Get Your Gmail Priorities Straight

August 31, 2010 Leave a Comment

I am a big fan of Gmail, initially I will admit that most of the attraction was just because it was free and offered 2 gb of storage. Over time, Gmail has added new features like calling from you inbox that have made it more and more appealing to the geekier side of my nature. Now there is a lot you can tell about a person by their email address, so here is another reason to consider Gmail, Priority Inbox.

Essentially, it separates your inbox into three initial screens, with Priority mail on top, starred messages sorted for follow up, and everything else below. This makes the “star” rating system in Gmail a lot more effective. So far I haven’t seen any hitches or bugs, so learn more about Priority Inbox, give it a spin and give some feedback in the comments.

Filed under Google Tagged with

Youtube’s New Embedding Code

July 26, 2010 Leave a Comment

Google ‘s Youtube has released a new embed code to it’s developer followers on it’s API blog. It allows either Flash OR HTML 5 to be used, and eventually will be mobile friendly as well.

Of course, for WordPress.com users this is a little bit MOOT since they don’t allow iFrame code so it’ll have to wait until it’s fully released to see WordPress pick it up.

Filed under Google Tagged with

Rubiks SEO

December 13, 2009 1 Comment

The Magic of The Google Rubiks Cube

the Google Rubiks cubeWhen 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.

De-Mystifying The Process

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:

  • Understand The Basic Moves
  • Learn the Algorithm
  • Solve Layer By Layer
  • Go Backwards To Go Forward
  • Deal With Missteps
  • Go Past Your First Win
  • VICTORY IS MINE(Again and Again)!

Filed under Google, Search engine optimization Tagged with ,

Google is the Other Woman: The Relationship Algorithm

July 24, 2009 7 Comments

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.

Google Is My “Other Lady”

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.

Communication is Key

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.

Meta-tags: The Pick Up Line

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.

Don’t hate the Player, Hate the Game

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.

It’s All About Trust

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.

I Now Pronounce You Man and Search Engine

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.

Filed under Google, Search engine advice, Search engine optimization

Skeletons In Your Website

May 17, 2009 7 Comments

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).

Pay attention to the bones of your Site: File Names

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…

Pay Attention To File namesI 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!

Filed under Content, content writing advice, Google, Search engine advice, Search engine optimization, SES New York, webmaster tools Tagged with , , , ,

Google Update Expands Context and Snippets

March 24, 2009 2 Comments

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.

Context is Everything

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.

Sorry Guys, but Google Says Longer is Better

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]

Short Snippet Of a Google serp resultand here’s a much longer query

[Indianapolis real estate services and homes for sale in Carmel, Noblesville, Fishers, Westfield, Geist, Morse, Zionsville and other Hamilton County areas]

Longer Snippet from Google

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.

The Take Away

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.

Filed under content on google searches, content writing advice, Google, Search engine optimization Tagged with , , ,

Youtube Content Strategies for Small Business

February 23, 2009 3 Comments

Opportunity When Adding Youtube Content for your Business

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.

Strategy For Creating Video Content

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.

  • Neighborhood tours- short little 1-5 minutes talking about the different neighborhoods, and showing people around to give them a feel for the community
  • Neighborhood info- Video of you on camera talking up the area, providing the highlights and low lights
  • Local Events- Is there a local celebration, parade or problem you could video and describe?
  • Homes/Architecture- Take videos of different style homes, especially of ones you are selling- You can do an overview of what makes this home part of that architectural style ( Bonus for Realtors, you can also let the viewers know that the home is for sale and how to contact you.

Tactics To Get The Most of Your Youtube Video

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

Filed under Content, Google, Opinion, Video

Google Can Cache The Future

February 4, 2009 12 Comments

Google can Cache the Future

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!

Google Breaks the 4th Dimension

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!

Filed under Google, humor, Random

Get a “Fat Belly”: Aaron Wall’s SEO Webinar

October 22, 2008 2 Comments

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“!!

Filed under Google, Random, Search engine advice Tagged with , , ,

Google Still Uses DMOZ data in the SERPS

October 6, 2008 8 Comments

With all of the recent turmoil surrounding Google’s recent removal of it’s recommendation of submitting your site to DMOZ.org, I thought that it was particuarly intersting that DMOZ is still being used in the Google Serp results.
 
Here are some examples of How Google is still using DMOZ data:
 
When no meta description is given for a page:
 
Title: BBC America – Home Page
No Meta description or keywords
 
DMOZ Entry:
BBC America – The best and the latest of British television in the United States. 60% of the programming on this new US cable channel is original to the American market. The rest are the British cult classics everyone loves
 
Query: bbc america
 
Returned Serp Title and Description:
The best and the latest of British television in the United States. 60% of the programming on this new US cable channel is original to the American market.
 
Alternate Query: birthplace of american tv
 
Returned Serp Title and Description:
Birthplace of American TV. If the new falls shows are giving you déjà vu, do not fear… Watch marathons of of your favorite BBCA hits!
 
In this example, see screenshots here, we can see that since the BBC America site has not added a Meta Description for the page, Google is using what it feels is relevant information to fill in the gap. In the first query, it is returning the description from the DMOZ entry for bbcamerica.com. In the alternate query for [birthplace of american tv], that phrase exists on the page, which is why it is pulling the description directly from the page itself.
I might presume that BBC has opted not to provide a description because they reguarly update the content and want Google to dynamically grab information from their homepage to provide a description, either that or their web-master/ SEO guru is asleep at the switch (Additional Proof of SEO issues…on the Tv schedule page http://bbcamerica.com/tvschedule.jsp the description reads “sudhakar is great”…hmm thats some mighty fine optimization! )
  
Title and Description are replaced by the Title and Description of the DMOZ entry.
 
DMOZ entry
The Copernicus Education Gateway – Online directory of websites offering educational resources.
edgate.com
 
Actual Meta Title:
EdGate – Analyze, Assess, Adjust, Communicate
 
Query:
Copernucus education Gateway
 
Returned Serp Title and description:
Online directory of websites offering educational resources.
 
Alternate Query:
EdGate Offers a suite of Web-based learning
 
Returned Serp Title:
EdGate offers a suite of Web-based learning solutions that are secure, flexible, practical, user-friendly, and aligned to teaching standards. …
 
In this example, see screenshots here,  we can see that the query that utilized verbiage from the DMOZ entry prompted Google to return the entry as the Title and Description rather than the actual Meta Title for the page. This happens for any variable of the terms in the DMOZ entry. But when the query is altered to something else, it pulls the actual title and description from the site.
 
Google Ignores NOODP TAG
 
Below is the most troubling example, it is a case where Google is ignoring the NOODP tag  and displaying DMOZ information for some specific search engine queries in spite of the fact that this site has implemented a specific meta tag to block use of DMOZ information.
 
DMOZ Entry:
 Pat Haddad – RE/MAX Preferred – Full service agent assistant buyers and sellers. Includes MLS search, profile with biography, virtual tours, and related tools and links.
 
Query: Pat Haddad
 
Returned Serp Title and Description:
Carmel, Noblesville and Indianapolis real estate services provided by Team Haddad. Easy property searches and useful buyer & seller information for the …
 
Alternate Query: noblesville real estate
 
Carmel, Noblesville and Indianapolis real estate services provided by Team Haddad. … Noblesville Real Estate and Homes For Sale on the MLS. …
 
This site has the NOODP meta tag on it, and yet Google still is pulling data from DMOZ. This also underlines why this issue is important…this agent has changed offices and is no longer with RE/MAX preferred! Google is now replacing her relevant Meta Title with an improper title, DESPITE her request for Google not to use DMOZ! Be aware of your DMOZ entry!

Filed under Google Tagged with , , , , ,

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