professional who works in this field on a daily basis. Unfortunately, there are many companies out there who say they do SEO. Don’t get taken for a ride. Make sure to ask for samples of their work and references. SEO may seem like a costly investment, but can you afford not to be found?
What happened to Google’s local search results? How does their absence impact your site’s SEO?
December 27th, 2009It appears that Google’s local search results for some categories – including Internet Marketing, Marketing, Advertising, SEO and Web Design – have completely disappeared globally. As a SEO/Internet Marketing company, we not only utilize and rely on traffic from Google’s local search, but also stress its importance to our clients. It is a little difficult to do either now that the search results for our categories are no longer there. Go ahead, try it. Type in Advertising Agency New York City or Marketing Los Angeles or Web Design Chicago. You will not see any local listings. Type in Florist Dallas or Dentist Boston and you will. The question is will they disappear also?
Where did Google’s local search results go? We have Googled this question and found two forums that address it:
A Google employee suggested that the local search results for terms such as Marketing and Web Design are not showing up because there is not enough local intent. This answer makes no sense because until a month or so ago, local listings for these categories did show up and they are categories you can select when you create your Google Local Business Center listing. Until these listings disappeared, local listings even showed up if you typed in SEO Warwick New York, which includes a self-created category and a small town.
The lesson. Relying solely on a Google Local Business Center listing for web visibility and traffic is not wise. While we don’t understand what is really happening with these local listings or when this issue will be resolved, we do still believe in the importance of Local Business Center Listings for our clients. However, you cannot rely solely on them. You need to optimize your site with your locale also in case the local listings for your industry disappear as well.
