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5 Reasons Why You Need to Use Rel=Author on Your Content

Jan
16
2012

Have you heard of Google’s Authorship program yet? Whether you’ve heard of it or not, you’ve likely seen its fruits in the search results. You know those listings that have a photo of the author next to them? Most likely they get that extra cool stuff because they’re using Rel=Author correctly and Google has accepted them to participate. Unfortunately, it’s been a bit hit-or-miss as to whether your content gets accepted or not. I saw mine accepted for a day or two many months ago, and then *poof!* it was gone. I reviewed their new guidelines recently, however, made a few changes, and sure enough, within a week or so, my content started showing up… yay!

While you may or may not get your content into the program, the only way to know is to try, and persistence is definitely a key.

If you’re thinking it’s just not worth the trouble, here are 5 reasons why it’s super important:

1. It’s Kinda Sorta Easy to Implement.

While it is a bit confusing to figure out exactly how to enable authorship based on Google’s directions (which seem to keep changing), in reality their latest criteria have made it easier than ever to implement.

I’m not going into the specifics on how to do it, because you can follow Google’s directions. Suffice it to say that the main things you need are a Google Profile page that links to the website where you have author status, and a link back from your website’s home page to your Google Profile page.

You can also have an “author page,” such as the About Us page on your website, as long as your Google profile page links to that page.

Once you’ve got that all implemented, every time you write an article, simply link your name in your byline to either your Google Profile page or your author page with the Rel=Author code, as I have here:

By

- Example Page

Be sure to add the Rel=Author tag to as many of your old content articles as well, especially ones that you know show up well in the search results.

While Google has moved toward having you link directly to your Google Profile page in your Rel=Author links (as opposed to your author page) to make things less confusing, I still link to my author page, and it works fine.

If you go this route, be sure to follow their older, more confusing instructions as well.

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2. It Makes Your Content Stand Out.

Imagine if you could put big stars around your content listings in Google’s search results that everyone would see. Rel=Author does exactly that! Only it’s not stars, but your name and photo.

Before Rel=Author became widespread, only logged-in users and those who participated in social media might see a little profile photo of you if they happened to search on something that you had tweeted about. But with Rel=Author implemented correctly, even users who aren’t logged into their Google accounts or their social media accounts will still see the rich author information and photo .

This is huge, folks, and this reason alone makes it worth figuring out the implementation.

3. Provides Credibility And More Exposure.

Beyond just seeing my smiling face in the listings for my content, as you can see in this screenshot, Google is also showing how many people have circled me on Google+ as well as a “More by Jill Whalen” link. Clicking that link shows more information about me from my Google Profile, plus posts I’ve made on Google+ related to the search query, and all the other articles that I’ve written on the subject.

I’ve also seen them show articles others have written on the subject that reference me in one way or another.

4. Higher Clickthrough Rate.

I’d say this one goes without saying, due to all of the above factors. It would be difficult to *not* click on the listing that Google is screaming for you to click on. Time will tell on this one, but so far it appears that since my authorship status started to show up in the Google results (it’s less than 2 weeks now), I’ve been getting more traffic for certain articles.

5. Additional Metrics in Webmaster Tools.

As if all of the above weren’t enough, once you have your authorship up and running and showing up in Google results, you’ll also see new author stats in your Webmaster Tools account . (Look under “Labs.”) The information there shows you approximately how many times each of your content pages showed up in the search results (impressions) and approximately how many times it was clicked on, along with other interesting details that you can’t really get elsewhere.
Of course, Google has their own selfish reasons for giving us all of this awesomeness. Their number-one priority this year is Google+ and all that surrounds it. Rel=Author provides anyone who creates online content with a darn good reason (make that 5!) to create a Google Profile. And the more people who do that, the more who might start using Google+, especially if they want to get those circle numbers up as mentioned in #3 above.

About The Author
Jill Whalen is the CEO of High Rankings, an SEO Consulting company in the Boston, MA area since 1995. Follow her on Twitter @JillWhalen

If you learned from this article, be sure to invite your colleagues to sign up for the High Rankings Advisor SEO Newsletter so they can receive similar articles in the future!

Posted in SEO | No Comments »

Google’s Search Plus Your World’s Impact on SEO

Jan
13
2012

Today, Google announced social search features with a mouthful of a name: Search Plus Your World.

We’ve been hearing rumblings around the Valley that Google was working on big new features to integrate Google+ with search results and this has been an obvious evolution for the search engine ever since they released their new social network.

This new set of features will include posts, videos, links, photos and more from your friends on Google+. It is not yet rolled out to everyone but will be made available to those signed into Google+ in the United States over the next few days.

Impact on SEO

This is part of Google’s effort to dramatically change how search works, placing an increasing importance on signals from its own social network, Google+. With 50 million users recently attained, this is a not insignificant source of data and their growth curve has been insane.

Speculation in the SEO community as well as in back channels all point to Google+ being a big part of Google’s plans for affecting how SEO works. The impact on SEO through Facebook and Twitter has already been felt quite strongly over the last two years and Google has obviously been paying attention.

Here’s what I think will be relevant for startups and marketers over the next twelve months:

Having More Pluses Will Increase Search Rankings

Take a look at almost any blog post with Plus, Facebook and Twitter buttons. Twitter and Facebook, by far, will have far more activity than the Google+ buttons. That overall inbalance probably won’t change in the next year although we will see a change in the ratio as Google+ begins to narrow the gap.

Now is the time to start building your audience on Google+ (this is our homework assignment as well), learn how the network works and begin to form meaningful connections with people who share your interests.

Links Will Still Be Important but Slightly Less So

Links, for the last decade, have dominated the collective mindshare of SEO community as the primary way to influence search rankings in your favor. We’re going to see an increased weight being placed on social signals, with perhaps slight preference towards Google+ numbers. From a search engine’s perspective, the rich data set to be found in the social graphs provided by Facebook and Google+ are irresistible indicators of quality and relevance.

What this means is that links will have a slightly less overall impact on your search performance than before. It’s still, in my opinion, going to be the primary signal for quality and relevance if only because they have a more permanent feel than most social signals, but the balance is shifting slightly.

My best recommendation here is to continue doing what you’re doing with link building, but to also ensure that your content is well optimized for distribution on Facebook, Twitter, and now, Google+.

Search Patterns Will Start to Change

Even with today’s release and Google+’s 50 million users, I don’t think Google has enough social content through their own network to significantly affect search patterns across all types of queries, but certain categories of queries may start to see changes. If you look at the types of posts that gain the most popularity on social networks, it’s those that have the most opportunity for interaction: photos, videos, links, longer posts.

These sorts of posts, from a purely search monetization standpoint, fit in well with travel and some ecommerce related queries. As this change begins to take hold, the way people search for travel destinations and products online could change to make more use of their own network’s recommendations.

Social signals (and the people behind them) are Viewed as More Trustworthy

At the current time, it is much easier to game the link graph (people have been practicing for the last ten years and there has been financial incentive) than it has been to game the social graph. For this reason, even though the overall weight and permanence on individual posts may still have less value when compared with a link, the people behind the social shares have their entire reputation and persona to back them up. This is the closest thing we will have to domain authority in the old SEO world but it’s long term impact is far more significant.

At the end of the day, spammers will figure out relatively effective ways of gaming the social graph at large scale, but we’re still in virgin territory and Google has many more options for determining authenticity with this data set than they ever did with links.

The Quality and Regularity of Your Content Will Still Matter Most

As a startup ourselves, we care most about what we can learn from this to better reach our audience and provide useful content to them. It’s clear on Twitter and Facebook that posting high quality, unique content regularly and often is the single best strategy for achieving that goal. That hasn’t changed, on the contrary it is more true now than ever before.

About the Author:
Ray Grieselhuber is CEO of GinzaMetrics, an enterprise level SEO platform based in Mountain View, CA. GinzaMetrics is a 2010 Y-combinator graduate company and backed by several individual investors as well as 500 Startups and Venture51.

Posted in Google, SEO | No Comments »

Educating Your Visitors – The Power of Giving and User-Friendly Websites

Jan
12
2012

I’ve been involved in sales and marketing for over twenty years – half my adúlt life. And sometimes I still get confused when I browse the Internet and visit websites searching for information, or to make a purchase. I’m absolutely amazed at how complicated some marketers make doing business on the internet.

Let’s talk about searching for information for a moment. After all, most people go online not to purchase anything, but rather to search for information to solve a problem they have. Knowing this is important, because if you understand that the Internet is driven by information and information seekers, as a marketer, you can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

1. You can provide information seekers with the information they’re looking for.

2. You can educate potential prospects and turn them into customers.

Educate Your Visitors First

If you visit my website, you won’t see any banners or advertising of any kind. Why? Because I built my site as a free marketing resource to educate my visitors. I’m not selling anything, so the only thing you’ll see on my site is free information… lots and lots of free information.

So how do I monetize my site? How do I make any money? Well, people read my marketing articles on highly-respected websites like SiteProNews, then they visit my website. And between the advice I dispense in my articles and on my site, as well as select small business forums, people can determine for themselves if I know what I’m talking about. Once they become convinced of my expertise, they inquire about my marketing consulting services… become satisfied clients, word-of-mouth kicks in, and voila… my cup runneth over!

In other words, I create content to educate people and help them solve a particular problem. And I do this without an agenda – without asking for anything in return. But a funny thing happens when you educate people – provided the information has value and is accurate. You enhance your credibility and boost the value of your products and services.

And this method of marketing works regardless of what you’re selling – even if you sell something as nondescript as a glue stick. Yes, a glue stick! Become the glue stick expert. For example, you can create content about the glue stick industry and related products. Educate people about glue sticks. Enhance your company’s credibility, and boost the value of your products and services.

So am I suggesting that you shouldn’t have any banners or other types of advertising on your site? No, I’m not suggesting that at all. Whether or not you choose to feature advertising on your site is a decision you have to make for yourself. I choose not to. What I am suggesting, however, is that you put educating your visitors first – ahead of profíts. If you do that, the money will follow… I promise you.

The Power of Giving

“The universe operates through dynamic exchange… giving and receiving are different aspects of the flow of energy in the universe. And in our willingness to give that which we seek, we keep the abundance of the universe circulating in our lives.” – Deepak Chopra

The bible says…

“Give, and it shall be given to you. For whatever measure you deal out to others, it will be dealt to you in return.” – Luke 6:38

In other words, the more you give to others, the more you will get back in return. You’ll find this law is infallible – provided you aren’t giving with the express purpose of getting something back in return. You see, giving disingenuously is both manipulative and calculative. And while you may reap some benefits in the short term, eventually, bad karma will come knocking at your door, and you will have to pay the piper. So when you give, give freely and mean it sincerely.

I think the great Seth Godin put it best…

“Gifts with strings attached don’t make good gifts.”

How To Create A User-Friendly Website

1. Have fast-loading pages. Slow loading pages are annoying to searchers and affects their ability to access content quickly. If your pages load slowly, this may frustrate visitors and cause them to exit your site, not ever to return.

You can quickly check your page speed at Page Speed Online, a free web application offered by Googlelabs. This tool tests the speed of your page and gives it a score from 1-100, based on the performance of your page. The Page Speed Score indicates how much faster a page could be. A high score indicates little room for improvement, while a lower score indicates more room for improvement. In other words, the higher the score, the better. The Page Speed Score does not measure the time it takes for a page to load – just whether or not it loads quickly. If you score on the lower end of the scale, read “How to Speed Up Web Pages,” to learn what you can do to speed up your pages.

2. Have a crystal clear identity. Have you ever landed on a website and didn’t know what it was about? How did you feel? You didn’t like it did you? And I’ll bet you probably clicked out of there pretty quickly. Well, your visitors don’t like it either. Don’t let your visitors have to try and figure out what your website is all about. Make it crystal clear, right from the beginning. Having a big, descriptive headline on your home page is an excellent way to announce what your website is about. Also, choose relevant keywords for your pages, as opposed to trying to trick people just to get eyeballs. Keep your keywords relevant to your web pages.

3. Keep it simple. Don’t worry about trying to impress with all kinds of unnecessary whistles and bells. (Does anyone really need flash?) Focus on usability, sales and conversions. Simple website designs convert.

4. Stay away from clutter. Have a clean, user-friendly site that makes it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for. Remember, white space is a good thing. Also, if your website has a lot of content and/or pages, add a search box, to make it easier for your visitors to find what they’re looking for.

About The Author
David Jackson is a marketing consultant, and the owner of Free-Marketing-Tips-Blog.com – Powerful, free marketing tips to help grow your business! http://free-marketing-tips-blog.com

Posted in Web Design | No Comments »

Google “Search, Plus Your World” Makes Google More Personal Than Ever

Jan
11
2012

Good or bad, it makes Google+ even more relevant to search visibility

Google just announced some new elements it is bringing to Google Search: personal results, profiles in search, and people and pages. They’re billing the changes collectively as “Search, Plus Your World”.

Now, Google has been doing personalized search to some extent for quite a while. Likewise, profiles have appeared in search results for quite some time. The new features are different in that the personal results will let users find info specifically for them. This may include Google+ photos and posts of their own and things that have been shared with them. Profiles will appear in both autocomplete and results. The “people and pages” feature comes in to enable users to find people profiles and Google+ pages related to topic areas of interest, and make it easy for users to follow these people.

“Search is pretty amazing at finding that one needle in a haystack of billions of webpages, images, videos, news and much more,” says Google Fellow Amit Singhal. “But clearly, that isn’t enough. You should also be able to find your own stuff on the web, the people you know and things they’ve shared with you, as well as the people you don’t know but might want to… all from one search box.”

“As a child, my favorite fruit was Chikoo, which is exceptionally sweet and tasty,” says Singhal, sharing an example of where the new features may prove useful. “A few years back when getting a family dog, we decided to name our sweet little puppy after my favorite fruit. Over the years we have privately shared many pictures of Chikoo (our dog) with our family. To me, the query [chikoo] means two very sweet and different things, and today’s improvements give me the magical experience of finding both the Chikoos I love, right in the results page.”

Google+ Clearly Now More Important To Search

In terms of Profiles appearing in search, Google is demonstrating why it can pay off in search visibility to be active on Google+ and develop a substantial following. Before it was clear that this was beneficial, but now, you can see directly where this will help you. Not only will Google show people you are friends with, but it will show people it thinks you would be interested in.

Google says it will show autocomplete predictions for “various prominent people from Google+, such as high-quality authors from our authorship pilot program”.

Clearly, this is also another reason to use authorship markup.

People can click on these results and easily add the person to their circles on Google+.

It doesn’t look like brand pages will be showing up as autocomplete predictions. When asked about this, a Google spokesperson told WebProNews, “For profiles in search, you will see an autocomplete prediction for people who have Google+ profiles. These are people you’re connected to or popular people related to the query. For Google+ Pages, there’s Direct Connect (launched back in Nov).”

More on Direct Connect here.

About the Author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow WebProNews on Facebook or Twitter.

Twitter: @CCrum237 | StumbleUpon: Crum |
Google: +Chris Crum

Posted in Google, SEO | No Comments »

Getting Noticed on the Web

Jan
10
2012

Website Engagement Techniques: The Caricature Effect

Marketing is all about getting noticed, getting remembered, and motivating people to action. Whether it’s a website, display ad, or video, it must first grab people’s attention, it must stop the viewer from going onto the next website, turning the magazine page, or clicking the stop button. In order to accomplish that increasingly difficult task, you must understand the Caricature Effect.

The Caricature Effect

The Caricature Effect simply stated says that what we notice is variation from the norm. Caricature artists exaggerate reality because that is how we visually distinguish one person from another. Human beings are preprogrammed to look for patterns and variations in those patterns, it’s how we recognize who people are, and it is a basic survival mechanism that helps us recognize danger and distinguish friend from foe.

By distorting an individual’s prominent facial features the caricature artist mimics the human brain’s way of remembering who’s who. Our brains are not cameras that take pictures and file them away for future reference. Our memories are malleable, they change and alter over time and experience, and as a result the things we remember best are the things that stand out, things like Bob Hope’s ski-jump nose or Albert Einstein’s wild white hair. The reason caricatures are so effective is because they emphasize the distinguishing differences that we recognize and remember. So how do we use this fundamental, hard-wired human characteristic to further marketing agendas?

What We Notice Is Variation From The Norm

Getting noticed is job-one of any marketing vehicle, so in order to get people to stop, look, and listen we need to use all the available communication elements at our disposal.

When developing a video campaign we use concepts that demand the mental processing of information by shocking, stimulating, puzzling, or tickling the funny bone of the viewer. These techniques force the audience to think, process, and decode the message, and by generating this mental activity we embed our client’s message in the audience’s consciousness. Depending on the brand and/or product, implementation can range from subtle to obvious with the trick being to make people sit-up and take notice by forcing them to think.

Pattern Recognition – The Same But Different

Human beings have evolved to watch for patterns and when an audience recognizes a familiar scenario they leap to a conclusion. It’s a way of making quick decisive decisions that can either help or hurt communication. Properly used pattern recognition can lead your audience where you want to take them, but if the pattern is too obvious or hackneyed, it can lead to viewers dismissing your message.

Let’s face-it, consumers have become increasingly jaded by too many ads that yell at them like a Billy Mays commercial, or promise improbable results like so many diet schemes, or scare the hell out of people with legal disclaimers warning of everything from headaches to heart attacks like most prescription drug ads. These feeble attempts to standout like a pair of John Daley golf slacks only succeed in reminding the audience how completely desperate, or disengaged the advertiser really is.

If you want people to remember your message you have to alter the pattern by varying from the norm so that it forces people to mentally process your information. It’s as simple as a story with a twist like how a comedian sets-up a punch line, or how a magician sets-up an illusion.

In other articles I’ve written extensively about techniques for using video but here let’s discuss something even more universal – photography. It is one of the most economical ways to create the kind of mental stimulation that makes people remember your site and your message.

Photo-Visual Engagement Techniques

Most every website has photography of some sort on it, but like most video implementations, it is rarely used to its full potential. Obviously, do-it-yourself snapshots reek of amateurism but even professional royalty-free images can be as innocuous as DIY snaps are unprofessional, and as we have stated, bland, featureless images are just not going to stimulate anyone’s memory.

Cinegraphs

Cinegraphs are photographs that move. They are created by combining a series of still images into a gif animation. The best cinegraphs use subtle movement like hair or clothing blowing in the wind to cause the audience to take a second look. What appears at first to be a regular photograph creates a “Did I just see it move?” reaction, and that’s the kind of subtle yet powerful feature that can get people to remember your site, your product, and your brand. Like any technique you have to know how and when to use it in order to enhance your presentation and reinforce your message. Just parachuting in a technique for technique’s sake is no better than a meaningless royalty free image used as filler.

Sequence Images

A sequence image is a still image that combines a series of images into one photo. Unlike cinegraphs, the image doesn’t move but it does provide a kinetic quality by showing a series of varying poses all combined into one photograph. This kind of image can be very striking and powerful and can cause your viewer to take a moment to decode the story it tells.

Selective Color

Color is another area that often gets forgotten. Different colors have different psychological effects depending on the context in which they are used. In addition to the color choice, using color as a consistent marketing communication element helps enhance and embed your identity and brand image. Many Internet entrepreneurs pay little or no attention to color imaging and it is really unfortunate as it is often an inexpensive but effective way of making a profound impression.

Photographs today are generally full color images but if you’re not controlling the color in your images then you’re missing a great chance to make a memorable impression. Of course lack of color (black and white photography) can be just as powerful if used properly. Jack Daniel’s is a brand that uses black and white and selective color extensively in its marketing.

There are several ways to use selective color in your photographic imaging. Jack Daniel’s uses a lot of black backgrounds or B&W photos and copy combined with color product shots of the bottle that has a B&W label but is filled with the golden elixir.

About The Author
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design and marketing firm that specializes in Web-video Marketing Campaigns and Video Websites. Visit www.mrpwebmedia.com, www.136words.com, and www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

Posted in Web Design | No Comments »

Vancancy at WNW Design for an Experienced Web Developer

Jan
09
2012

We have an opening for an experienced web developer – you will be joining a friendly team at our offices in Exmouth town centre, and will need to have at least three years commercial experience of building ecommerce websites in PHP.

There are several other essential skills we require, please read details on the recruitment page here: http://www.wnwdesign.co.uk/p/recruitment

That page also has details of how to send your CV for consideration.

Posted in WNW Staff Blogs | No Comments »

Establishing Ownership of Your Content – The Rules are Changing

Jan
09
2012

I was sketching out two marketing plans over the holidays for a couple of new clients and decided it was time to incorporate some of the research data/results I’ve collected during the latter part of 2011. Generally I’d spend more time testing things on my own sites first, but I’m confident enough with the results of basic testing that I’ve decided to put the ideas into live production.

There are two basic interrelated concepts that I’ve been working on – content length, and establishing ownership of new content in a way which minimizes the chance of your content being considered ‘dupe’ and increases your page authority and SERP’s.

The web is all about content, it’s basically one large article directory. The task for a search engine is to provide an efficient indexing system so we can connect with the information we are looking for in the fewest possible steps.

In the old days, when we bought our ‘Encyclopedia Britannica’, we’d flip to the front to find a broad index of content, then flip to the back to try and find a specific piece of content. It was and still is a pain trying to find something specific in a large hardcopy publication.

Obviously, search engines automate that task pretty well on the web by recording billions of documents and serving up the most relevant to our needs in a few milliseconds.

However, Google has taken it all a few steps further. With the advent of their Page Rank algorithm a few years back Google demonstrated its capacity for collecting multiple sources of information and building actionable data profiles. Google has since added to its profile arsenal by recording the specific surfing habits of its users and the websites on which they land. Combining the personal data it records about us with the data taken from a website (via analytics or just simply from standard Google searches), Google can now match us with content deemed even more relevant to our needs.

So Google has become a very intelligent content indexing system, delivering more and more ‘personalized’ results based on our surfing habits, our demographic and the performance of the websites to which we are referred.

Duplicate Content

It is no secret to any webmaster that one of the main technology hurdles for Google is duplicate content. But why should Google care about duplication if it’s large enough and fast enough to index pretty much everything on the web? Well, actually it isn’t (large enough or fast enough). And therein lies the problem.

Google needs to know the source of published content. As the author of a piece of content I should have precedence over everybody else who publishes it. Google needs to know who owns the content so it can give preference and prominence to the source and not to someone who has merely replicated it for their own self-interest or gain. It’s one of the most critical yardsticks that Google has to judge us by. If it gets the source wrong in its algorithm, all other measurements will result in a false or negatively weighted outcome. It can’t reward quality content fairly, if it doesn’t know who has authored it.

Unsurprisingly this isn’t something that we hear Google making a big deal about. Why? Because they don’t have and won’t ever have a perfect working solution. But it’s clear from some of the algorithm and policy changes during 2011 that Google is working hard to improve its chances of determining the true source of content.

The first step in a series of new steps was for Google to make a basic assumption about Article Directories. Article Directories contain a lot of content and fared well under the old system of ranking. We all know by now that some of the key directories, EzineArticles for example, have taken a major hit under Google’s new system of ranking. In a certain sense the hit has been more about sending a message than it has been about cleaning up the web of duplicate content. In a way Google has behaved like a newly elected Government. When you’re trying to introduce a new way of thinking, it sometimes helps to make a few high-profile personnel changes. So Google has basically announced to the world that duplicate content is on its radar – learn the new rules or face the axe.

When you look closely at the results of Panda it’s fairly easy to work backwards and reverse-engineer the thought processes involved. Article Directories contain primarily duplicate content, but not entirely, so Google must have factored other information into its decision to devalue AD’s. If you look at the whole scenario, it can give you valuable clues as to where things are headed. There are two clear problems with Article Directories and the type of content they provide a home for:

1 – Duplication. Clearly, people create content, often for their own sites, then use multiple article directories to re-publish that same content, either in an attempt to gain backlinks, attract direct traffic or appeal to niche re-publishers of content (syndicators). Either which way it is duplicated, and the Article Directories are the catalyst for making that happen.

When you look at everything else contained in an AD (all non-duplicate content), you see the second problem -

2 – Poor quality content. When you search an article directory for something unique, what you’ll often find is something that doesn’t read too well. In many cases that is because it has been mechanically spun from previous content. So in terms of value to the searcher, it’s even less useful than the original, which has already been tagged as a dupe.

So clearly the Article Directories, and the way in which they operate, are not going to garner sympathy from Google, who’ve taken on the task of improving the quality of the web.

So where does this leave us WRT content publishing? What are the rules and how do we play the game?

Google can’t announce the new rules yet, because they haven’t finished writing them. In a way Google is just like an intelligent marketer trying to optimize his own business. Google makes changes, tests the results, realigns its approach based on gathered data, then tests again. To stay at the top of its game, this process is perpetual – it has to be.

How does that affect you, or how will it? First off you must not hide behind ‘well it’s worked for me for the last 5 years so it must be OK’ or by sticking your head in the sand and doing nothing. iFrame cloaking, IP cloaking/switching, Xrummer backlinking, etc. all worked for a while. These were strategies that worked and have since been marginalized (or are far along that path) by the Google team. So you need to take a look at your approach to publishing content. Even if you don’t use article directories or don’t provide a mechanism for people to republish your content, the new rules are still going to affect you. The good news is that if you’re smart enough, some good opportunities will start to appear.

There’s a new system of ranking search results being worked out right now which combines Site Authority and Page Rank, along with the newly collected data that Google has at its disposal.

So how exactly does it work?

I’ll be going into detail of how you can structure your content to achieve what I term a ‘High Google Credít Score’ in part 2 of this article, to be published soon. Or visit my website at webdesigndoorcounty.co/spn.html and request part 2 via email.

About The Author
As an author and business owner with almost 14 years experience in the field of Internet Marketing, Carl Hruza has developed a number of successful web-based enterprises, and now makes his living by training other entrepreneurs to do the same. Learn more about the author at webdesigndoorcounty.co/spn.html.

Posted in Internet Marketing | No Comments »

Holiday Tales: 10 SEO Search-Ranking Myths

Jan
06
2012

SEO myths become larger every year. Some are based partially in reality, and others have spread because it’s often difficult to prove what particular SEO action caused a resulting search engine reaction.

For example, you might make a change to something on a page of your site, and a few days later notice that your ranking in Google for a particular keyword phrase has changed. You might naturally assume that your page change is what caused the ranking change. But that’s not necessarily so. There are numerous reasons why your ranking may have changed, and in many cases they actually have nothing to do with anything that you did.

Mixing up cause and effect is one of the most common things new SEOs do. If it were affecting only their own work, it wouldn’t be so bad, but unfortunately, the clueless often spread their misinformation to other unsuspecting newbies on forums and blogs, which in turn creates new myths. It’s always interesting to see how people are so willing to believe anything they have read or heard without ever checking it out for themselves.

Myth 1: You should submit your URLs to search engines. This may have helped once upon a time, but it’s been at least 5 or 6 years since that’s been necessary.

Myth 2: You need a Google Sitemap. If your site was built correctly, i.e., it’s crawler-friendly, you certainly don’t need a Google Sitemap. It won’t hurt you to have one, and you may be interested in Google’s other Webmaster Central Tools, but having a Google Sitemap isn’t going to get you ranked better.

Myth 3: You need to update your site frequently. Frequent updates to your pages may increase the search engine crawl rate, but it won’t increase your rankings. If your site doesn’t need to change, don’t change it just because you think the search engines will like it better. They won’t. In fact, some of the highest ranking sites in Google haven’t been touched in years.

Myth 4: PPC ads will help/hurt rankings. This one is funny to me because about half the people who think that running Google AdWords will affect their organic rankings believe that they will bring them down; the other half believe they will bring them up. That alone should tell you that neither is true!

Myth 5: Your site will be banned if you ignore Google’s guidelines. There’s nothing in Google’s webmaster guidelines that isn’t common sense. You can read them if you like, but it’s not mandatory in order to be an SEO. Just don’t do anything strictly for search engines that you wouldn’t do anyway, and you’ll be fine. That said, the Google guidelines are much better than they used to be, and may even provide you with a few good tidbits of advice.

Myth 6: Your site will be banned if you buy links. This one does have some roots in reality, as Google likes to scare people about this. They rightly don’t want to count paid links as votes for a page if they can figure out that they are paid, but they often can’t. Even if they do figure it out, they simply won’t count them. It would be foolish of them to ban entire sites because they buy advertising on other sites.

Myth 7: H1 (or any header tags) must be used for high rankings. There’s very little (if any) evidence to suggest that keywords in H tags actually affect rankings, yet this myth continues to proliferate. My own tests don’t seem to show them making a difference, although it’s difficult to know for sure. Use H tags if it works with your design or content management system, and don’t if it doesn’t. It’s doubtful you’ll find it makes a difference one way or the other.

Myth 8: Words in your meta keyword tag have to be used on the page. I used to spread this silly myth myself many years ago. The truth is that the Meta keyword tag was actually designed to be used for keywords that were NOT already on the page, not the opposite! Since this tag is ignored by Google and used only for uncommon words in Yahoo, it makes little difference at this point anyway.

Myth 9: SEO copy must be 250 words in length. This one is interesting to me because I am actually the one who made up the 250 number back in the late ’90s. However, I never said that 250 was the exact number of words you should use, nor did I say it was an optimal number. It’s simply a good number to be able to write a nice page of marketing copy that can be optimized for 3-5 keyword phrases. Shorter copy ranks just as well, as does longer copy. Use as many or as few words as you need to use to say what you need to say.

Myth 10: You need to optimize for the long tail. No, you don’t. By their very nature, long-tail keyword phrases are uncompetitive; meaning that not many pages are using those words, and not that many people are searching for them in the engines. Because of this, ranking for long-tail keywords is easy – simply include them somewhere in a blog post or an article, and you’ll rank for them. But that’s not optimization.

About The Author
Learn more juiciness like this at: http://www.dougburson.com/

Tola Ajayi is a writer by trade and he enjoys writing on a wide range of topics.

Posted in SEO | No Comments »

The Explosion of the Mobile Web… Is Your Website Ready?

Jan
05
2012

Just a few short years ago, it was a good bet that you would read articles like this one on your PC or laptop. Today, it’s just as likely that you are reading this article on a smartphone or tablet computer. So what’s changed, what happened? The mobile web happened, that’s what – and the Internet will not ever be the same. So, what’s the mobile web?

Loosely defined, the mobile web is a way of accessing the Internet via a wireless network, using a handheld mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet computer.

The Explosion Of The Mobile Web

The mobile web is growing at a phenomenal pace, and is forecast to overtake the desktop web in 2014. In other words, more users will access the Internet using a mobile phone rather than a PC for the first time.

Approximately 900 million people currently access the web with mobile phones, compared to 1.4 billion desktop Internet users. In 2014, mobile web users will outpace desktop users (approximately 1.7 billion mobile users to approximately 1.65 billion desktop users). By 2015, the number of mobile web users is expected to grow to 2 billion.

Assuming an annual growth rate of about 2 percent annually between 2010 and 2015 in cell phone subscriptions (77 percent of the world’s population will have cell phone subscriptions in 2010 and 87 percent will have subscriptions in 2015), about 6.35 billion people worldwide will have a mobile phone subscription and approximately 1 out of 3 subscribers(or 2 billion out of 6.35 billion) will be accessing the Internet on mobile phones. (Source: Wikimedia)

And according to the August, 2011 edition of eMarketer, 33 percent of mobile users are looking to access local content relevant to their GPS positioned location.

Is Your Website Ready?

So, what does all of this mean to you? It means more people than ever will be viewing your website through a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet computer, via a wireless network. It also means that if you want to survive and thrive, you have to adjust and adapt, and make your website mobile web friendly. The good news is, it’s easier than you think.

“Within the Alexa top 1,000 sites, 40.1 percent of all sites are mobile-friendly. These sites represent the world’s most popular web properties, like Google, Facebook and Yahoo!

Beyond the top 1,000, mobile friendliness still holds strong but is not yet as widespread. Of the top 10,000 Alexa sites, 29.7 percent perform well on mobiles. Once the input data is broadened to include the top 500,000 sites, the total number of mobile-friendly sites drops to 19.3 percent.” (Source: mobiThinking.com)

If you haven’t already done so, the very first thing you need to do is bring your website up to speed visually. In other words, you want to make sure that users of mobile devices can view your site optimally.

The quickest and easiest way to do this is to run your site through the MobiReady online testing site. This is a free service that evaluates mobile-readiness using industry best practices & standards.

The free report provides both a score (from 1 to 5) and in-depth analysis of pages to determine how well your site performs on a mobile device. There are also other tools that will allow you to test your site for mobile readiness. In fact, here are 10 Excellent Tools for Testing Your Site on Mobile Devices.

Personally, I have serious doubts about the accuracy of these types of testing tools. For example, I ran my site through MobiReady, and it gave my site a 2 out of 5 score which, according to their analysis is bad. I got the exact same score before and after I mobil-optimized my site.

Here’s the problem: I’ve had many friends and colleagues of mine, all with different makes and models of smartphones, on a variety of platforms, tell me that my site looks just fine on their phones. So while testing tools may be a useful resource, the true litmus test is what users of mobile devices are seeing – so be sure to ask them.

That being said, there ARE things you can do to mobile-optimize your website.

How To Make Your Website Mobile Compatible

1. Have a fast-loading site. Chances are, most mobile-web users who are using their phones to access the Internet are using a slower 3G connection. You can help these users out by making sure your website code is clean, which will not only make for a faster-loading site, but faster downloads as well.

2. Don’t use flash. Not all mobile devices can see flash? Personally, I’m not a huge fan of flash sites anyway. But if you absolutely, positively have to have a flash site, be both smart and considerate. Make sure you have an alternate HTML version of your site as well.

3. Have a clean, easy to navigate website. Remember, mobile users are viewing your site on a tiny little screen. In addition, there is no mouse and not all mobile devices are equipped with a touch screen. So don’t make it harder for mobile users to view or utilize your site than it needs to be. Clean up the clutter and streamline your content. Simplify, simplify, simplify. If you keep it simple, your site will be user-friendly for everybody.

4. Use HTML phone numbers. Don’t make mobile users have to type in your phone number. Use HTML so that they can simply click to dial the number.

5. Avoid horizontal scrolling. Mobile users prefer to scroll vertically as opposed to horizontally. It’s easier and less of a hassle for them. Always create your content as a single column of text that wraps for mobile users.

6. Use images sparingly. As I mentioned earlier, most mobile users are using a slower 3G connection. As a result, heavier images can take forever to load. To avoid this problem, you should use images sparingly on your website. But if you do choose to use images, they should be lighter-weight jpeg, gif or png format. Also, make sure to compress your images to avoid zooming.

7. Voice Search. Google’s Voice Search on smartphones, has increased voice search usage by approximately 600% in the past year. Since mobile devices don’t have a traditional keyboard like a PC or laptop, voice search makes searching quicker and easier for smartphone users. So you should definitely keep an eye on this trend for SEO purposes. Bear in mind, people tend to search differently when speaking as opposed to typing. For example, while you might type-search “best virtual assistants,” you might voice-search “what are the best virtual assistant services?” Again, it’s a trend you should keep an eye on.

About The Author
David Jackson is a marketing consultant, and the owner of Free-Marketing-Tips-Blog.com – Powerful, free marketing tips to help grow your business! free-marketing-tips-blog.com

Posted in Browsers, Web Design | No Comments »

Social Media And Your Small Business Website

Jan
04
2012

If you run a small business you may know:

You need a website AND Social media (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, etc.) provide important ways of connecting with potential clients (and current clients).

But don’t stop there! Learn ways to integrate social media with your website. Potential clients who find your website might want to learn more by visiting your social networks, and possible customers on your social networks may want to learn more about your business by exploring your website.

Where can you place social media icons on your website?

There are no exact rules of placement of social media icons on your website. Put them in places where you want potential customers to take action. This could mean a header, footer, a contact page (see illustration of social media icons on a contact page at right), or on the sidebar of a blog. Whatever place you choose, it’s a good idea to think about making it a spot where one can easily add an icon – after all, social media networks are popular, and you may decide a new one is worthy of placement on your website.

On some websites, businesses place social media icons next to highlighted staff members, as one staff member may be using one social media for the business and another may use two different ones. This may seem obvious, but be sure the icons actually link properly to the social media site. How annoying to try to click on a Twitter icon with no link.

What kinds of plugins are available to help with integration?

There are many plugins available for integrating social media with your website. If you use WordPress, you can search the WordPress codex for recommendations on plugins. Some of the Facebook plugins that can show your site are especially enticing – wouldn’t you want to join a group or like a site where 100?s of other smiling faces have already liked? See example of Expand2Web’s Facebook Like Box plugin at right. Here’s an article talking about various Facebook plugins in detail.

A recent newcomer to the social media mix is Google+. You may want to add the little + button to the bottom of your posts, next to a Like button and Tweet button. Google+ little plus signs can influence how search engines rank site pages. Sites with more plusses will have more influence.

Some plugins can help you with placing multiple social media networks on your website. Addthis, a social media plugin that can help you link to multiple networks, is informative because it includes analytics. This can be quite helpful if you need to report back to the boss on the site’s progress with social media.

Link back to your website on social media

On the social media sites, link back to your website in creative ways. For example, you might write a blog post on a topic that will interest a wide variety of your Facebook fans. Make sure to create a nice icon on the blog post that will appear when you put the link on Facebook business page, so it will be more enticing for users to click. Spend time to develop the meta description for the post, as this will show up on Facebook as the description. Also, talk to people about the post by using friendly, concise language. People relate to other people – if you capture their interest, they may want to learn more.

Above is an example of a shared page on Facebook with a thumbnail of space to highlight the post. Wouldn’t you be more likely to click on it if has interesting imagery?

How do you know the social media effect is working?

Are you getting hits to your own site via social media? You can keep track of social media traffic to your site via Google Analytics and other web analytics packages. In the other direction, you can monitor whether and how much people are putting your content in their social media streams by how many likes, tweets and plusses you get on your posts.

Below is a panel from a Google Analytics screen – to see how many hits a site got from sources such as Facebook or Twitter (Twitter now shows up as t.co), go to Standard Reporting tab and click Traffic Sources->Sources->Referrals.

About the Author:
Leora Wenger builds websites for small businesses, libraries and three Rutgers University departments. She loves tweaking PHP, composing a striking web design, stretching WordPress, and publicizing sites. In her spare time she’s a mom, wife and daughter. Every now and then she squeezes in the time to paint a watercolor or two.

Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

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