Thursday, April 15, 2010
More Real Time Search from Google
Twitter Traffic Volumes and Trends
When you search on Google there is an option to the left top that says +Show Options, if you click on that a sidebar opens with various options, one of which in the top set, is Updates. If you choose this option, once the feature is rolled out by Google in the next few days, you will see a screen like this;
The chart at the top shows the volume of traffic on Twitter regarding that subject. To see what the volume was a month ago, lets say, just press the arrow to move the period of time backwards. Trending of topics is easy to see with this facility.
Find New Twitter Friends
In Google Labs they have introduced Follow Finder for Twitter where you add the twitter name for someone, but do not put in the @ symbol as I did initially, and Google will show you suggestions as to who you might like to follow and on the right a list of Twitterers who have similar followers.
If like me you have found the search function in Twitter itself very frustrating you may well find this useful. If you want to follow any of the suggested contacts just click on the follow button and they will be added automatically to the list of people you follow on Twitter.
Google Uses Website Load Speed
Google has after a lot of warning introduced site speed as a part of its algorithm which means that it will take into account how slow the site loads when deciding which websites to list in its search results. They give 2 reasons for this, (i) User experience as they have found that users tend to leave slow loading websites more quickly, and (ii) Resource usage as slower loading websites use more server resources.
This introduction of a new algorithm has not been fully implemented yet and only applies to searches in Google.com which are performed in English, however I am pretty sure it will be rolled out across the whole system soon. In the Google Webmaster blog they say;
While site speed is a new signal, it doesn’t carry as much weight as the relevance of a page. Currently, fewer than 1% of search queries are affected by the site speed signal in our implementation and the signal for site speed only applies for visitors searching in English on Google.com at this point.
For some time in Google Webmaster tools there has been an option under Labs to look at Site Performance. Here you will see a chart displaying over time the average time it takes for your website to load over the last few months. Unfortunately these results include countries with incredibly low speed internet connections so if for example your website is only aimed at customers in the UK you may still find you have a low load speed if a lot of people in the USA, where some internet connections are very slow, are accessing your website. In addition they also take into account the load speed of logins to admin as found on Wordpress or other Content Management System (CMS) websites. I do not consider this fair as these are not relevant to user experience and we should have the option to exclude these pages.
Anyway what do we do about improving load speed?
1. If your server supports gzip then gzip all your files,
2. Optimise any images so that they are as light as possible, an excellent online tool for this can be found at Image Resizer.
3. Do not have separate CSS style sheets, combine them all into one,
4. Combine all javascript used into one file.
5. With html code and css remove unnecessary spaces, comments etc if gzip is not enabled on your server.
Related Posts:
Google Uses Website Load Speed
Website Speed and Admin Pages
New Webmaster Tools Top Search
Google Webmaster Tools now have an updated Top Search Section on the dashboard.
Here you can see the impressions and clickthroughs for the top search terms used by searchers.
Impressions are the number of times that your site’s pages appeared in the search results for the query. Clickthrough is the number of times searchers clicked on that query’s search results to visit a page from your site. In addition to impressions and clickthrough numbers, you’ll also see a list of your site’s pages that were linked to from the search results for that search query.
If you click on the more link you will go through to a full page where you can see a chart of the results;
Under the chart is a list of all the search terms and if you are focussing on particular keywords you can, using the top right hand box select that particular keyword to see all of the phrases entered into the search engine that contained that particular keyword. Regional information can also be obtained by selecting from the countries drop down and if you want to look at a particular range of dates, for example following a particular campaign you have run, you can also choose to look at these selected results.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Marketing Your Website
The internet provides you with a number of free ways to market your business and your website.
Analytics
Use a free package like Google Analytics to measure and check which sources drive traffic to your website and ensure that you focus your marketing efforts towards the traffic sources that drive traffic that does not bounce straight off your site. If you have a bounce rate of more than 30-40% look at the page these people are landing on and see whether you can make it more appealing. You want to entice people deeper into your website or to purchase goods or services from you.
Build Good Content
Make sure you update the website content on a regular basis. Make sure your webs pages reflect recent changes in your industry and make it informative and helpful so that users bookmark your site and refer other people to it.
Build Links
Every good website that links to you provides a “vote” for your website. Google respects those votes and will therefore give your website more prominance in search results. Earn links by having wonderfully interesting content that people want to keep referring back to or if there is some online service you can provide then do so for free and people will bookmark or favourite your website as they will want to keep coming back to use the tools. Other websites will also link to you. Buying links, link exchange and link farms are not the way to go. Good interesting heplful content and active helpful participation in forums and in blog comments will earn you good links. 5 good quality links are worth more than 100 unrelated links - you want to earn links from websites whose content has relevance to your websites content.
Social Media
Use social media like Twitter and facebook to build relationships with people and to advertise your goods or services. Good online business relationships will drive traffic and business to you.
Google Alerts
Set up Google alerts for your name and your business name so that you can keep an eye on what the online community is saying about you and your business.
Persue all of these things and watch your online reputation grow, it will not happen instantly but consistent action by you will bring results over time.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Matt Cutts Suggestions for Link Building
As you may know from my earlier posts I have had a couple of hours to watch a few Google webmaster videos and thought I would summarise them on my blog. A particularly interesting video was on the best methods for link building apart obviously from the Golden Rule of excellent content.
The first point Matt made was to avoid ANY kind of paid for links. That does not mean however that you cannot pay for work by an SEO company, like ourselves, to help you build links, it just means that you should avoid any situation where the only reason someone has linked to you is because you handed over cash, either to them or a link building company.
I like Matt’s video because all of the methods he suggests are good honest “vote for me” type methods. Here are his suggestions together with my comments and observations;
The Occasional Rant!
Although you should not make a habit of this as it will soon turn people off, the odd rant about bad service or your own particular gripe, can because it is controversial draw people to your website and if you can manage to be humourous too then all the better.
Answer People’s Questions on Forums etc
Many have nofollow on any links so you will not get pagerank directly from the forum but if people like your help and advice then they will visit your website and bookmark you. I love helping on forums, webmaster help and Yahoo and find when I look at my analytics my websites get a lot of traffic from these sources.
Original Research
When Google announces a change in the algorithm for example, research how that affects your business and write a blog post on it. Everyone likes up to date stuff and many new releases will have glitches so find those out and let everyone know and they will love you for it.
Newsletters
If you keep your customers up to date with your business and offers they will click on the links in your newsletter, visit your website and possibly buy more from you. Don’t let their attention wander to your competitors.
Social Media
Use twitter, facebook, forums and blogs.
Try to Get an Invitation to Speak at an Event or Conference
The majority of the delegates will probably visit your website and bookmark your pages.
“50 Best” Lists
Although as Matt says these have been rather over-used they are still worth doing once in a while although less important than the other methods listed here.
Every Business Should Have a Blog
Use your blog to put on amusing stuff that helps define who you are, build a reputation for knowing your stuff and add useful tutorials on “how to do” whatever your area of expertise is.
Provide Free Useful Online Services
If there is apart of your business that you can put online and offer for free then do so as these online tools will often be bookmarked and used often. I, for example, visit a particular online image optimiser many many times a day when setting a website up. I do have other PC based tools that will do the same job but the online tool is so easy to use I prefer to return to that one each time.
Make Sure Your Website Architecture is Good and that it is Easy to Bookmark Your Pages
Make Useful, Funny or Informative Youtube Videos.
Gill Keeble
SEO Commercial- SEO For Your Business
Googles Matt Cutts SEO Tips III
Now the final part of my quick summary of some Webmaster Help videos;
Why Does The Link: Operator Not Work?
Matt explained that Google only shows a small selection of the inbound links to your website when you use this search term. To get the full list of inbound links you need to look in Google Webmaster Tools. He said that this was so that your competitors cannot find out who backlinks to you but I must admit that did seem a bit lame to me as there are so many other tools on the internet that you can use freely to show the backlinks to any website.
Does Pagerank flow from Nofollow links on Sites like Wikipaedia?
He said categorically that PR does not flow on any nofollow links. He explained that the point of getting backlinks from authorititive websites who use nofollow is so that people find your website from these well-known sites then visit your website and add their own link to you which hopefully will NOT be nofollow.
Does Pagerank Flow Through URL Shortened Links?
Matt said that if the URL shortener has been set up properly with a 301 redirect then it will be treated as any other 301 redirect and PR will flow.
My next post will be on Matt’s suggestions for link building.
Googles Matt Cutts SEO Tips II
Now continuing my summary of some Webmaster videos;
Can I Use More Than One h1 On My Web Page?
Matt’s answer was that if there are 2 distinct sections for example on your page then it is fine to have one h1 at the top and then another further down the page where the other topic starts but just don’t overdo it as the algorithm will penalise you if the page is swamped with them particularly if they are made to look just like ordinary text.
Does the Order of Headers on My Web Page Matter?
He says that the order does not matter as the algorithm will still try and process the page even if the syntax is wrong. He said that approximately 40% of pages on the web have serious syntax errors but if possible they try to still process them. I think the conclusion is that you should get the coding and order correct if you can but, if like the person who asked the question, you are a beginner and using a template which has syntax errors then not to worry about it.
Should I use an Underscore or a Hyphen as a Separator?
Matt says in his video to use hyphens as underscores are not at present seen as word separators by the algorithm.
How Do I SEO My Website On A Budget?
His suggestions were to start small either in geographical area or by choosing a niche part of your market. Develop your placeand reputation in that small market then widen your range and build out over time. In addition he said to be original and creative and to make sure you provide for example advice, videos, an original blog etc.
More to follow in a bit….
Googles Matt Cutts SEO Tips
I often intend to watch the Google webmaster videos Matt Cutts puts on Youtube however life is too busy most of the time but this morning I had a couple of spare hours so thought I would watch a few and summarise some brief points here.
Tables or Divs - do they affect SEO?
Matt says no they do not affect at all how the Googlebot treats the website.
Should you Use -9000px for the Logo for Your Website?
This matter intrigued me as I am on a forum for web designers, a large proportion of whom are graphic designers and I often end up in arguments with them regarding this point - they favour this practice whereas I feel it is unnecessary. Well in June 2009 Matt Cutts said that this method of placing the logo text way off the page is indeed hidden text and should not be used and instead the alt attribute should be used. Controversially he also referred to the alt TAG as opposed to alt ATTRIBUTE, as I recall, which is hilarious as that is another of the subjects that people on the forum get pretty hot under the collar about.
Should I Use Keywords in My URLs?
Matt’s answer was that it helps but it’s not overly important. He said to only use 2 or 3 keywords and to not worry too much about the order they are in.
As I don’t want my posts to be too long I will carry on with these snippets of information in the next post.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
How To Validate Inline Javascript in XHTML
Inline JavaScript Validation in XHTML
When a validator or modern browser finds inline JavaScript code in your XHTML code it will try to validate it as ‘parsed character data’ (PCDATA) causing undesired results. To prevent this, the JavaScript code needs to be declared as ‘character data’ (CDATA) as follows:
Note that the declarations are within comments to allow the CDATA to work with older browsers.
