When I first saw someone solve a Rubik’s cube, it looked like magic. A bewildering flash of turning corners, spinning layers and yet flashes of some type of pattern to how it was done… I felt the same level of intimidation when I started working on websites and was being told how you get a website to rank in the search engines.
With the Rubiks cube I found myself picking it up again and again despite the fact that again and again I’d find myself stuck, or undoing all of my hard work!
In a similar way I’d begun my journey to learn Search Engine Optimization, and I’d find myself making misteps, get frustrated with how things came out and be on the border of giving up… but still sticking to it.
As anyone who does slight-of-hand tricks will tell you, the first hundred times you attempt your trick it will be bumbling, slow and awkward. The same is true of learning and implementing SEO tactics online. However, now I can solve a Rubiks cube in just a couple of minutes, no matter how mixed up it is… I think that looking at how you approach a Rubiks cube is very helpful as you approach Internet Marketing. These are the basic steps you’ll need to take and the posts I will be making over the next few weeks:
Categories: Google · Search engine optimization
Tagged: rubiks cube, seo
Over the weekend I had the opportunity to talk to some of my friends who are not in the search engine optimization industry, and made a realization as I was explaining how we understand Google actually works. I found myself quickly relying on an analogy that I think might be useful when talking to perspective clients, so I thought I would share it.
I came to the realization that the relationship that I have with Google is actually extremely similar to the relationship I have with my wife *shameless promotion* who runs an awesome online vintage shop. Looking at the way that I interact, communicate and understand what it is that Google is looking for mirrors the way that I find ways to communicate and interact in my romantic relationship. So we can take a stab at understanding Google’s ranking factors, by looking at the factors in our relationships.
When you are talking to a girl, and hope to begin a relationship you have to let them know about you, who you are, what you do, and what your interests are in life. When you are building a website, you need to also be communicating to Google who you are, what you do, and what interests might bring people to your website. You can’t just be fluff, you have to have content that’s relevant and makes “semantic sense”. This means that the year 2000 tactics of stuffing pages full of keywords and not actually using real sentences is out. The way you present yourself and dress does say something about you, no it’s not just being shallow. If you like to wear a stained and faded black sabbath t shirt with hopelessly ripped jeans, it sends a message about you. Header tags ( h1, h2, h3 etc) have the same effect, they send a clear signal about your page’s content, so be sure to use them effectively.
Do you believe in love at first sight…or should I walk by again?
You only have one chance to make a first impression, and being far too forceful can have just a negative impact on your chances of impressing Google, as an attractive woman. In your first conversation, you also need to be truthful about what it is you actually do. If you claim to be “in finance” and turn out to be a cashier at the local Quikie Mart, then you aren’t going to be seen as particularly trust worthy.
In your meta-title, description and keywords you need to describe what it is your site is about, without adding items that you don’t actually cover. Also be sure not to stuff your meta-keywords with tons of repetitions or words and topics your site doesn’t cover. Recently Google made a change to it’s handling of meta-tags for longer queries, and uses items from the page to understand context, and this is important because it means that Google is looking past the “pick up lines” and looking at the content of your site, and letting searchers see more of the context from your page before they even click through to your site.
If the people who know you refer to you as “shady”, or “flirtatious”, then a woman you want to be in a relationship with is going to be second guessing you, questioning your actions and generally not going to be secure in her relationship with you. Likewise, if you hang out with a crowd of people that are constantly having “drama”, getting in arguments with their girlfriends, go out gambling and hanging out in strip clubs, you are most likely hurting your chances. Whether you think it’s fair or not, people are going to make assumptions about you and your character based off the company you keep. Even worse is if you consistently stand up and talk up these people as your close friends who can be trusted…when they can’t be.
Google also looks at who your website is “hanging out with”, and is going to analyze your online relationships. If you’re linking out to adult and gaming websites, and recommending your visitors to those types of sites, you’re going to lose credibility with Google. What other sites say about you will be used by Google to evaluate your relevance to a particular topic, so be sure you’re getting good “anchor text” from reputable websites that are related to your site’s theme, topic, or geographic area.
To summarize my analogy, no relationship can function without trust. Without it, both partners will start taking on negative behaviors, and trust me, you do NOT want to have Google as your Ex-Girlfriend! But if you stick to the straight and narrow, and faithfully update your content, find trustworthy links and friends to support you, then you will over time become more and more trustworthy to Google and your girlfriend.
A relationship in the end is about commitment. If you do not commit yourself to the time needed to write content, create videos, blog, respond to blog comments, submit yourself to directories, put out link bait, promote yourself socially then you’re not going to have a very successful website or online presence. So get over your commitment issues, and go for it! Now repeat after me:
I SEOer,
Take Thee Google,
To Love and to Optimize for,
With useful, unique content
through serp changes and algorithm updates,
For Adsense or Adwords campaigns,
Till Death or Server Outage do us part.
Categories: Google · Search engine advice · Search engine optimization
In this last year I worked with a client to put up a website for him for La Quinta, California. As usual I added a sitemap( BTW this site makes quick and easy xml sitemap files) and verified the site with Google’s webmaster tools (Which just underwent an awesome Google facelift and gives more data and feed back than ever).
Well, I just went back and checked in to my Google webmaster tools account and discovered something very strange for this real estate and local centric website for La Quinta, CA…
I was totally confused why this site had so many different terms that it ranked for for “Skeleton”… Well I did some digging and realized that when I built the site, I had added the background image with the file name “images/skeleton.gif”. The rest of the site has NOTHING to do with skeletons but here Google is giving rankings for a wide mix of terms related to the main content of the page, as well as for terms related to skeletons! For example Google webmaster tools showed me ranking 48 for [Jack Skeleton] from Nightmare Before Christmas, as well as [skeleton in desert] which seemed to have used the geographic context along with the filename. The lesson here for your site is that filen ames are one of the many factors in how Google understands your website, so do everything you can to name them appropriately!
Categories: Content · Google · SES New York · Search engine advice · Search engine optimization · content writing advice · webmaster tools
Tagged: Content, file names, images, optimizing images, seo
Google just released a 2 part update that they have announced through their blog. The first aspect is the addition of related search results to your serp pages and new technology (The Gypsy indicates it’s part of a larger algorithm) for Google to correlate terms, the second is an extension of the Description field in the Google “Snippet”, which should prompt us to review our current SEO practices to make sure it’s still the most rational approach.
Google hopes to enhance the search experience by better understanding user intent. First up, a new technology has been deployed to understand the associations of a given search phrase. Google offered up the example of “principles of physics.” With the new technology, Google now understands that “angular momentum,” “special relativity,” “big bang” and “Quantum Mechanic” are all related terms, and will alter SERP behavior accordingly. This is important to bear in mind as you write your content that you need to focus on a broader range of related keywords, because Google isn’t looking just at how many times a single keyword is appearing, it’s looking contextually. Therefore you need to provide a broader context for your content in order for you to show your relevance to that set of related keywords.
When you enter a longer query, with more than three words, regular-length snippets may not give you enough information and context. In these situations, we now increase the number of lines in the snippet to provide more information and show more of the words you typed in the context of the page.
Sounds great right? Well, you need to look at this a little bit harder to see how this could impact your search engine optimization of your website. In the past, the limit of approx 140-160 characters for your description was pretty standard, because that’s what would actually display on the serp. However, this question comes to mind:
Is the expanded Snippet the Meta description or text from the page to provide “context”?
Now I had previously done some research on how Google uses DMOZ information in their snippet results. So I started with that URL to provide a historical sample so we could compare.
Well here’s a query for [http://www.pathaddad.com]
and here’s a much longer query
From this example we can see that this snippet extension will, for longer query terms, increase the size of viewed characters in the meta description as well as pull in contextual text bits separated by an ellipse. The length can be more double and triple the previous 140 character limit. The good news is that in context it may uncover extra details from a long description, but I would still say that it would be best to provide a 140 character limit meta title and let Google grab extra snippett description from the page to provide content.
It is interesting that Google is taking steps to encourage long tail searches. With the release of the Google suggest, we saw an increase in “Fat Belly” terms…but this change while focused o nthe user experience, shows Google is interested in serving long tail queries more effectively. You need to provide a broader context for your content, and it will lend itself to supporting long tail queries.
Categories: Google · Search engine optimization · content on google searches · content writing advice
Tagged: google snippet length, meta, meta description, snippet
Youtube is now the 2nd largest search engine online, with 15 hours of video uploaded every minute it also is one of the fastest growing mediums online. This represents a vast opportunity when it comes to generating video content for your business. This is becoming even more crucial, as Google’s “Universal Search” is becoming more and more prevalent, and gives even more exposure to businesses than ever before.
First off you need to get yourself any decent type of video camera, which at this point could be anything from a phone to a professional camera with a tripod setup. I personally recommend a GorillaPod, so you can setup and film on any surface, even uneven surfaces. Next you need to look at your business, what do you offer and how can you interpret that into video. I myself believe this is where many people give up, and walk away because they don’t feel very creative, however I suggest taking a pen and pencil, and writing down every time you find yourself describing something your company does that takes more than 5 minutes to explain. You’ll find all sorts of topics in your industry that need explanation, and chances are that your clients are online looking for that information. If you are the one to present it to them, then you are likely to be remembered when services are required, or be contacted to become the service provider right then and there. Also remember that you don’t have to simply take videos of EXACTLY what it is you do…for example, a Realtor might take videos of vintage homes in different neighborhoods around the city. This would give the viewer an idea of what the community is like, and possibly affect their future home purchases. Here are some more random thoughts on local based video opportunities.
There are many opportunities to promote your website through the use of your Youtube video. First and foremost, make sure that you use an accurate title, a full description using complete sentences and tag the video with relevant topics. Be sure to add your hyperlink to your full URL first thing in the description of your video, example http://www.yourwebsite.com, because your video might be exported to other platforms, and if you add your full URL, it may be seen on a whole host of various websites. Make sure that you create a “Channel” for yourself, and give your site proper credit through a link where they allow you to add it, as well as again adding the full URL to the description. Also be sure to “Geo-Tag” your video, in the settings when you upload it. This allows you to set a specific geographic location for your video, which might be used as a trigger to appear in specific searches. One advanced tip for you is to make sure that your Business listing in the Google Local Business Center will let you associate up to 6 videos with your online business profile. This cross reference can strengthen the value of your business profile, as well as the value of the videos themselves.
Do you use video with your business? Have some thoughts on creating video content, please share!
Update: Wanted to add this link in to a list of other video sites where you can add your video, and a break down of how they link back. From @seosmarty
John Jones, and his new Weekly SEO blog have discovered that Google has now gained the ability to travel through time, and cache a page in the future!
This represents a whole new unprecedented level of technology being harnessed by Google…TIME TRAVEL!
While it’s always been known that search patents and systems are constantly being devised by Google to shorten the return time of pages when queried, this I feel represents the next logical step in Search, which is of course “Futuredexing”(Indexing pages before they’ve been modified by the user). While I don’t yet have any confirmation from @mattcutts that they are implementing measures to circumvent the space-time continuum, we don’t have any DENIAL of it either…
Well, the proof is right here! GOOGLE CAN TRAVEL THROUGH TIME!
UPDATE:
Although Cynics like @kid_disco of SEO Disco may nay say and state that it’s a function of Greenwich Mean Time Differing with my Pacific Standard time…there’s still no conclusive proof that Google isn’t hopping into the Digital Delorean, and Gunning it to 88 MPH!
Tuesday was the day for SEO Strategies for the 21st Century with Aaron Wall, the owner of the SEO book website and I must say it was a pretty good webinar. He covered quite a bit of ground across the board in terms of strategic items to look at as a webmaster. Here are the key take away items that I thought had the most value for site owners.
The Role of Keyword Suggestion
The most important answer to one of the questions that Aaron fielded in the webinar was about the continuing integration of keyword suggest into the search engines and how people use search. You can see in Google Chrome, IE8, and Yahoo integrating a keyword suggestion tool into the browsing experience and it is very important to understand the way that this will change search, and should impact our methods of optimization.
Keyword Suggestions are going to lead to fewer natural Queries, as full sentences and fewer misspelled queries as well.
Get a “Fat Belly”
Here is Aaron Wall’s advice on how to handle the impact of the keyword suggest systems that are becoming more and more integrated into the search experience:
Get a “Fat Belly”.
Let me explain what this means… as the suggest tool gives users suggestions on their terms as they write, one word terms and long tail keywords are going to lose ground to the “Fat Belly” terms i.e. terms that that are in between the long tail, and one word that fit a large number of queries. The key is remembering that it’s a cyclical situation, because the suggested terms that appear, and will continue to be used more and more by users, are ordered by popularity. This means that your keyword research definately needs to include some study of the Google and Yahoo suggested terms that describe your particular industry. By focusing on the “Fat Belly” terms, you will get better placement in those serps that searches are getting prompted to use by Google Suggest. So go get “Fat Bellied“!!
Categories: Google · Random · Search engine advice
Tagged: aaron wall webinar, fat belly, google suggest, seo strategies 2008
Categories: Google
Tagged: "NOODP not working", dmoz, DMOZ.org, Google, google using DMOZ info, noodp
2001 vs 2008 Google Result for SEO
For Google’s 10th Anniversary they released access to their oldest index. This allows you to search like it’s 2001. By doing a search for the verticle term “SEO” we can see many, many differences in usability, depth and intent in the Google platform.
The differences are facinating! First and foremost is the evolution of SEO as a concept…it didn’t even exist in 2001! Now a good portion of business hinges on the forces of search engine optimization. There are 280,000,000 results in 2008 for the term SEO, and in 2001 there were 148,000…the kicker is that the number one site for the term SEO was for “Sponsors for Educational Opportunity“!
It’s incredible to look at the old SERP result page and compare it side by side with the SERP for the same term in Google 2008. Looking at them you can see the expansion of Google’s capabilities. You can access Image search, Maps, News, Shopping, Gmail, News, Blogs and groups as options for more refined types of searches. This obviously represents a gigantic expansion of the capability of Google to understand and sort information into relevant verticle entities. It’s also an indicator of the explosion of content available through the search engine.
As for the serps themselves, though Google still utilizes the Title and description as the main result, but we can see a difference in usability. Cached pages and similar pages are accessible for each result. There are also indented results, of additional pages from the same site that match that query which gives individual sites a wider opportunity to dominate the SERP by providing multiple pages of relevant content.
We can see the evolution of search, and just by looking at the development of an entirely new field of work that has been created through this sytem we can see a profound impact on our society. The way that people look for local businesses, find information, find and enjoy video, has all been changed forever. I think that It makes it even more important for us to look to the the future of search as envisioned by Google. I’m quite sure that in 10 years when we look back at our search engine results we’ll be surprised and startled by the dramatic changes in the way that we live our lives.
Categories: Google
Tagged: comparison, Google, seo, verticle search term
