Tag Archives: search

August Activity: Google Algorithm Changes and SERP Updates

August seems to be the month for shaking things up when it comes to Google search engine rankings. We have come to terms with the often chaotic realities of the Internet Marketing game and assume a comfortable position on the tips of our toes. On any given day we’ve got our helmets strapped on tight and eagerly await any curveballs that may come our way.

Thus far we’ve seen new adjustments happening on a daily basis. While there have been rumors spreading like wildfire, we received confirmation of change straight from the source earlier this month.

Google announced a new signal of ranking within their search algorithm in the hopes to “deliver legitimate, quality sources of content more easily.” Depending on the nature of your website and your SEO efforts thus far, these changes could be very beneficial. More often than not, they will have the opposite effect.

These updates are aimed to discourage copyright infringements and will target websites with a high number of valid removal notices. Google will utilize Digital Millennium Copyright Act “takedown” requests to determine the websites that have been repeatedly reported for such violations. When these piracy penalties were released the first site that came to many people’s minds was YouTube, which is the target of many DMCA requests. Those of you addicted to videos of cats or babies laughing have no fear! Google has explained YouTube will not be penalized based on these updates:

“Requests for products other than Google Search (e.g, requests directed at YouTube or Blogger) are not included.”

Now that you can sleep easy knowing that your favorite 90’s music video compilations are safe, let’s move on to another Awesome August Alteration! See what I did there? Who doesn’t love a good alliteration every once and awhile?

News is circulating that Google has been testing a transition away from their traditional 10 listing display. Rather than displaying 10 results per search query, in some cases only 7 are being shown. For example, take a look at my search for “Overstock” earlier today (I like bargain shopping)

Dr. Peter Meyers at SEOmoz explains that while SERPS with less than 10 results aren’t necessarily a new thing, they have never been as frequent as the increase we’ve seen in August. Historic frequency ranges between 1-4% whereas now, about 20% of the search engine results pages on Google are showing only 7 listings.

While 20% may seem high, in retrospect it’s a very small portion of SERPs. Meyers continues on to describe the correlation between this “shrinkage” and the presence of “sitelinks” within listings. Essentially, 7 packs will be displayed if the word used in your search query matches your domain and displays sitelinks.

So, what does this mean for you and your website search engine ranking? The most obvious of challenges comes with the decrease in ranking opportunity. Keywords should be analyzed and adjusted accordingly to give your website the best chance of ranking during this turbulent time. Simply being aware of these changes is the first step in overcoming them. Check back for the play-by-play and rain delays. LocalResults will be keeping our ears close to the ground and our eyes peeled for fly balls!

Seven Vital Considerations for your On-Page SEO Check-list

On-Page SEO carries far less weight than off-Page SEO in terms of getting your content ranked high in the search engines. In fact, there are many webmasters that don’t consider it at all, which is why you should. It can give you the edge over competing pages that neglect on-page SEO and is relatively easy to do. Additionally, once it’s done, it’s done and costs nothing but a little time and planning.

The best way for us to explain on-page SEO is with this 7 point checklist that explains each step in getting your pages optimized. This checklist will refer to implementing optimizations in a WordPress Blog – although the concepts are the same for any website.

Our Must-do On-Page SEO Checklist

Keyword Density

Keyword density is the most important factor of the on-page SEO checklist, especially since recent Google algorithm updates. Keyword density refers to how many times your keywords appear in your content and is expressed as a percentage. For example, say I was optimizing this article for “on-page SEO checklist”, my article was 1,000 words long and I mentioned on-page SEO checklist 20 times, my keyword density would be 2%.

I would not go above 2% anymore! Google can and will penalize you for “keyword stuffed” content. No-one really knows that magic number, but a conservative goal is 1.5-2%.

Meta Tags

Don’t be put off by the name; WordPress makes it very simple to administer Meta Tags. There are 3 simple fields to fill in – using the Simple Meta Tags plugin.

Meta Title – Include your Keywords in here – this will be the main title your visitors see when searching in the search engines – so make it appealing and make it stand out!

Meta Description – Very important. This is a short description of your content your visitor will read in the search engines. Include your keywords and again make it appealing.

Meta Keywords – Make sure you include your keywords. This one is not so important, just reinforces to the search engines about what your page content is based on.

Meta Tags are still one of the most important parts of the this checklist, not so much for rankings, but because potential visitors are going to base their decision to visit your site or not on the title and description they see when searching for your content.

Title, URL, Content and Headings Optimizations

Some real simple, quick guidelines:

– Make sure the page title contains your keywords preferably beginning with them
– Make sure your URL contains your keywords
– Bold, Italicize and Underline your keywords on separate occasions
– Make sure you have both H2 and H3 titles in the page somewhere with your headings

Alternate Text Image Tag

A part of the on-page SEO checklist many people forget, but is very easy to do. This refers to the alternative image tag. When you insert a picture into WordPress, you have a field option called Alternate Tag Image Text. Make sure to include your keywords in here, if you have multiple images use different iterations of keywords, for example: on-page SEO checklist, checklist for SEO, on-page optimization checklist and so forth.

Get a Sitemap

This one doesn’t really apply to optimizing the page you’re working on, but will boost SEO for all your pages, so I wanted to include this in the on-page SEO checklist. The good news is, if you’re running a WordPress Blog, it is a snap to do! Like all things WordPress, there’s a plugin for that – Google XML Sitemaps

This automatically builds and keeps up to date a logical “map” of your website. It allows the search engines more efficiency in figuring out where all your pages are and leads to more of them being indexed (included) in the search engine results. Furthermore, it creates backlinks into to each of your pages (with hyperlinks that match your page title – which should contain your keywords ) – Google loves to see a site with intertwined pages!

External Links to Authority Sites

Google loves to see natural content, and natural content usually links to other content – especially authority sites. By Authority sites, I mean sites like WordPress, Yahoo, CNN and even Google itself – popular, very highly ranked pages. Try to place at least one hyperlink to an authority site.

On-Page SEO Checklist – Last but not Least…

Unique content! No On-Page SEO checklist should be complete without it. If you are plagiarizing material you will get no credit for it. The reason being is Google gives credit to only one piece of unique content – the first page it comes across and indexes. It holds this page in its indexes and if it finds highly duplicated content on another website at a future time, it will not consider that page as part of the search engine results.

Write unique, interesting, helpful material and implement all the points of this on-page SEO checklist into your posts, and you will be ahead of the pack already!

The Real Advantages Of Link Building

With the intention to assist your web site rank extremely in the major search engines, it’s best to figure out the best hyperlink constructing methods in your site. Whenever you build up a network of hyperlinks, you might be essentially creating a path from one web site to a different, on this case your website.

There are a number of methods that site owners and search engine marketing firms use to construct links, however unless you understand the benefits of link building, chances are you’ll not effectively market your links.

Reaching Greater Search Engine Rankings

Every educated website owner’s dream is to rank within the number one spot for the popular search phrases in their trade on standard search engines like google comparable to Google, Bing, Internet Wombat and Yahoo. But you aren’t getting there by putting up an internet site and having a gentle stream of visitors. You need to work at being number one, or even being in the high ten, and that includes using SEO methods to construct links, which is able to in turn, get the various search engines interested by your website.

Search engine rankings are decided by quite a few factors, and one in all them is the quantity of inbound hyperlinks you might have from different sites. The extra links you may get published on the net, the upper your possibilities of being ranked close to the highest of the search engine outcome’s page.

Visitors High quality Is Higher

Whenever you run a successful hyperlink constructing campaign, the quality of your web site guests is usually more relevant than if folks just bump into you in the search engines. It’s because a profitable campaign is one by which you might be researching comparable sites and negotiating with them to provide a backlink to your site.

For example, if an Australian web site providing pet supplies links to your enzyme cleaning answer website, the visitors you receive from that link usually tend to convert into customers as a result of they’ve a vested interest in your product. That is why having trade-associated web sites and blogs present inbound hyperlinks to your website is beneficial to your business.

Your Internet Presence Grows

Internet presence is how well-known your services or products is with web customers who steadily search for your sort of business. If you have created a powerful link constructing marketing campaign with industry-associated websites and blogs, users will begin to recognise your company and start to trust in your business. When you construct trust with users, it is best to start to see an improvement in your overall business.

Whereas it might probably take a few months earlier than your backlinks effectively convey you website traffic, by progressively increase links you are improving the longer term performance of what you are promoting website. You don’t have to do it alone, either. There are link building firms that may offer services and solutions to assist you.