How traffic gets to your website is largely determined by how well Google views your content’s relevancy and authority - in simple terms, how well your website fits with their search algorithms.

Google regularly changes its algorithm order to deter spammers whichs keeps you on your toes by ensuring your website always complies with the updates..

If you can’t be bothered to refresh your content, don’t be surprised to find your website slipping down the page. It’s why agencies (like us) continue to bang on about the importance of doing this.

The latest update toGoogle's Caffeine Web Indexing system is called the:

Freshness Update

This appeared, unannounced, on November the 3rd, and is being used to rank newer content higher in the search results for most queries.

On the results page, top-served content results are showing as time stamped and annotated more visually than before. These annotations can be in days, hours or minutes.
Real time fresh content is about breaking news, hot topics, current events, celeb gossip, video and customer reviews and its time-stamping matters more than ever before.

With Christmas looming, here are some steps to improve the “freshness” of your website.

What you can do about it today:

1. Add a blog or blog more often:
Google has valued blogs highly for a while now. Blogs add fresh content using subjects that are relevant and of interest to the people you wish to attract.
Daily blogging complies with the timeliness criteria in “Freshness” and while daily posting may just too much for your business, blogging more frequently than your direct competitors will certainly help.

2. Link-Bait:
This follows on from blogs, but includes press releases and article marketing. Any pieces of content that people (in your industry) find really interesting can quickly be disseminated virally through social media and bring in a load of links to your website. Google loves this.

3. Time stamp your articles and blogs:
This helps Google understand the timeliness of your posts. The usual format is Year-Month-Date as in 2011-11-16.  Most blogging software will manage this.

4. Social media:
Tweeting, bookmarking and Facebook updates will help push out your blogs and pull in traffic. Through social media platforms, your readers can add comments and opinions that act as new, fresh content for Google’s algorithm to index. Your “Freshness quotient” will increase.

5. XML sitemaps:
Contain time stamps for each crawled URL, so updating XML time stamps regularly is now important. Installing a stand-alone sitemap generator can be very handy.

6. Press releases:
Are possibly the most effective and fastest way of getting your “output” time stamped and indexed by Google. However, they remain fresh for just a few days, so start adding updated press releases on the same theme but with more detailed information.

Google says the most important criteria is when the content is first indexed. Merely, altering the original text afterwards will not help you.

Get your content right first time.

If you want to get cracking on any othe points mentioned above, then please give me a call at 0845 074 0068  or email sem@e-xanthos.co.uk and put on a fresh face on your website in time for Christmas.

Source:  Casey Markee, What Google Freshness Update means to you. Planet Ocean.  2011-11-11. Time: 01:48 PM

Still making basic on-page SEO mistakes? Here’s a great article from randfish that helps explain how you can get it right.

Lesson 1: Nail the page title, the headline, put the keyphrase on the page, and make sure the page is about the subject of the keyword.

Trying to achieve on-page perfection is likely to be counter-productive in terms of keyword repetition and / or making every paragraph fit the “theme” of the keyword. It is better to work out what delivers the best value.

Lesson 2: Target your keywords in your page titles and early in the body copy, URLs.

Search engines are able to pattern-match content, design, layout and usability - something approximating to detecting the “passion” in your content.

Lesson 3: Search engine can measure a page’s value and understand how people interact with it.

Google uses such data to improve the quality of searching by helping good quality content rise up the rankings, while rubbish content slides down the scale.

 Lesson 4:  Do you use more than one keyword on a page or use separate pages for each keyword? This flow chart helps explain it.

Similar phrases that have similar intent for users can be covered by a single page.

Where the phrases don’t fit together in terms of title and headline, use different pages and target the keywords separately.

Getting your on-page SEO right is just a part of the overall steps to be taken to become competitive for your chosen keywords.

If you feel your website SEO could do with a bit more ZING! why not call me on 08450740068 or email: sem@e-xanthos.co.uk

Source: 4 Ways to Help Illustrate On-page SEO  Randfish  8th November 2011

Google’s big hit on low quality, shallow content sites earlier this year (called Panda), wasn’t just Google being annoying. Combined with the launch of +1, they are giving a very clear indication that relevant, deep content matters more than ever if you to rank well.

Matt Cutts from Google says:

“Make your pages primarily for your users. Don’t display to users something different to what you display to search engines (cloaking) and ask yourself, does this really help my users? Would it still be helpful if search engines didn’t exist? Avoid tricks and be upfront in dealing with your users”.

Google is telling you to look seriously at the quality of your website content and that many traditional SEO techniques will become less effective without this. What matters is having a “damn good product” - and telling people about it.

So, what makes a “damn good website”?

It is one that people want to visit. One they want to share with friends via their networks, building natural links and creating a great buzz in the process. SEO now has to address the linking of search, social and +1.

Panda eliminated many “black hat” techniques but your challenge is to turn mediocre content (if such a thing exists on your site) into valuable content for the user.

Shallow content is generally “all about you”. It doesn’t display expert help or guide users in the best way to learn or proceed nor does it provide supporting information or social comment or sources that might be of assistance. Lightweight content will be viewed as poorer value and will rank less well.

Your website should be well rounded, with interesting, well written, hugely appealing, unique information that naturally attracts links - rather than one created solely for search traffic. Achieve this and the search engines will recognise your relevance to users anyway.

Think about:
• Creating a site that your audience really does find valuable
• Using social mentions and influence wherever you can
• Improving click-throughs from search
• Creating a buzz about your website, making people want to visit it
• Be naturally linkable, sharable, email-able and easy for friends to tell others about
• Bringing users back, again and again 
• Become more valuable to your users than your competitors are

This is the name of the game. Google has clearly said so!

On the 30th March, Google rolled out (its much delayed) access to its new +1 service, seen as a counter to Facebook’s “Like” button popularity.

While still experimental, creating the +1 icon (log-in to your Google Profiles) along side of the search results enables Google to track if friends or colleagues are searching for similar terms as yourself.

Pluses for +1

+1 is about building recommendations (through +1) to help your network of friends and colleagues access more relevant content while searching.  This social search facility now allows content and recommendations to be shared across social, search and +1 networks.

The more people interact with a large amount of content, the more useful it becomes as a resource and while it lacks Facebook’s familiarity and history, the sheer power of Google’s advertising and search reach, may well cause problems with "Likes" future success.

Minuses for +1

Nobody is sure whether +1 will work and Google have stated that they are still ironing things out - so it’s not the finished article. Remember Buzz? Wave? Not everything Google does works first time, nor lasts!

It is possible that a +1 recommendation won’t have as much relevance as a social cue because it won’t be just friends who it attracts. Will people actually bother +1-ing content? Will it be too easy to generate +1 multiple recommendations? Without content to attract engagement, people will have to remember or back-click the links that sent them there in the first place.

The reality

Facebook has 500+Million users but it carries only a fraction of the content carried by Google plus it doesn’t come near to Google’s worldwide demand for search and related products.

Google views Profiles as central to its future plans and the sharing of contextual information, in line with Google’s recent algorithm changes, continues its policy of rewarding better “social business” connections. But people will need to get a lot more familiar with Profiles before that happens.

Who knows whether +1-enabled search behaviour will catch on, but if these social cues earn some weight with Google's algorithms, anything that increases click-through rate must be a real positive step - once all the problems are removed of course!

The take-aways

1. Continue moving your business towards the social arena and create relevant information that attracts the +1s network users.

2. Blogging and sharing content continue to grow in importance as today’s world relies more than ever on personal recommendation. The potential impact of +1 on SEO will be immense and the tie in with social could soon become paramount to better visibility with Google.

Make no mistake, in Google’s eyes, social is here to stay and Google +1 could have a real impact on search marketing - or will it just be another button to add to your website?

Sources: Kipp Bodnar, Google takes search to the next level. Hubspot.com, 30/03/11                  Paul Burani, Google +1: What Does it Mean for Search Marketing?  07/04/11

Google values content because the more relevant it is, the quicker people find what they want.

However, there have been murmurings for some time that certain sites (known as content farms) have muddied the waters by hosting masses of largely irrelevant, copied, low value content in order to gain higher page positions on Google.

This prompted Google into its latest algorithm change because it reckoned these low quality content websites were damaging the usefulness of search queries. On Thursday, 24th February 2011, they unveiled a change in their algorithm that re-emphasized the importance of sites with high quality content. The change impacted on almost 12% of search results in the US.

How big is 12% Huge!

Google announced that the update applies to sites which are low-value added for users. Sites who copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. It will have a major impact on those businesses trying to take SEO short cuts.

Amit Singhal, in charge of Google’s search algorithm, did not name any “low-value” sites specifically and Google’s Matt Cutts stated that “people will get the idea of the “types of sites” we’re talking about.”

It is thought these “types of sites” include publications like Associated Content and Demand Media’s eHow.com sites that Google says “copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content.”  Demand Media generates much of its revenue from traffic generated by low-quality articles written simply to target new keyword searches. This might also apply to sites owned by AOL who recently purchased the Huffington Post — another site known for copying others’ content and re-publishing it under SEO-crafted headlines.

What does this mean for you?

As a business you will no longer have to compete with low-quality scraper sites and content farms for high results on the SERP (Search Engine Results Pages).

As a business trying to get found online it is important to make sure that you are following SEO best practices. This includes creating interesting, engaging, original content relevant to your industry as a way to drive traffic and links to your website.

Comments on Google’s changes have been generally welcomed as Google is seen as still working towards improving the end user experience. If rankings are lost by sites employing these cheap-cuts, then we all benefit.

Sources:   
Amit Singhal and Matt Cutts: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/finding-more-high-quality-sites-in.html
Eric Vreeland  Hubspot blog   28th February 2011
Phil Tutt. FTTech Hub. Goog.com  25th February 2011
Shannon Noelle. Google takes action. Josic.com. 28th February 2011.

On 8th June, Google announced the completion of its new web indexing system, Caffeine. Google created Caffeine to ensure that its search results would offer users the most up-to-date content for any given search term. What this means for your business is that the rewards for regularly adding fresh content to your website are now greater than ever before.  

Google Caffeine is Google’s new web indexing system. It is designed to enable users to find the most recent available information relating to their search term. Google says that compared to Google’s previous index, Caffeine produces search results that are 50% fresher.

Google Caffeine matters to your business because it affects the search results that Google provides. If a site has shown signs of recent activity, then Google will treat that site as more interesting than another site where there has been no recent activity. Google is therefore likely to award a higher rank in its search results to a company that has recently added content to its website than to a rival company whose website has remained unchanged for the past two years. And the higher you rank in the search results, the easier it is for a potential customer to find you.  

When people search the web on Google, they are not searching the web itself, but only the index of the web Google has created. Before Caffeine, Google used to update the main layer of its index every two weeks. The advantage of Caffeine as an indexing system is that it is updated continuously. Caffeine is a change ‘under the bonnet’ and won’t make the process of performing a search feel different to the user. But by removing the time-lag, Google can give pages where there has been recent activity higher scores, thereby helping users to find them. 

To stay ahead of your competition you need to keep on adding good quality content to your site – so keep those press releases, blog posts and new content rolling.

At the beginning of May, Google made a change to its search algorithm. The “Mayday” update concerns search results from long tail keywords – search terms 3 or 4 words long – and has led some sites to experience a 50% drop in traffic.

At the beginning of May, Google introduced a change to its search algorithm that some organisations found disturbing. Google modified the criteria it uses for selecting search results from enquiries using long tail keywords (search terms 3 or 4 words long). Although people do not use long tail keywords very often, they can still represent an important share of the overall traffic to your site. Because the change occurred around 1st May, it has become known as Mayday. 

Following the Mayday update, some sites were reporting falls in traffic of anything between 5% and 50%. Meanwhile, other sites were experiencing an increase. The reason was that Google had changed the search algorithm for long tail keywords to reward quality over relevance. For inquiries using long tail keywords, higher quality sites will receive the traffic rather than pages that are simply relevant.

Google’s Matt Cutts has explained that the algorithmic change is not just a blip. Instead, it is a carefully considered change to how Google assesses which sites are the best match for long tail queries, and “it’s not temporary”. Google’s mind is made up. What matters now is how best to adapt. The key thing to consider, says Matt Cutts, is “what sort of thing can I do in terms of adding great content, making sure people consider me an authority.” The Mayday update created panic in some quarters, but it also reminds you of the importance of maintaining a high quality website.

You can watch Matt Cutts’ explain the change:

Google has recently announced a way of making searches more personal. What impact is this going to have on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

When you perform a search on your computer, the search engine results pages (SERPs) that Google gives you are “organic”. In other words, the terms that appear highest on the list are the ones that Google judges to be of greatest interest for everyone in general.

In the SERPs, Google is determined to preserve the impartiality of its rankings. Yet in other situations, Google will try to provide you with what it thinks is going to be of most interest to you personally.

The latest innovation announced by Google will allow you to personalise your web search with stars. If you bookmark a page using the bookmark or star icon, then the next time you perform the search, the item will appear at the top of your results.

Here's where you find the bookmark/star icons:

This is what the results would look like (using Google’s own example):
 

What impact might this have on SEO? The point of SEO is to get your company to the top of the page for a term that is relevant to your business. Will stars affect how Google perceives your site? Google has promised that the star search will leave Google’s organic search results unchanged. However, the stars will occupy the top position of search results on the page. 

Businesses already ask their website visitors to “Bookmark this page” or “Add to favourites”. I suggest you make sure that you include Google Bookmarks in the options of bookmarks for your site.

You can see Google’s article here http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/stars-make-search-more-personal.html

 Search Engine Optimisation: The Good the Bad and the Ugly

Working in the Search marketing industry for the past 7 years I have come across a variety of opinions and methods of implementing optimisation for websites. To be honest there generally isn’t much difference between two good search engine optimisation people. The ideas, theories and opinions might differ, but the basics (The Good) are always the same.

The Good

What do I mean by basics?
To start off with all optimisation starts with a good and thorough keyword research campaign, followed by a full review of the website in question and then a list of on-page changes. On-page changes referring to content within the relevant tags as well as the body content of the pages. The technical aspects of the sites are reviewed and suggestions are made on navigation, linking structures and so forth. Then the more complex optimisation (The Bad) has to take place, unfortunately in today’s world the complex pieces are also the most influential in terms of impact

The Bad

What do I mean by complex?
Well, if it was that easy to explain it wouldn’t be complex! In essence for a site to be found and ranked in Google there needs to be a clear reason to the search engine, which I have to state is a robot, a machine without any feelings or any ability to make obvious connections, to rank one page above any other. One of the biggest factors in this is a ‘voting system’. The system is simply based on what other people, institutions and companies think of you, and this is picked up by Google via links into your site. Google view links coming into your site as votes of confidence, the more relevant a link is into your site, the better it is. Relevance is based on 2 main aspects, Why people are linking to the site and Who is linking to the site.

The Ugly

Why are people linking to your site?
If a website contains content on farming equipment and then has a link to a computer manufacturer’s website, Google will view this with scepticism, simply because there is no relation and will probably view this as low relevancy link. However if the same farming equipment website has a page dedicated to the computer equipment necessary to manage the farming equipment electronics, the link could be deemed as more relevant.  Hence the question, why are people linking to your site? If a page with relevant content links to the site, Google will see this as a relevant link and will mark this up in terms of trust. If Google views a link as less relevant, it will mark the link down.
Who is linking to the site?
The bigger the site, the more relevance it will pass along when it links. If a site the size of the BBC decides to link to you, Google knows that the link comes from a reputable site and it will automatically score the links from this site higher. Unfortunately in this instance an old saying of “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” comes into play. It is completely possible for a website with minimal optimisation to rank highly just because they have gained strong inbound links from big reputable websites.

The whole process as laid out is part of the Search Engine Optimisers remit. Everything has to be looked at, analysed and planned, simply because none of this is easy. From the very basic to the most complex a clear strategy has to be in place, what am I trying to achieve, how will I achieve this , who will I target, how will I target them. This only comes with experience, trial and error and a little bit of luck. But as Gary Player once said, “The more I practice, the luckier I get”